More than 300,000 eligible California children are enrolled in publicly funded child care, allowing parents with low incomes to work or attend school, while knowing their children have a safe place to learn and grow. In California, the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is the main federal funding source. It makes up one in five dollars in the system. Federal funding has historically had bipartisan support. However, the Trump administration moved to suspend funding for five states in the name of “program integrity.” These federal actions — widely considered to be illegal and unsupported by evidence — undermine child development, family economic security, and local economies across all congressional districts in California.
Districts with a larger number of children enrolled in publicly funded child care include CA-52 (Vargas), CA-22 (Valadao), CA-43 (Waters), CA-6 (Bera), and CA-27 (Whitesides).
This analysis uses point-in-time enrollment data by county, zip code, program, age, and setting for October 2024 along with subsidized child care payment rates for the 2024-25 state fiscal year. Using this point-in-time data, an estimate of the monthly cost of publicly funded child care is generated by zip code, which is then rolled up into an estimated figure by congressional district. The following key assumptions and limitations are included in this analysis:
When multiplying the number of children by county, program, setting, and zip code by the provider payment rate, this analysis accounts for the fact that school-age children are less likely to be enrolled in full-time care. The average ratio of part-time to full-time rates for school-age children is .685. This ratio was applied when calculating federal dollars for school-age children.
Likewise, this analysis assumes full-time enrollment for infants, toddlers, and preschool-age children and does not factor in variance based actual full-time or part-time enrollment. Those data were not available.
Some zip codes with enrollment data did not have a match when conducting the crosswalk to congressional district. A decision was made to not include zip codes where enrollment was less than 8. This accounted for less than 1% of total enrollment.
Enrollment data by setting (licensed centers, licensed family child care homes, and family, friend, and neighbor care) were only available by program and county. Due to this limitation, this analysis does not factor in differences in child care settings that exist based on the age of the child.
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