In response to a proposed federal rule that would redirect Child Care and Development Fund dollars away from working families, WECA calls for expanded investment, not a redistribution of an already-strained subsidy.

Madison, Wis. – Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA) is responding to a recent report that federal officials are drafting a rule allowing married couples to draw on the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) to subsidize one parent to stay home to care for their child(ren).

Wisconsin Shares subsidy program, funded by CCDF, supports parents or caregivers who are employed, attending school, or participating in approved work training programs. A pivot towards paying parents to stay home would be in stark contrast to the longstanding work requirements of the benefit. Under the draft, a married couple could qualify if one spouse works at least thirty-five hours a week while the other cares for their children at home. Unmarried, or divorced couples, single parents, or other types of caregivers would not be eligible, making a clear distinction between which types of households are worthy of receiving a subsidy to stay home and care for their children.

Additionally, this rule does not add any more funding to serve new families deemed eligible. Adding new eligible households to the same fixed pot of funding rather than expanding funds will lead to smaller subsidies, longer waitlists, and closures among the very providers that working families and their children depend on every day. Currently, Wisconsin invests no general revenue dollars to support the Wisconsin Shares subsidy program. The proposed change to CCDF will drastically impact low-income working parents in the state, of which a significant portion are single parents.

“Wisconsin families make different choices about how to care for their children, and every one of those choices is worthy of support. What we cannot accept is a policy that treats caregiving as a zero-sum game, where supporting one family means taking resources away from another. Working parents, and the child care programs that make their jobs possible, are already stretched to the max. Being asked to do more with less is not family friendly,” said Ruth Schmidt Executive Director, Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.

Wisconsin families of every structure including married and single parents, multigenerational households, kinship caregivers, and families led by working parents of all incomes rely on a stable, adequately funded child care system. WECA supports policies that expand real choice for all of these families: sufficient CCDF funding to serve everyone who is eligible, continued investment in the providers and educators who make child care possible, and recognition that caregiving at home and paid child care are both worth valuing.

WECA calls on Wisconsin’s congressional delegation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to expand funding to serve new populations and protect eligibility and subsidy levels for single working parents, most of which are mothers.

Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA) is a leading statewide non-profit organization, founded in 1971, that advances comprehensive and transformational support of the early childhood workforce in Wisconsin. Its work is in service to the vision of a just Wisconsin where early care and education is viewed and invested in as a public good, so all early educators, young children, families, and communities thrive.