The new law would allow a state to require parents with children 6 years or older to work without assuring child care. No parent should be required to choose between work and providing supervision for her children. Assuring the safety of young children through quality child care is an investment in the success of your state's work program. Advocates should work to ensure that states provide quality child care when a parent needs it to secure employment or engage in training. Ensure that your state maximizes child care resources by exercising its option to exempt parents with infants under 1 from work requirements and removing these parents from calculated work participation rates.
Most states lack the capacity to provide quality child care to large numbers of infants.
Fully utilize child care resources. Without drawing down the maximum child care funding, states cannot realize the goals of placing parents receiving assistance in jobs and helping working poor parents stay employed. Ensure that your state retains statewide authority to set benefit levels and assure equitable treatment of aid to applicants and recipients. While in some states discretion in approaches to job preparation, creation, or placement may be passed along to localities, basic fairness protections and setting of benefits should remain a state responsibility. Continue Medicaid, cash assistance, and social service coverage for legal immigrants.