A growing trend in America today is single mothers raising children while having to work. Since the divorce rate is raising, about 60% of all marriages dissolve, most of which involve children. This limits the amount of income a person has with which to spend. There is also an increase in the amount of families whose income is not enough to sufficiently support them. The problem then becomes this: where do parents send their children when they need to work but cannot afford the childcare to take care of the children? There have been many organizations that try to help with this problem, and there is no easy solution.
Child care is a part of the welfare system here in the United States. Most of the funds go to low-income working families; however, it is estimated that only one out of seven families who eligible for federally funded child care assistance actually receive it. (Center for Law and Social Policy, June 2002) The programs that do the most as far as making child care affordable for families are TANF, which stands for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, CCDBG, which is Child Care and Development Block Grant, and Head Start. .
TANF's main job is to provide grants to state-designed programs for families that have children. There is currently now a five year limit on the amount of time a family can receive money from this organization, because Congress is trying to emphasize putting the recipients to work at jobs with which they can then support themselves. CCDBG also provides grants to states, which are to be used to help pay for part or all of the child care expenses for low income families. This money can be used with any provider of child care, including the families" relatives. Head Start provides early childhood education and development to children of low income families. This funding is most likely to be on a part time basis. The funds for this program come from Health and Human Services, which provides the funds to local grantees which comply with strict federal performance standards.
