Newswise — Kristin Smith, a family demographer with extensive knowledge of child care costs and women’s rising contributions to family incomes, is available to comment on President Obama’s State of the Union address tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2009 at 9 p.m.).
“While the child care tax credits that President Obama plans to announce as part of his investment in middle class families will help working families, low-income and poor working families pay disproportionately for child care compared to higher income families,” says Smith.
Smith is the co-author of a new brief that found that working families with young children living in poverty pay 32 percent of their income on child care, nearly five times more than families living at more than 200 percent of the poverty level. The report is based on the latest child care data of the Survey of Income and Participation Program (SIPP), collected in 2005. “Since these numbers reflect conditions before the recession, we can expect that the situation is likely more difficult for more families today,” Smith adds.
She is also the author of a recent brief that found that women’s contributions to family earnings leapt during the first year of the recession, translating into a greater reliance on employed wives to be family breadwinners.
Both briefs are available to download. “Low-Income and Impoverished Families Pay Disproportionately for Child Care” is here: http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/PB_Smith_LowIncome-ChildCare.pdf “Increased Reliance on Wives as Breadwinners during the First Year of the Recession” is here: http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/IB-Smith-Breadwinners09.pdf. Both briefs were supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s initiative to strengthen rural families, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and an anonymous donor.
The Carsey Institute conducts policy and applied research on vulnerable families and on sustainable community development, giving policy makers and practitioners the timely, independent resources they need to effect change in their communities. Learn more at http://carseyinstitute.unh.edu/.
The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students.
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