Bell supports effort to minimize child-care 'cliff effect'

The Bell has been actively supporting Senate Bill 22, sponsored by Sen. Suzanne Williams, concerning the maintenance of child-care assistance for working families.

The goal is to mitigate the "cliff effect," in which a slight increase in income can cause working parents to lose child-care assistance. Often, the loss of assistance hinders their ability to work because they cannot afford the full cost of child care.

This bill would create a pilot program that counties could opt-in to to provide a two-year transition period of support to families that have exceeded the county-adopted eligibility level for assistance.

While the cliff effect exists for multiple public support programs, the steepest cliff occurs in the loss of child-care assistance. When an increase in pay is not enough to enable the parents to cover the costs of unsubsidized child care, the parent experiences the "cliff."

By providing a two-year transition period, the counties that participate in this pilot program would be ensuring a more successful transition off of the child-care assistance program for working families. Such a transition period supports parents so that they may continue working, provides children with consistent, safe and stimulating care, and would also reduce worker turnover and all associated costs for employers. Furthermore, because the program also includes a data-reporting provision, Senate Bill 22 would provide much-needed data so that we can better assess the cliff effect in this state.

Last Thursday, during testimony before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, Rich Jones, the Bell's director of policy and research, presented several scenarios for the two-year transition period. Melody Maitland, the Bell's University of Denver MSW fellow, prepared the presentation.