Welfare to Work

From 1991 through 1993, federal and state spending on child care subsidies to help welfare recipients work or go to school grew from about $600 million to more than $1 billion. As Congress and the states consider various approaches to restricting the length of time that mothers stay on welfare, questions have arisen about child care needs created by more welfare mothers participating in training activities, part-time work, and, finally, full-time employment. In particular, concerns have been raised about the capacity of states' child care resources to handles the rise in the number of children needing care under such proposals. This report examines (1) the extent to which child care needs of welfare recipients in an education program--the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program--are being met, (2) whether any barriers exist to meeting the child care needs of these program participants, (3) the effects of child care subsidies on former welfare recipients' progress toward self-sufficiency, and (4) the potential implications of welfare reform for child care availability and continuity.

GAO found that: (1) JOBS serves only about 13 percent of adult welfare recipients partly because many JOBS programs meet statutory exemption provisions; (2) insufficient state funds limit the number of welfare recipients with child care needs that can participate in JOBS; (3) when child care funding is unavailable, states either exempt welfare recipients or limit participation to those with school-aged children or those who can find free child care; (4) shortages of certain kinds of child care and the lack of reliable transportation can delay some JOBS participants' training or work and affect their continued participation; (5) welfare recipients that have secured work often lose their child care subsidy due to insufficient state funds, affecting their ability to become self-sufficient and often causing them to quit work; and (6) as states move to expand work requirements, they may have to reconsider funding priorities and develop new sources of child care to meet the needs of welfare recipients and the working poor.