| Early Care and Education | Parenting and Economic Supports |
State Choices to Promote Effective Parenting
- Provide paid medical/maternity leave. [2004]3
- Have a Medicaid family planning waiver to extend coverage to low-income women to increase the interval between pregnancies. [2008]4
- Exempt single parents on TANF from work requirements until the youngest child reaches age 1. [2006]5
The exemption is limited to 12 months in the recipient’s lifetime. - Reduce the TANF work requirement for single parents with children under age 6. [2006]6
- Allow parents in school to qualify for child care subsidies. [2005]7
- Operate a statewide home visiting program. [2007]8
- Formally link home visiting programs to supports for early childhood development (e.g. Medicaid/SCHIP, early intervention, and early childhood mental health). [2007]8
State Choices to Promote Family Economic Security
- Establish a state minimum wage that exceeds the federal minimum wage. [July 2008]9
$6.50 - Exempt a single-parent family of three below the poverty level from personal income tax. [2006]10
Up to 149% FPL - Offer a refundable state earned income tax credit. [2006]11
$10-$450 - Offer a refundable state dependent care tax credit. [2007]12
- Keep copayments for child care subsidies at or below 10% of family income for most families. [2006]13
- Allow families on TANF to receive some or all of their child support payment without reducing TANF cash assistance. [2007]14
Up to $50 passed through. Amount disregarded for purposes of eligibility and benefits. Pending legislation (H.B.342) would increase pass-through/disregard up to $100 for one child and $200 for two or more children, effective 1/01/09.
| Early Care and Education |
Data Notes and Sources
Last Updated: October 8, 2008
Send us recent developments to update your state's profile.
- National Survey of Children's Health, Data Resource Center on Child and Adolescent Health Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (2005). Retrieved August 29, 2006 from http://www.nschdata.org.
- State data were calculated from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (the March supplement) of the Current Population Survey from 2006, 2007, and 2008, representing information from calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007. NCCP averaged three years of data because of small sample sizes in less populated states. The national data were calculated from the 2008 data, representing information from the previous calendar year.
- Paid medical/maternity leave means women receive partial or complete income replacement when they take time off to recover from child birth. Typically, wage replacement comes from a short-term or temporary disability insurance policy.
National Partnership for Women and Families, Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Parental Leave Programs, 2005 http://paidsickdays.nationalpartnership.org (accessed March 2007). - State Medicaid Family Planning Eligibility Expansions, State Policies in Brief, as of April 1, 2007, Guttmacher Institute. Available at: http://www.guttmacher.org (accessed through http://www.statehealthfacts.org on April 30, 2008).
- This table refers to single custodial parents over 21 years old. A sanction cannot be imposed for a child who has not attained 6 years of age if child care is unavailable.
Gretchen Rowe and Mary Murphy, The Welfare Rules Databook: State Policies as of July 2006, Assessing the New Federalism, The Urban Institute, 2007, Table III.B.1. - Gretchen Rowe and Mary Murphy, The Welfare Rules Databook: State Policies as of July 2006, Assessing the New Federalism, The Urban Institute, 2007, Table III.B.2, footnotes 3, 16, 19, 20, 21, and 27.
- Karen Schulman and Helen Blank, Child Care Assistance Policies 2005: States Fail to Make up Lost Ground, Families Continue to Lack Critical Supports, National Women's Law Center, September 2005.
- 2007 Survey conducted by Kay Johnson for the National Center for Children in Poverty (Publication forthcoming.) Indiana, Kanas, Vermont, Washington, and D.C. did not respond to the survey.
- Economic Policy Institute, "Minimum Wage Issue Guide, Table 5," 2008, http://www.epi.org (accessed August 11, 2008). and U.S. Department of Labor, Employment Standards Administration, Minimum Wage Laws in the States, July 2008, http://www.dol.gov (accessed August 8, 2008)
- Calculations include income tax credits that are available to all low-income families in the state, such as state earned income tax credits.
Jason A. Levitis, The Impact of State Income Taxes on Low-income Families in 2006, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2007, Table 1A. Available at: http://www.cbpp.org (accessed on April 16, 2007). - Community Resources Information, Inc., TaxCreditResources.org, http://taxcreditresources.org (accessed March 20, 2007).
- National Women's Law Center, State Child and Dependent Care Tax Provisions, Tax Year 2007, 2007.
- National Child Care Information Center, The Child Care and Development Fund Report of State and Territory Plans, FY 2006-2007 p. 158, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, 2006.
- Jan Justice, State Policy Re Pass-Through and Disregard of Current Month's Child Support Collected for Families Receiving TANF-Funded Cash Assistance, Center for Law and Social Policy, 2007.