Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Policies Database

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is the primary source of Federal support to improve the affordability, supply, and quality of child care in the United States. Created as a result of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, it is the integrated entitlement and discretionary child care funding program that replaced the child care programs previously supported under the Social Security Act. The CCDF provides block grants to States, Territories, and Tribes to subsidize the cost of child care for low-income working families. It is administered by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, yet each State/Territory/Tribe is allowed maximum flexibility in developing child care programs and policies that best suit the needs of constituent children and parents. Thus, States, Territories, and Tribes have significant discretion in how funds are used and where emphasis is placed in achieving the overall goals of CCDF.

The purpose is to conduct all activities necessary to result in two reports and two sets of data files. The first report will be a book of tables reflecting key cross-state variations in CCDF policies as of October 1, 2012, and the second will be a book of tables reflecting key cross-state variations in CCDF policies as of October 1, 2013. The first set of data files will contain the updated, cumulative, detailed policies through October 1, 2012, and the second will contain the updated, cumulative, detailed policies through October 1, 2013.