Abstract
Federal funding from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) enables states to offset the cost of child care for eligible low-income families to support parental employment and promote healthy child development. The federal government sets a benchmark for provider payment rates in order to ensure that low-income families have access to child care settings comparable to those available to non-CCDF families. In order to meet this “equal access” objective, states need reliable information and valid methods to estimate benchmark prices in local child care markets. Although all 50 states face the challenge of meeting the federal benchmark, limited research on best practices is available to guide them. This case study of Colorado's child care market prices highlights key challenges to states in using survey data to set provider payment rates, offering policy and practice implications for sampling, collecting price data, and estimating valid child care benchmark prices.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 104482 |
Journal | Children and Youth Services Review |
Volume | 108 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to Christine Velez and Tracey O'Brien, without whom this study would not have been possible. We also wish to thank The Social and Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC) at Washington State University for their important contribution to the work. This study was funded through a grant from the Colorado Department of Human Services, Office of Early Childhood (15-IHIA-74324).
Funding Information:
We are grateful to Christine Velez and Tracey O'Brien, without whom this study would not have been possible. We also wish to thank The Social and Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC) at Washington State University for their important contribution to the work. This study was funded through a grant from the Colorado Department of Human Services , Office of Early Childhood ( 15-IHIA-74324 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd