EARLY LEARNING AND 

CHILD CARE

Federal Funds Support 

Multiple Programs with 

Similar Goals

Statement of Kay E. Brown, Director, Education, 

Workforce, and Income Security

Testimony 

Before the Committee on Education 

and the Workforce, House of 

Representatives

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EST

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

GAO-14-325T

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-14-325T, a testimony 

before the Committee on Education and the 

Workforce, House of Representatives 

February 5, 2014

EARLY LEARNING AND CHILD CARE

Federal Funds Support Multiple Programs with 

Similar Goals 

Why GAO Did This Study

Millions of children under the age of 5 

participate each year in federally 

funded preschool and other early 

learning programs or receive federally 

supported child care in a range of 

settings. Federal programs that funded 

early learning and child care as an 

explicit purpose received at least $14.2

billion in federal funding in fiscal year 

2012. This testimony discusses

existing federally funded programs that 

provide or support early learning or 

child care services for children and the 

extent to which these programs are 

administered by multiple federal 

agencies, have similar goals, or 

provide the same services. It is based 

on work done for GAO’s 2012 annual 

report on opportunities to reduce 

duplication, overlap, and fragmentation 

in federal government programs (see 

GAO-12-342SP), which updated earlier 

work in this area. For that report, GAO 

searched the Catalog of Domestic 

Federal Assistance to identify relevant 

programs; obtained supplementary 

information from Education, HHS, and 

other agencies; and reviewed previous 

GAO reports. In January 2014, GAO 

updated information on expenditures 

for selected programs. 

Actions Needed

In its 2012 report, GAO noted that 

Education and HHS needed to extend 

their coordination efforts to other 

agencies with early learning and child 

care programs. As of December 2013, 

the agencies had taken initial steps 

toward greater coordination but need 

to follow through with their plans to 

include these other federal agencies in 

an inter-departmental workgroup. 

What GAO Found

The federal investment in early learning and child care is administered through 

45 programs that provide or may support related services to children from birth 

through age 5, as well as five tax provisions that subsidize private expenditures 

in this area. Among the 45 programs, 12 have an explicit program purpose of 

providing early learning or child care services. These programs differ in size, 

target population, and structure. For example, most of them obligated less than 

$500 million each in fiscal year 2012, while the largest program, Head Start, 

obligated approximately $8 billion in that year. The remaining 33 programs 

identified in GAO’s 2012 report permit the use of funds for delivering or 

supporting early learning or child care services, but this is not their explicit 

purpose. These programs include multipurpose block grants, such as Temporary 

Assistance for Needy Families, for which early learning or child care is not a 

primary purpose but which may nevertheless provide significant funding for child 

care. They also include programs that may allow funds to be used for early 

learning or child care, but these are not among their primary goals and do not 

typically account for a significant portion of available program funds. Finally, five 

federal tax provisions support early learning and child care by forgoing tax 

revenue to subsidize the private purchase of child care services. These five tax 

expenditures accounted for at least $3.1 billion of forgone tax revenue for the 

U.S. Treasury in fiscal year 2012. 

The multiple programs that compose the federal investment in early learning and 

child care are administered by multiple agencies and include programs that have 

similar goals and potential for both duplication and service gaps. The 45 

programs identified in GAO’s 2012 report are concentrated within the 

Departments of Education (Education) and Health and Human Services (HHS)—

the principal administrators of the federal government’s early learning and child 

care programs—but are also administered by the Departments of Agriculture, the 

Interior, Justice, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, the General Services 

Administration, and the Appalachian Regional Commission. Some of these 

programs overlap in that they have similar goals for children under the age of 5 

and are targeted to similar groups of children. For example, five programs, 

administered by Education and HHS, provide school readiness services to lowincome children, and programs in both Education and the Interior provide funding 

for early learning services for Indian children. Administering similar programs in 

different agencies can create an environment in which programs may not serve 

children and families as efficiently and effectively as possible. Although some 

programs fund similar types of services for similar populations, several factors 

contribute to difficulty determining whether these programs are duplicative—that 

is, whether they provide the same services to the same beneficiaries. These 

factors include differing program structures and eligibility requirements as well as 

inadequate or missing data. Despite some program overlap and the potential for 

duplication, it is likely that service gaps exist since these programs generally are 

not designed to serve all eligible children. Coordinating the administration and 

evaluation of early learning and child care programs can help mitigate the effects 

of program overlap and potentially help bridge service gaps. View GAO-14-325T. For more information, 

contact Kay E. Brown at (202) 512-7215 or 

brownke@gao.gov. 
 

Page 1 GAO-14-325T 

Chairman Kline, Ranking Member Miller, and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me to discuss federally funded early learning and 

child care programs. Millions of children under the age of 5 participate 

each year in federally funded preschool and other early learning 

programs or receive federally supported child care in a range of settings. 

Federal programs that funded early learning and child care as an explicit 

purpose received at least $14.2 billion in federal funding in fiscal year 

2012.1

My remarks today describe existing federally funded programs that 

provide or support early learning or child care services, and the extent to 

which these programs are administered by multiple federal agencies, 

have similar goals, or provide the same services. My testimony is based 

on one component of our 2012 annual report on opportunities to reduce 

duplication, overlap, and fragmentation in federal government programs.2

To develop the findings for our 2012 report, we searched the Catalog of 

Federal Domestic Assistance to identify federal early learning and child 

care programs; obtained supplementary information from the 

Departments of Education (Education), Health and Human Services 

(HHS), and other agencies; and reviewed previous GAO reports on early 

learning and child care.3

 

1 Fiscal year 2012 is the latest date for which actual obligations have been reported, and 

funding data for one program was not reported in budget justifications but obtained from a 

federal agency; in addition, we requested fiscal year 2012 data for one program but the 

agency was unable to provide it. This figure only includes funding for the programs we 

identified as having an explicit purpose of providing early learning or child care for children

under age 5. It does not include federal programs with other purposes that permit the use 

of funds for early learning and child care as an allowable activity or that provide supporting 

services such as food and nutrition. For example, the figure does not include funding for 

two multipurpose block grants—the Social Services Block Grant and Temporary 

Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—or for Title I Grants to Local Educational 

Agencies. 

We used the following criteria to identify relevant 

early learning and child care programs: the programs (1) funded or 

supported early education or child care services, (2) were provided to 

2 GAO, 2012 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and 

Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-342SP (Washington, 

D.C.: February 28, 2012). 

3 While there is no standard definition for what constitutes a program, they may include 

grants, tax expenditures, centers, loans, funds, and other types of assistance. 
 

Page 2 GAO-14-325T 

children under age 5, and (3) delivered services in an educational or child 

care setting. We also obtained and analyzed descriptions of Education 

and HHS coordination efforts for early learning and child care programs, 

but did not evaluate these efforts.4 The work this statement is based on 

was conducted in accordance with generally accepted government 

auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the 

audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 

basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We 

believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. In January 2014 

we updated information on selected programs’ obligations and revenue 

losses relating to tax provisions. Further details on our scope and 

methodology can be found in our 2012 report.5

While parents are primarily responsible for the education and care of 

children who are younger than school age, a variety of factors over the 

last few decades, such as the increase in women’s participation in the 

workforce and an earlier focus on school readiness in children, have led 

to an increased demand for early learning and child care programs. 

These trends have also played a part in expanding the federal role in 

providing early learning and child care through a variety of settings and 

programs. Federal support for early learning and child care has 

developed over time in response to emerging needs. Historically, early 

learning and child care programs existed separately with separate goals: 

early learning programs focused on preparing young children for school; 

in contrast, child care programs subsidized the cost of child care for lowincome parents of infants, toddlers, and young children who were working 

or engaged in work-related activities. Over time, the distinction between 

these two types of programs has blurred as policymakers seek to make 

educationally enriching care available to more young children.

In addition to parents, multiple levels of government contribute significant 

amounts of funding to support of early learning and child care delivered in 

 

4 This testimony focuses on civilian programs and excludes early learning and child care 

programs funded through the Department of Defense, which are not listed in the Catalog 

of Federal Domestic Assistance. For a more detailed description, see GAO-12-342SP, 

p.201, “How GAO Conducted Its Work.” 

5 See GAO-12-342SP, p.201, “How GAO Conducted Its Work.” 

Background
 

Page 3 GAO-14-325T 

a variety of settings through a loosely connected system of private and 

public programs. Public financing for early learning and child care in the 

United States involves multiple funding streams and programs at various 

levels—federal, state, and local. A significant portion of federal support for 

child care is provided through funding to states that help provide 

subsidies to low-income families. Within the parameters of federal 

guidance and regulations, states generally determine their own specific 

policies concerning the administration of these funds, which include who 

is eligible to receive subsidies and the amount of the subsidy.

The information in our 2012 report and that I will discuss today built on 

previous reports in which we found that multiple federal agencies 

administer this important investment through numerous programs. This 

work updated reports we issued in 2000 and 2005 that also found many 

programs providing or supporting education or care for children under the 

age of 5.6 Changes in the number and make-up of programs across these 

reports in part reflect programs that ended or were consolidated.7

Our 2012 report found that the federal investment in early learning and 

child care is administered through 45 programs that provide or may 

support related services to children from birth through age 5, as well as 

five tax provisions that subsidize private expenditures in this area. Among 

the 45 programs, 12 had an explicit program purpose of providing early 

learning or child care services.8

 

6 GAO, GAO Update on the Number of Prekindergarten Care and Education Programs, 

The remaining 33 programs did not have 

this explicit program purpose, but permitted use of funds for this purpose 

or provided supportive services to facilitate early learning or child care 

services. 

GAO-05-678R (Washington, D.C.: June 2, 2005) and Early Education and Care: Overlap 

Indicates Need to Assess Crosscutting Programs, GAO/HEHS-00-78 (Washington, D.C.: 

April 28, 2000). 

7 In addition, the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance also made some changes in the 

way programs are categorized that may have affected the number of programs that met 

our criteria. Specifically, rather than performing a key word search, as was done in 

previous reports, we took advantage of refinements made in the catalog since 2005 and 

used the “Subject Index” terms to identify early learning and child care programs.

8 We consider a program as having an explicit early learning or child care purpose when 

the program objectives in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance or other agency 

documents refer to early learning or child care. 

Federal Funds 

Support Multiple Early 

Learning and Child 

Care Programs
 

Page 4 GAO-14-325T 

The 12 programs with an explicit program purpose of providing early 

learning or child care services differ in size, target population, and 

structure.9

• In terms of size, most of the programs obligated less than $500 million 

each in fiscal year 2012, while the largest program, Head Start, 

obligated approximately $8 billion in that year.

(See table 1.)

• Regarding the target population, half of the programs targeted lowincome children and 3 programs targeted children with disabilities. 

Some programs also targeted other populations, such as Indian 

children or children whose low-income parents were pursuing postsecondary education. All 12 programs served children under the age 

of 5, but 6 of the 12 programs also provided early learning or child 

care services for older children as well.

• Finally, the 2 largest programs—Head Start and the Child Care and 

Development Fund (CCDF)—differed significantly in structure. Head 

Start, created to support children’s early development by offering 

comprehensive, community-based services to meet multiple needs 

including child care, provides competitive federal grants directly to 

community-based public and private service providers. CCDF, which 

helps states reduce dependence on public assistance by subsidizing 

child care to support parents’ involvement in the workforce, provides 

grants to states, which in turn generally provide funding as subgrants 

to counties or other local entities for distribution to parents. 

 

9 In addition, 2 of the 12 programs were created as part of the American Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. 115). The larger of these 

programs—the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund—received a one-time appropriation of 

$53.6 billion in 2009. The Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge awarded $133 million 

in fiscal year 2012 but did not report the amount of its fiscal year 2012 obligations. Tit. 

XIV, 123 Stat. 279.
 

Page 5 GAO-14-325T 

Table 1: Purposes and Targeted Populations of Federal Programs That Have Early Learning or Child Care as an Explicit 

Program Purpose as of 2012

Program name by federal agency

Specific child population targets

Explicit program 

purpose Age group Other population targets 

Early 

learning 

services

Child 

care 

services

Children 

under 5 

primarily

Larger age 

group, 

including 

children 

under 5

Lowincome 

children

Children 

with 

disabilities

Other 

targeted 

populations

Department of Education

Child Care Access Means Parents in 

School • • • •

Indian Education-Grants to Local 

Educational Agencies • • •

Race to the Top – Early Learning 

Challenge • • •

Special Education-Grants for Infants and 

Families • • • •

Special Education-Preschool Grants • • •

State Fiscal Stabilization Fund - Education 

State Grants, Recovery Act • • •

Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy • • •

Department of Health and Human Services

Child Care and Development Block Granta

• • •

Child Care Mandatory and Matching Funds 

of the Child Care and Development Funda • • •

Head Start • • • •

Department of the Interior

Indian Child and Family Education (FACE) • • •

General Services Administration

The General Services Administration’s 

Child Care Program • • •

Source: GAO analysis of Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance and federal agency program information.

Note: All programs included in this table are those for which early learning or child care is explicitly 

described as a program purpose, according to our analysis of Catalog of Federal Domestic 

Assistance and other agency information. It does not include additional programs that either support 

early learning or child care or that allow such services.

a

In combination, Child Care and Development Block Grant funds and Child Care Mandatory and 

Matching Funds are referred to as the Child Care and Development Fund.
 

Page 6 GAO-14-325T 

The remaining 33 programs identified in our 2012 report, and listed in 

appendix I, permit the use of funds for delivering or supporting early 

learning or child care services, but this is not their explicit purpose.

• Some programs are multipurpose block grants for which early learning 

or child care is not a primary purpose but which are nevertheless 

known to provide significant funding for child care. For example, the 

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant 

accounted for $2.6 billion in child care funding in fiscal year 2012.

• Other programs may allow funds to be used for early learning or child 

care, but these are not among their primary goals. Furthermore, such 

uses do not typically represent a significant portion of available 

program funds. For example, the Department of Justice has one 

program to help victims of violence that can provide child care as a 

short-term, ancillary service; and Title I Grants to Local Educational 

Agencies, an Education grant, spent about 2 percent of total 

obligations on early learning programs in fiscal year 2009. In some 

cases, program officials did not know what portion of program funds 

were used to provide or support early learning or child care services.

• Finally, some programs provide supportive services that can facilitate 

early learning or child care. For example, the Department of 

Agriculture’s Child and Adult Care Food Program reimburses local 

providers for meals and snacks served to children in child care 

centers, family, or group day care along with other target groups, such 

as the elderly.

In addition to these federally funded programs, five federal tax provisions, 

such as the Credit for Child and Dependent Care Expenses, supported 

early learning and child care by forgoing tax revenue to subsidize the 

private purchase of child care services. Some tax provisions are for 

families and some are for employers that provide child care at the 

workplace. These five federal tax expenditures accounted for at least $3.1 

billion of forgone tax revenue for the U.S. Treasury in fiscal year 2012. 

While it may be possible for some families to receive benefits from both 

tax provisions and federal early learning and child care programs in a 

particular year, many families eligible to participate in federal programs 
 

Page 7 GAO-14-325T 

may not have tax liabilities due to their low incomes and would not benefit 

from these tax provisions.10

Multiple agencies administer the federal investment in early learning and 

child care through multiple programs that sometimes have similar goals 

and are targeted to similar groups of children. In 2012 we concluded that 

the federal investment in these programs is fragmented. The 45 programs 

identified in our 2012 report are concentrated within Education and 

HHS—the principal administrators of the federal government’s early 

learning and child care programs—but are also administered by the 

Departments of Agriculture, the Interior, Justice, Labor, Housing and 

Urban Development, the General Services Administration, and the 

Appalachian Regional Commission. Also, some of these programs 

overlap one another, meaning they have similar goals for children under 

the age of 5 and are targeted to similar groups of children. For example, 

five programs, administered by Education and HHS, provide school 

readiness services to low-income children, and programs in both 

Education and the Interior provide funding for early learning services for 

Indian children. Administering similar programs in different agencies can 

create an environment in which programs may not serve children and 

families as efficiently and effectively as possible. The existence of 

multiple programs can also create added administrative costs, such as 

costs associated with determining eligibility and meeting varied reporting 

requirements.

Although some programs fund similar types of services for similar 

populations, several factors contribute to the difficulty of determining 

whether these programs are duplicative—that is, whether they provide the 

same services to the same beneficiaries. First, as noted above, the 

programs are differently structured, with some administered at the federal 

level and some administered at the state level with local service delivery. 

Second, the nature of eligibility requirements also differs among 

 

10 These tax provisions primarily benefit families with higher incomes than those eligible 

for CCDF or Head Start. For example, more than half of the beneficiaries of the Child and 

Dependent Care Tax Credit earned incomes of at least $50,000 annually in fiscal year 

2009. In contrast, the Child Care and Development Fund generally limits eligibility to 

families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines (that is, about $38,000 or 

less for a family of three in 2012), and Head Start serves primarily low-income children 

under the age of 5 whose families generally have incomes at or below the official federal 

poverty guidelines. 

Multiple Federal 

Agencies Administer 

Programs with Similar 

Goals and Potential 

for Both Duplication 

and Service Gaps
 

Page 8 GAO-14-325T 

programs, even for similar subgroups of children, such as those from lowincome families. For example, Head Start serves primarily low-income 

children under the age of 5 whose families generally have incomes at or 

below the official federal poverty guidelines, while CCDF funds services 

to children under age 13 whose parents are working or in school and who 

may earn up to 85 percent of state median income. Third, for some 

programs, relevant programmatic information is sometimes not readily 

available.11 Finally, inadequate or missing data, as well as difficulties 

quantifying the benefits of some tax expenditures, can make it difficult to 

study the effectiveness of these expenditures.12

In addition, in comments responding to our 2012 report, HHS noted that 

program services may be complementary rather than duplicative. For 

example, HHS commented that many Head Start programs only provide 

part-day services that may not cover the full time a parent is at work and 

in need of child care; therefore, families could also rely on child care 

subsidies for afterschool care. We noted in our report that the complexity 

of the current service delivery system, combined with data limitations, 

form significant obstacles to assessing the extent to which services are 

complementary or duplicative.

Overlap in program purposes and targets creates the potential for 

duplication, but it is likely that service gaps also exist, since these 

programs generally are not designed to serve all eligible children. For 

example, as we previously reported in May 2010, about one-third or fewer 

of potentially eligible children received child care subsidies from CCDF, 

TANF, and the Social Services Block Grant between fiscal years 2004 

and 2007, according to our review of several HHS estimates.

 

11 For example, we reported in 2011 that states have used a significant portion of their 

TANF block grant funds to augment their child care subsidy programs, but are not 

required to report on all families provided TANF-funded child care. This leaves an 

incomplete picture of the number of children receiving federally funded child care 

subsidies. See GAO, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: Update on Families 

Served and Work Participation, GAO-11-880T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 8, 2011). 

12 As GAO noted in earlier work, tax returns generally do not collect information necessary 

to assess how often a tax expenditure is used and by whom unless the IRS needs the 

information or collection is statutorily mandated. See GAO, Government Performance and 

Accountability: Tax Expenditures Represent a Substantial Federal Commitment and Need 

to Be Reexamined, GAO-05-690 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23, 2005). 
 

Page 9 GAO-14-325T 

In 2012, we reported that coordinating the administration and evaluation 

of early learning and child care programs can help mitigate the effects of 

program overlap and potentially help bridge service gaps. At the time, no 

federal interagency workgroup coordinated early learning and child care 

efforts across all federal agencies with such programs. However, 

Education and HHS had numerous coordinating initiatives and 

agreements with each other, within their departments, and in support of 

state and local coordination. We noted that Education and HHS need to 

deepen and extend their ongoing coordination efforts by including all the 

federal agencies that provide or support early learning or child care 

services in an inter-departmental workgroup that focuses on this 

population. As of December 2013, Education and HHS had taken initial 

steps toward greater coordination, but had not yet included all the federal 

agencies that administer early learning and child care programs in their 

established inter-departmental workgroup. It will be important for 

Education and HHS to follow through with their plans to include these 

other federal agencies in order to reduce fragmentation of efforts and 

unwarranted overlap of goals or activities.

Chairman Kline, Ranking Member Miller, and Members of the Committee, 

this concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any questions 

you might have.

If you or your staff have any questions about this testimony, please 

contact me at (202) 512-7215 or brownke@gao.gov. Contact points for 

our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 

on the last page of this statement. GAO staff who made key contributions 

to this testimony and the report it is based on include Janet Mascia and 

Betty Ward-Zukerman, Assistant Directors; Hedieh Fusfield, Kirsten 

Lauber, Michael Pahr, Deborah Signer, and Craig Winslow.

GAO Contact and 

Staff 

Acknowledgements
Appendix I: Federal Early Learning and Child 

Care Programs and Tax Expenditures

Page 10 GAO-14-325T 

Table 2: Budgetary Information for Programs That Have Early Learning or Child Care as an Explicit Program Purpose

Agency or subagency Program

Fiscal year 2012 

obligations

Department of Education

Office of the Deputy Secretary State Fiscal Stabilization Fund - Education State 

Grants, Recovery Act 

Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

a

Indian Education - Grants to Local Educational 

Agencies

106,000,000 

Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge b

Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy 160,000,000 

Office of Postsecondary Education Child Care Access Means Parents in School 16,000,000 

Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative 

Services 

Special Education - Grants for Infants and Families 364,000,000 

Special Education - Preschool Grants 373,000,000 

Department of Health and Human Services 

Administration for Children and Families Child Care and Development Block Grant 2,268,000,000 

Child Care Mandatory and Matching Funds of the 

Child Care and Development Fund

2,916,990,581 

Head Start 7,968,000,000 

Department of the Interior

Bureau of Indian Education Indian Child and Family Education (FACE)

General Services Administration

c

Public Buildings Service The General Services Administration’s Child Care 

Program 

1,600,000d

Source: GAO analysis of fiscal year 2012 obligations based on agencies’ federal budget justifications and other sources.

a

State Fiscal Stabilization Fund - Education State Grants, Recovery Act was created as part of the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. 115, 279). The 

program received a one-time appropriation of $53.6 billion.

b

Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge was created as a state incentive grant program under 

the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. L. No.111-5, § 14006, 123 Stat. 115, 

284-4). It is jointly administered by the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services. 

The program awarded $133 million in fiscal year 2012.

c

We requested but did not receive updated figures from the Department of the Interior. We previously 

reported a fiscal year 2010 obligation of $15,370,870 for the Indian Child and Family Education 

program.

d

This figure is an estimate from agency officials.

Appendix I: Federal Early Learning and Child 

Care Programs and Tax Expenditures
Appendix I: Federal Early Learning and Child 

Care Programs and Tax Expenditures

Page 11 GAO-14-325T 

Table 3: Tax Expenditures and Estimated Revenue Loss

Tax expenditure

Total estimated 

revenue loss fiscal 

year 2012

Exclusion of Benefits Provided Under Cafeteria Plans

26 U.S.C. § 125(a) 

Exclusion of Income Earned By Voluntary Employees’ 

Beneficiary Associations

a

26 U.S.C. § 419

Credit For Child and Dependent Care Expenses

b 

26 U.S.C. § 21

$3,100,000,000

Exclusion of Employer-Provided Child and Dependent Care

26 U.S.C. § 129

Credit For Employer-Provided Dependent Care

26 U.S.C. § 45F

Less than 50,000,000

Source: Congressional Research Service, Tax Expenditures: Compendium of Background Material on Individual Provisions 

(Washington, D.C.: December 2012).

a

The total estimated revenue loss for the “cafeteria plans” was $36.0 billion in fiscal year 2012. This 

figure does not exclusively represent revenue lost for child care but also includes accident and health 

insurance, and other benefits.

b

The total estimated revenue loss for the Exclusion of Income Earned By Voluntary Employees’ 

Beneficiary Associations tax expenditure was $3.3 billion in fiscal year 2012. This figure does not 

exclusively represent child care expenditures but also includes a range of benefits including life 

insurance, disability, and health insurance.

Table 4: Programs That Support Early Learning and Child Care or Allow Use of Funds for That Purpose

Agency or subagency Program

Appalachian Regional Commission

Appalachian Area Development

Department of Agriculture

Food and Nutrition Service Child and Adult Care Food Program

National School Lunch Program

School Breakfast Program

Special Milk Program for Children

Department of Education

Office of Innovation and Improvement Full-Service Community Schools

Promise Neighborhoods

Office of Elementary and Secondary Education Alaska Native Educational Programs

Education for Homeless Children and Youth

English Language Acquisition Grants
Appendix I: Federal Early Learning and Child 

Care Programs and Tax Expenditures

Page 12 GAO-14-325T 

Agency or subagency Program

Indian Education - Special Programs for Indian Children

Migrant Education - State Grant Program

Native Hawaiian Education

Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies

Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services Special Education - State Personnel Development

Special Education - Grants to States

Special Education - Technology and Media Services for Individuals with 

Disabilities

Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Children and Families Community Services Block Grant

Social Services Block Grant

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Office of Community Planning and Development Community Development Block Grants/Entitlement Grants

Community Development Block Grants/Special Purpose Grants/Insular 

Areas 

Community Development Block Grants/State’s program and NonEntitlement Grants in Hawaii

Department of Justice 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reduction and Prevention of Children’s Exposure to Violence (Safe Start)

Violence Against Women Office Children and Youth Exposed to Violence

Transitional Housing Assistance for Victims of Domestic Violence, Dating 

Violence, Stalking, or Sexual Assault

Department of Labor 

Employment Training Administration National Farmworker Jobs Program

Native American Employment and Training

Workforce Investment Act Adult Program

Workforce Investment Act Dislocated Worker Formula Grants

Department of the Interior

Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian Child Welfare Act-Title II Grants

Indian Education - Assistance to Schools

General Services Administration

Federal Acquisition Service Donation of Federal Surplus Personal Property

Source: GAO analysis of fiscal year 2010 obligations based on agencies’ federal budget justifications and other sources.

(131294)
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