Introduction
Research Questions
- What are the eligibility requirements for families and children, and what must families do to initially receive assistance and to continue receiving assistance?
- How much do families have to pay out of pocket for the child care they receive?
- What are the requirements for child care providers, and how much are they paid for care provided for children receiving subsidies?
The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) provides federal money to States, Territories, and Tribes to subsidize the cost of child care for working families with low incomes. Detailed policies vary widely across jurisdictions, with States, Territories, and Tribes establishing different policies for:
Eligibility requirements for families and children
Application, waiting list, and redetermination requirements
Family copayment policies
Provider requirements and provider payment rates
Whether families are eligible for child care assistance and how much assistance they receive depends in large part on the policies set by each jurisdiction. This report describes the ways in which policies vary within the context of the federal program requirements and includes dozens of detailed tables showing each State’s/Territory’s policy choices.
Purpose
The CCDF Policies Database project produces a comprehensive, up-to-date database of CCDF policies for the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. Territories and outlying areas. The database contains hundreds of variables designed to capture CCDF policies across time, allowing users to access policy information for a specific point in time as well as to see how and when policies change over time. The database is funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) and maintained by the Urban Institute.
Key Findings and Highlights
Highlights from 2023 policies include:
Across the States/Territories, the maximum income that a family of three can have and become newly eligible for assistance ranges from $1,954 to $8,287.
Across the States/Territories, copayments for a single parent with two children in child care and $25,000 in annual earnings range from $0 to $262 per month. Five States continued to waive copayments in 2023 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. American Samoa and New Mexico also waived copayments for all eligible families. Among the 49 States/Territories that do not waive copayments for all families, the median monthly copayment for a three-person family with $25,000 in annual earnings is $57.
In 20 States/Territories, providers are paid based on a child’s enrollment. The definition of enrollment is different across different State/Territories.
Highlights of policy changes from 2019 to 2023 include:
Seventeen States/Territories made changes to their policies regarding eligibility during periods of job search.
Almost all States/Territories made changes to the monthly income eligibility thresholds from 2019 to 2023, with most of the changes resulting in higher thresholds over time.
Fifty-five States/Territories changed their provider payment rates for toddlers in center-based care during this time period. All States/Territories changed their provider payment rates for toddlers in family child care homes between 2019 and 2023. The majority of these changes were increases to the provider payment rates or States/Territories beginning to use tiered payment rates.
Methods
The information in the database, and thus the information in the tables, is based primarily on the documents that caseworkers use as they work with families and providers (often termed “caseworker manuals”). The initial set of manuals coded for the database reflected policies in effect on or before October 1, 2009. Ongoing policy updates have been collected since that point to capture policy changes when they occur in each State/Territory.
Each year, the project produces a set of tables containing selected policies from the database. The tables are then reviewed by State/Territory administrators and verified for accuracy. The final tables are included in an annual report, with the current report showing the policies in effect on October 1, 2023. The full database containing all of the variables and longitudinal details is also made available for public use at https://ccdf.urban.org .
Citation
Todd, Margaret, Katherine Hueston, Christin Durham, and Sarah Minton (2025). Key Cross-State Variations in CCDF Policies as of October 1, 2023: The CCDF Policies Database Book of Tables. OPRE Report 2025-054, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Glossary
- CCDBG:
- Child Care and Development Block Grant
- CCDF:
- Child Care and Development Fund