Priorities Report: 2022

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is the primary federal funding source for child care assistance to help eligible families access child care and to improve the quality of child care for all children. CCDF gives funding to states, territories, and tribes to provide child care subsidies through vouchers or certificates to families or through grants and contracts with providers. CCDF provides access to child care services for working families with low incomes, so parents can work, attend school, or enroll in training. Additionally, CCDF promotes the healthy development of children by improving the quality of care settings for both subsidized and unsubsidized children. Within CCDF's parameters, lead agencies administering CCDF decide how to administer the CCDF subsidy programs. Lead agencies determine payment rates for child care providers, co-payment amounts for families, specific eligibility requirements, and how to prioritize CCDF services.

However, due to limited funds, only one out of every seven children eligible for CCDF under federal rules are receiving child care assistance.¹ The most recent data from the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) estimated 1.8 million children under the age of 13 received child care subsidies through CCDF or related government funding streams in an average month in fiscal year (FY) 2021. Under federal eligibility rules, 11.5 million children were eligible for child care subsidies in an average month in FY 2021, which represents 22 percent of the total 51.5 million children under the age of 13. Of that number, 8.0 million children were also eligible for subsidies under state eligibility rules, which represents 15 percent of the total 52.0 million children in the age range served by CCDF and 69 percent of children eligible under federal rules.

CCDF administrative data, including monthly case-level data reported on the ACF-801, provides information about the families receiving a child care subsidy. Preliminary FY 2021 ACF-801 CCDF administrative data (the most recent data publicly available at the time of this report) indicates that approximately 1.31 million children and 797,200 families per month received CCDF child care assistance. Children participating in CCDF are cared for in a wide variety of settings. Nationally, in FY 2021:²

• Seventy-three percent of children receiving subsidies were cared for in center-based care.
• Twenty-one percent of children receiving CCDF assistance were cared for in family child care homes.
• One percent of children were cared for in the child's own home.
• The data were not reported or were invalid for 4 percent.

1https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/a91fd97aa80b53fa52a52d38cd323509/cy2021-child-caresubsidy- eligibility.pdf

2 https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/data/fy-2021-preliminary-data-table-3