[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 24, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S11185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KERRY:
  S. 2113. A bill to increase funding for child care under the 
temporary assistance for needy families program; to the Committee on 
Finance.


            the working families' child care assistance act

 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I am introducing the ``Working 
Families' Child Care Assistance Act'' to help the many working families 
who face great struggles to find affordable, good-quality child care.
  Mr. President, we no longer live in an era when one parent generally 
stays at home full time to take care of the children. Today, 60 percent 
of women with children younger than six are in the labor force. The 
result is that approximately 7 million children of working parents are 
cared for each month by someone other than a parent. And most of these 
children spend 30 hours or more each week in child care, according to 
the National Research Council.
  New research also confirms that our current social reality has placed 
enormous strains on working families' budgets because many families 
must pay for child care. According to a new study of 100 child care 
centers entitled ``Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care 
Centers,'' families spend an average of $4,940 per year to provide 
services for each enrolled child. Annual child care costs of this size 
represent a whopping 28 percent of $17,481, which is the yearly income 
of an average family in the bottom two-fifths of the income scale.
  But even for families who can afford the cost of child care, in some 
communities child care continues to be hard to obtain at any cost. Mr. 
President, in 1994, 36 States reported State child care assistance 
waiting lists, according to the children's defense fund. Eight States 
had at least 10,000 children waiting for assistance. Georgia's list was 
the longest with 41,000, while in Texas the list had 36,000 names and a 
wait of about 2 years. In Massachusetts, the statewide waiting list 
contains the names of 4,000 working families. Additionally, a 1995 U.S. 
General Accounting Office [GAO] study found that shortages of child 
care for infants, sick children, children with special needs, and 
school-age children before and after school pose difficulties for many 
families.
  I believe the child care situation may worsen because of a provision 
which I did not support in the recently passed welfare reform bill 
which cuts the title XX social services block grant by 15 percent. Many 
States currently use this funding to pay for child care for working 
families; unfortunately, this cut will result in even more families 
needing child care assistance.
  Mr. President, it is time to provide help to working families to 
afford quality child care. My bill would double the funding through the 
child care development block grant, increasing child care funding by $1 
billion per year. This would result in more than 5,000 families in 
Massachusetts alone receiving child care help.
  Working parents face an extraordinary uphill battle in trying to make 
ends meet and cover the high cost of child care. Well over half the 
women in the work force are parents of preschool children, and they 
need access to affordable, quality child care they can trust. This bill 
provides real help to working families and hopefully will send a strong 
signal that their work and their efforts to provide reliable child care 
for their children is valued and supported.
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