• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy

   

  • About Us
  • Press Room
  • Donate
  • Summer Policy Institute 2023

Research That Works for Kentucky

  • Topics
    • Budget & Tax
    • Criminal Justice
    • Economic Security
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Jobs & The Economy
  • Types
    • News
    • Op-Ed
    • Research

   

  • About Us
  • Press Room
  • Donate
  • Summer Policy Institute 2023

Copyright © 2023 KyPolicy Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions Sitemap

Analysis

Report Shows Quality Childcare is Out of Reach for Kentucky Families

Dustin Pugel | October 13, 2015

A new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows child care is a heavy burden on Kentucky families’ pocketbooks, reiterating the need for more child care assistance in the state.

In almost every community in the country, families spend more than 10 percent of their budget on child care, the benchmark for affordability established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In Kentucky, the median income for a family of four in 2014 was $54,000, with families spending an average of 22.5 percent of their income on child care for two children.

More On Economic Security: Tracking SNAP in Kentucky

Kentucky’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) provides subsidies to help with the cost of care, but eligibility is limited and payments to child care centers are low. While some of the cuts that have been made to this program have been rightfully restored, this study illustrates just how deep the problem of child care affordability is and how much more assistance is truly needed.

Affording child care is an even more serious problem for those in low-wage jobs. According to the report, a full-time, year-round minimum wage earner in Kentucky spends 40.4 percent of his or her salary to pay for child care for a four-year-old. Because infant care requires more staff and licensing, it’s even more costly, so that the same minimum-wage earner with a newborn would need to spend 41.9 percent of his or her income on care.

Higher-education state budget cuts and tuition increases have put greater burdens on students and their families, so comparing the cost of a year of child care to a year of in-state public college tuition is a telling benchmark. Child care for a four-year-old is 70 percent as expensive as in-state tuition in Kentucky ($8,196). When you make the same comparison for an infant it rises to 72.9 percent.

According to EPI, a two-parent, two-child household in Kentucky needs to earn $60,106 annually in order to secure a modest, but adequate standard of living. Even if a family were to achieve this standard, they would still pay close to 20 percent of their monthly income on child care, twice the HHS threshold.

EPI child care table

The study underlines the need for state lawmakers to increase the eligibility limits and payments for child care assistance to bring Kentucky back toward the established benchmark for affordable child care. As the table above shows, there is plenty of work to be accomplished to get there.

FacebookTweetLinkedInEmail

Primary Sidebar

Get KyPolicy news updates in your inbox

Sign Up

Sidebar

Perspectives

Shorting State Workers’ Pay Hurts Us All

Cutting Bourbon Industry Taxes Harms the Communities That Sustain It

Lawmakers Should Help Our Kids, Not Lock More Up in Failing Juvenile System

Income Tax Reduction Is Another Blow to Rural Kentucky

Kentucky Should Not Volunteer for Greater Inequality by Becoming More Like Tennessee

Other Economic Security Items

Analysis

Tracking SNAP in Kentucky

snap

Analysis

How Kentucky Turned Away Half a Billion Dollars in Grocery Help

snap child support

Analysis

More Than 3,400 Struggling Parents Denied Food Assistance for Falling Behind on Child Support

Ky. Policy

Footer

Research that works for Kentucky

433 Chestnut Street, Berea, KY 40403

Phone: 859-756-4605

General information and inquiries: info@kypolicy.org

   

Help us make the facts free and accessible to everyone. That’s how Kentucky will thrive.

Donate

  • Topics
    • Budget & Tax
    • Criminal Justice
    • Economic Security
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Jobs & The Economy
  • Work
    • News
    • Op-Ed
    • Research
  • About Us
  • Press Room
  • Contact

Get KyPolicy news updates in your inbox

Sign Up

Copyright © 2023 KyPolicy Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions Sitemap

made by P&P
Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!