An Opportunity to Turn the Tide on Child Care for African-American Families Why the Raising Child Care Quality and Accessibility Act (SB-548) Matters The Raising Child Care Quality and Accessibility Act (SB-548) is legislation that will help uplift 33,000 primarily women of color who work throughout California within the state child care system as licensed Family Child Care Providers. These women provide care and early education to some of California’s Licensed Family Child poorest children. Along with empowering Family Child Care Providers, Care Providers the legislation will improve the quality of care and education for by the Numbers children and toddlers, and expands access to parents that require flexible, affordable child care to be able to go to work and move 33,000 licensed themselves out of poverty. providers in CA. But Family Child Care Providers themselves are also struggling as they provide care 7 days a week, and around the clock to meet the needs of workers in today’s economy. Despite the flexibility and importance of the services given by Family Child Care Providers, it is not uncommon for a provider to go weeks or even months without pay. It is also not uncommon for a Family Child Care Provider to work over 50 hours a week and only make only $4.98 an hour— significantly below the minimum wage¹, and without benefits.² As long as California’s Family Child Care providers lack a seat at the table with the State to advocate more effectively for themselves, the parents and the children they serve, California will not be able to ensure that all of California’s neediest families have access to a quality child care system. It is estimated that only 8% of infants and toddlers who qualify for subsidized child care can access the system due to the cuts that began during the beginning of the Great Recession.³ $1 billion has been cut to California's child care subsidy system since 2008, and the system only received a minor restoration in funding during the last budget cycle. The Raising Child Care Quality and Accessibility Act (SB-548) is comprehensive child care-related legislation that provides a triple benefit to the state by: (1) helping the poorest working parents lift their families out of poverty (2) strengthening jobs in the child care and development sector (3) helping support parents’ efforts to provide learning and development opportunities at home mostly women of color 50+ hrs is the typical work week commonly without pay for weeks or even months earn as little as $4.98 an hour for helping to raise California’s workforce 1 step from losing it all no disability insurance no social security benefits 0 voice to bring improvements for providers, and the parents and the children they serve Selected Stats on African-Americans in California Is the Future of African-American Families in California Half Full or Half Empty? Now more than ever California African-American parents and Family Child Providers are struggling to make ends meet. Twenty-five percent of African-Americans live below the federal poverty level—the highest percentage of poverty in any demographic group.⁴ Worse yet, 32% of all African-American children under the age of 5 live below the federal poverty line.⁵ With access to quality child care out of reach for so many African-American parents, infants and children are growing up without the resources and tools to be successful as adults to be able to escape the cycle of poverty. When our children miss out on early education opportunities such as family child care and preschool, they often start kindergarten as much as 18 months behind their peers, falling victim to the achievement gap that most often leads to a lifetime of “catching up,” rather than a life full of learning. Parents living in poverty can’t get ahead without the access to quality, flexible and affordable child care to be able to go to work to lift themselves out of their economic situation. 32% of all African American children under 5 live below the federal poverty line. The stakes are higher than ever to help remove the barriers to success for African-American families in California—the Golden State can’t shine if the African-American community’s economic prospects are dim. 48% of poor children are ready to learn at age 5, compared to seventy-five percent of children from families with moderate and high incomes.⁶ An African-American boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime.⁷ According to a 2011 study commissioned by the State of California, almost 2 in 10 children receiving child care subsidies were AfricanAmerican.⁸ 14.5% of Licensed Family Child Care Providers in California are AfricanAmerican and over half of the Licensed Family Child Care Providers in California are women of color.⁹ Bibliography ¹ Jean Layzer and Barbara Goodson, “Care in the Home: A Description of Family Child Care and the Experiences of the Families and Children Who Use It,” ABT Associates for the US Department of Health and Human Services ² National Academy of Sciences, “The Early Childhood Care and Education Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities,” 2012 ³ RAND Corporation, “Labor and Population. The Use of Early Care and Education by California Families, 2012,” http://www.rand.org/pubs/ occasional_papers/OP356.html ⁴ 2010-2012 American Community Survey (3-yr est), Poverty Status in the Past 12 Months, Accessed at http://factfinder2.census.gov/ faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk for California, also for how the Census Bureau measures Poverty, see here: https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measure.html ⁵ 2010-2012 American Community Survey (3-yr est), Poverty Status in the Past 12 Months of Families by Family Type with Children under 18 (Black) B17010B ⁶ Julia B. Isaacs, “Starting School at a Disadvantage: The School Readiness of Poor Children,” Brookings Institution, 2012; http:// www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/3/19%20school%20disadvantage%20isaacs/ 0319_school_disadvantage_isaacs.pdf ⁷ The Sentencing Project, “Report of the Sentencing Project to the UN Human Rights Committee Regarding Racial Disparities in the US Criminal Justice System,” August 2013; http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_ICCPR%20Race%20and%20Justice%20Shadow %20Report.pdf ⁸ California Subsidized Childcare Characteristic Study, July 2011 ⁹ Marcy Whitebook, “Workforce Study: Licensed Family Child Care Providers,” Center for the Study of Child Care Employment and the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, 2006
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