Shauna Curphey - Writing

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WorkFirst or Kids First?
Women balance work and family on the poverty line
Real Change, August 9, 2001

By Shauna Curphey

Welfare Reform means more than work requirements and time limits. It means the quiet, tough decisions mothers make about where to put their kids while they head off to a job or training. It means a huge demand for affordable child care. And it affects the lives of Washington's poorest children.

Under Welfare Reform, parents must work or prepare for work in order to receive cash assistance from the state. The new system is (appropriately) called WorkFirst. Since its inception in 1997, the state's welfare rolls decreased 44 percent, producing a dramatic drop in state spending on Welfare grants. At the same time, the legislature tripled its funds for child care for low-income families. A large portion of that $304 million annual spending goes to Working Connections, a program to help low-income working parents pay their child care expenses. The number of children receiving Working Connections tuition subsidies has grown 65 percent since the program began in 1997.

Despite this hefty public investment in child care, WorkFirst parents still struggle to balance the demands of raising their children with the demand to work. In that, they are not unlike most parents; they just have to do it all with less.

Welfare families are fragile
Washington's average cash assistance recipient is a 33-year-old single mother with two children and a high school education. Washington's new Welfare moms are by necessity working moms - or at least moms getting ready to work. Seventy-four percent of WorkFirst parents are single. They don't have a spouse to share time away from work when a child is home ill. They have no one to call to pick up the kids if they have to work late.

Ruth Engle, coordinator for parent services at Child Care Resources, a private nonprofit working to improve the quality, affordability and availability of child care in King County, says it's this lack of support that seems to keep poor families down.

"The one thing families don't have is backup systems. They don't have as many options," says Engle.

Recipients face a five-year lifetime limit on cash assistance. According to a study conducted by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, more children in the household and the presence of young children rank among the top factors that increase time on the Welfare rolls.

Statistics from a recent DSHS study of parents eligible for child care subsidy show that child care can be a major hurdle on the road to self-sufficiency:

Fifty-nine percent of parents eligible to receive the Working Connections child care subsidy reported that they were unable to work certain shifts due to problems caused by child care in the past year. Missed work means missed pay.
Fifty-seven percent made new child care arrangements recently. Among them, 24 percent did so due to a job or schedule change.1
Thirty-nine percent said they were distressed or distracted at work, school or training due to child care problems.
Twenty-nine percent had to work fewer hours on a regular basis due to child care arrangements.
Fifteen percent turned down a higher paying job in the past year due to child care responsibilities.

As moms work to beat the cash assistance deadline, the exigencies of parenthood can turn the way out of poverty into a revolving door. According to a study conducted by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, since Welfare Reform, more recipients cycle on and off the caseload: 35 percent who leave cash assistance behind are back again within 12 months.

Works, doesn't work
Working Connections works for Audrea Love. She used the child care subsidy to enroll her daughter in the YWCA child care program at Dunlap Elementary. Audrea works at home caring for her elderly mother, so her hours are flexible. She's able to walk her daughter to and from child care.

"You just have to take some time and call around," says Love, "It's a good program, if you allow it to work for you."

Audrea has one child, child care in her neighborhood, and flexible work hours. For other families, special needs, additional children, odd hours and transportation complicate the search for child care. Just ask Cindy Bunch.

"I've always been for working," says Cindy, a WorkFirst participant, "I just think of my kids first."

Cindy is a single mother of five children, ages 2, 5, 7, 11 and 13. While the oldest two take care of themselves after school and the youngest two spend their days at Kindercare, the 7-year-old has no place to go when school gets out -- except home with his mother. He's developmentally disabled and on medication for ADHD.

Although the Americans with Disabilities Act requires licensed child care providers to serve special-needs children, less than 50 percent of daycare facilities in King County have the expertise to serve them, according to a report by Child Care Resources.

In SeaTac, where she lives, Cindy can't find a provider who will take her 7-year-old. Some programs exist in Seattle, but she can't afford to drive him there, and can't see how she'd work that out while getting the other kids off to school and Kindercare. While she tries to figure out what to do, a calendar on her refrigerator serves as a daily reminder that she has one year to go until she reaches the five-year limit for cash assistance.

"I have to have a job," she says, "Now I'm getting upset. It's like, oh my god, I only have a year."

New order, new challenges
According to a 1999 study by the state Department of Social and Health Services, nearly 30 percent of families eligible for the Working Connections child care subsidy report difficulties finding child care.

"The biggest challenge is simply finding a provider that is convenient to the home or work location and that reflects the family's values or parenting style," says Frances Carr, community services division spokeswoman for the King County region.

In some areas, child care is in short supply. As the state's economy took off, child care workers left the field in search of better wages. In particular, the number of providers offering care in their homes dropped significantly in the past five years. In 1998, wages for child care aides and teachers averaged $6.98 and $8.53 per hour respectively. The state tried to increase child care employment through the Career and Wage Ladder Pilot Project, which provides a financial assistance to help fund salary increases for child care staff based on education and experience; and through the Child Care Careers Program, which trains WorkFirst participants for employment as child care workers.

While subsidy makes it easier for parents to afford child care, it can also make it harder to find. Some providers balk at accepting subsidies, because the state doesn't pay their full rate. To avoid inflating child care costs, DSHS sets its maximum reimbursement 10 percent below the area's prevailing rate. In addition, the state will only pay for the days the child attended, even though most providers charge parents by the month. Finally, subsidy disbursement can lag a month or more behind the provider's billing period. In an effort to address these barriers, last month the state created the Division of Child Care and Early Learning to improve the subsidy program.

Work schedules further complicate the search for child care. Due to limited training resources and lack of higher education, many WorkFirst parents find jobs at retail stores, call centers, restaurants, or elsewhere in the service sector. These jobs often require work during evening and weekend shifts. According to research conducted by Child Care Resources, only two percent of centers and 14 percent of family homes provide evening care in King County. Even fewer offer care on the weekends. While the state offers reimbursement incentives for providers who offer odd hours care, in a recent DSHS study, more than half of parents eligible for subsidy who report problems finding child care said their odd work schedule make it difficult.

State stretched thin
While the state is working to help WorkFirst families overcome these hurdles, it doesn't seem to be enough. The moms who make it off cash assistance still struggle to pay the bills. A recent state Employment Security Department report reveals that 62 percent of those who left cash assistance in 1999 were still living in poverty at the end of 2000.

It could get harder before it gets better: In June, the legislature passed a two-year state services budget that cut Welfare by $23 million. The proposed King County 2002 budget puts the county child care subsidy program on the chopping block. It also includes cutbacks in funds for Child Care Resources.

"It seems like everything is supposed to work out wonderful, but it isn't always that easy," says Cindy Bunch. "There's a lot of obstacles in the way of reaching goals."

Cindy's goal is to complete her GED and take a class in medical terminology, so she has a shot at an open position at the Highline Medical Services Organization. She worries about meeting WorkFirst requirements while pursuing the training -- and about the time she has left on cash assistance.

"They always stress how many months I have left, to keep you going. To keep you thinking ahead of time," says Cindy, "Which is good I think."

She's still searching for care for her developmentally disabled son.