Family unemployment down in 2012

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released national data on unemployment within families today. In 2012, the percentage of families with at least one unemployed member was 10.5 percent, down from 11.5 percent one year prior. 80 percent of families had at least one employed member.

As with other employment statistics, unemployment was higher among Black and Hispanic families, at 16.8 percent and 14.5 percent with at least one unemployed member, respectively.

Female headed households also fared worse, with just 72.4 percent having at least one employed member. Married couples fared better at 81.9 percent; and both the husband and wife were employed in 47.4 percent of married-couple families in 2012. Both parents worked in 59 percent of married-couple families with children, likely reflecting the high cost of child care.

Guest Post: Vital Childcare Subsidy Underfunded

Below is a guest post from Clinton MacSherry, Director of Public Policy for the Maryland Family Network.

The Child Care Subsidy Program (CCSP) is critical to helping parents re-enter and remain in the workforce. It is also critical to providing the high quality early care vital to children’s success in school and later in life. Yet the CCSP has been starved of funds nearly to the point of dysfunction.  If we are committed to the twin goals of economic recovery and education—to the short- and long-term quality of our workforce and our economy—then the chronic underfunding of child care must end.

 

Quality child care is an enormous expense.  Subsidizing the cost of child care allows low-income parents to earn and children to learn.  In response to steep federal funding cuts (federal funding is half what it was in FY 2010) Maryland has increased state funding for CCSP, which is commendable but has proven insufficient. In February 2011 the state imposed an enrollment freeze on CCSP.  More than 20,000 children were placed on a wait list.  

Parents confronted with this situation have few options, and none of them are good.  They may pull older children out of school to stay home and babysit younger siblings, place young children in substandard and possibly unsafe arrangements, or face the prospect of losing their jobs.  In November 2012 savings achieved through the enrollment freeze allowed the wait list to be partially opened, but it remains in place for many of the “working poor.”

The enrollment freeze is CCSP’s most visible problem, but hardly the only one.  

Federal guidelines recommend that subsidy rates be pegged to the 75^th percentile of the market rate, ensuring that low-income families have access to quality care.  Maryland last met that guideline a decade ago.  Current reimbursement rates fall below the 15^th percentile, relegating families to the cheapest care in their communities.  Meanwhile, family eligibility remains fixed at a decade-old level (a family of three has to make less than $30,000 annually to qualify) and parent co-payments pose an enormous burden.  For parents to earn and children to learn, CCSP funds must increase.

Partial thaw in child-care subsidies

Affordable child-care is a vital support for many working parents. Without it, many families would have to decide which parent would leave the workforce to care for their children. Child care is especially important for poor single parents who may lack support networks. That's why Maryland offers the Child Care Subsidy Program, and why it is so unfortunate that there are more than 20,000 children on the waiting list. In fact, the subsidy program has been "frozen" for most eligible families since February of 2011.

However, last week child advocates received some good news when the Maryland Department of Education (which administers the subsidy) announced that it is reopening the subsidy and is now able to move lower-income families (those in the bottom three income brackets) from the waiting list to the program starting in November. The department is now able to afford expanding the subsidy program because enough families have left the program through attrition and through other bureaucratic cost saving measures.

Our friends at the Maryland Family Network are asking supporters to
thank the Governor and the State Superintendent of Schools for devoting funds to partially restore access to this crucial subsidy. This is a great way to let public officials know you support then when they protect and expand vital services for working families in Maryland.