In his fifth State of the State address Tuesday evening, Gov. Tony Evers began laying out how he plans to use Wisconsin’s $6.6 billion surplus, pitching a spending bender of big government initiatives already with a price tag to date of around $1.3 billion. But there’s more to come. Evers is still constructing his biennial budget plan, set for release in a few weeks.
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Governor Mike DeWine (R) on Friday announced a plan to expand a number of social services in Ohio, including an increase in eligibility for Medicaid for pregnant women and children whose families make up to three times the federal poverty level.
The policy enlarges upon his Bold Beginning Initiative, which has already spent about $1 billion on services to expectant families. The broadening of Medicaid would make the program available to single expectant mothers earning up to $54,930 annually and to families of three earning as much as $69,090 per year. Legislative approval would need to occur for this measure to take effect.
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Mike Faust, Director of the Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS), recently announced that there were under 12,000 children between the age of zero and 17 in the foster care system, the lowest the department has seen since 2012.
“Although this was one of the goals from the start, little did the team know how challenging it would be to reach this milestone,” Faust said in a press release. “DCS was deeply challenged a decade ago, and had it not been for the commitment of all those involved to make DCS a standalone agency, the resolve and steadfastness of Director Greg McKay from 2015-2019; the commitment of the thousands of employees and partners who devote their lives to protecting children; the loving support of kinship families; and the dedication of biological families to reunifying with their children, this would not have been possible.”
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The Phoenix Aviation Department launched its City of Phoenix Airport Worker Child Care Scholarship Program Aug. 2.
The program supports workers in the aviation industry who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years, according to a press release. A $4 million investment with funds from the city’s American Rescue Plan Act strategic plan will fund the child care program for workers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
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The budget reconciliation package pushed by Democrats creates a new expanded child tax credit (CTC) that would pay illegal immigrants some $10.5 billion next year. All immigrants with children are eligible, regardless of how they got here and whether their children are U.S.-born. This includes the roughly 600,000 unaccompanied minors and persons in family units stopped at the border in FY2021 and released into the country pending a hearing. Cash welfare to illegal immigrants is not just costly; it also encourages more illegal immigration.
Although it is referred to as a “refundable credit,” the new CTC, like the old additional child tax credit (ACTC) it replaces, pays cash to low-income families who do not pay any federal income tax. The new program significantly increases the maximum cash payment from $1,400 per child to $3,600 for children under 6, and to $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17. After 2022, the maximum payment would be $2,000 per child, but advocates hope the much larger payments will be extended.
In an analysis conducted in October, my colleague Karen Zeigler and I estimated that illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children would receive $8.2 billion from the new CTC. However, we had assumed that the new program, like the old ACTC, would require children claimed as dependents to have Social Security numbers (SSNs). But reconciliation (page 1452, line 14) would permanently repeal this requirement.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer welcomed the expansion of free or low-cost child care to 105,000 more kids via the expanded income eligibility criteria in the latest bipartisan budget.
Families of four earning up to $49,000 will be eligible for free or low-cost child care under new criteria, helping parents return to work
“We need to continue working hard to drive down costs for families and expand access to high-quality, affordable childcare so parents can go to work knowing that their kids are safe and learning,” Whitmer said in a statement. “I was proud to put childcare first in the bipartisan budget I signed in September. Together, we lowered costs for working families by expanding low or no-cost care to 105,000 kids and providing grants to improve childcare programs and empower childcare professionals. Countless working parents rely on childcare, and we must continue expanding high-quality care to help every working family thrive.”
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Protesters and activists followed Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema through Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. and onto a plane Monday, pressing her on why she refuses to back parts of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.
“I’m just trying to get an explanation for the American people,” Kunoor Ojha, chief of staff of the Green New Deal Network, asked Sinema as she followed the senator through the airport, video of the encounter shows.
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One thousand lucky Phoenix families will get $1,000 in taxpayer funding a month in 2022.
The Phoenix City Council has approved $12 million for a “Financial Assistance for Phoenix Families Program,” a lottery-based form of universal basic income that will begin in January 2022 if not sooner.
The program, which has yet to be finalized, will send approximately 1,000 families a monthly stipend of $1,000 for all of 2022. According to a city document, the funds would be limited toward “basic household necessities” such as housing, childcare, food and other staples.
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Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged illegal immigrants who are parents to children born in the U.S. to register for President Joe Biden’s child care tax credit payments on Thursday, video shows.
Parents and guardians will receive checks of $250 to $300 per child monthly until the end of 2021 including undocumented adults who care for children with valid Social Security numbers, according to Ocasio-Cortez.
“These centers are also offering help to undocumented folks with eligible children,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “So any child with a social security number is eligible. Do not count yourself out … if a parent and guardian is undocumented.”
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Democratic candidate for governor and Virginia State Senator Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond City) released a plan central to her campaign last Friday that seeks to provide affordable and quality child care for every family with a kid under the age of five by 2025.
Under McClellan’s Universal Child Care & Early Learning Plan, Virginia families that make below or up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level would receive free child care, no matter the family size. While families making above that poverty threshold would have to pay for child care costs, but no more than 7 percent of their annual income.
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Ohio will issue temporary pandemic child care licenses to ensure communities have access to safe child care during the spread of the coronavirus, official announced on Wednesday. The temporary licenses are aimed at helping health and safety providers have a safe place for their children while they working to fight COVID-19.
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A second report released last week by the non-partisan Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) found that the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ “program integrity controls are insufficient to effectively prevent, detect, and investigate fraud” in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). In March, the OLA released its first report on the issue, which found “pervasive” fraud in the program and confirmed that millions of dollars in government payments went to fraudulent child care centers. After the release of the report, DHS Inspector General Carolyn Ham (pictured, left) was placed on “investigate leave.” The OLA’s second report, released Wednesday, focused more specifically on the “internal controls” in place within DHS to prevent fraud. The 44-page report produced five key findings, including: DHS and county agencies did not sufficiently leverage independent, external data sources to verifying recipient eligibility for CCAP. DHS had weak processes to validate that CCAP provider billings aligned with actual child care provided. Among other functions, MEC² (the payment system for CCAP) was developed to accurately process provider billings and payments; however, MEC² lacked some key controls to identify errors to inhibit, track, and recover improper payments. DHS did not implement sufficient program integrity controls for licensing…
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by Max Gulker In the discussion of the nation’s problem with child care costs, a crucial factor has gone mostly unmentioned. This is one of the most regulated industries. These regulations are driving up costs. Adding more government control of the industry risks making a bad situation even worse. To be sure, costs vary by state. So too do the relevant regulatory regimes. According to data from Child Care Aware, child care for a toddler in a Massachusetts center costs on average a whopping $18,845, or 65 percent on the average single-parent family’s income in the state. Low-cost Mississippi, on the other hand, is $4,670, less than 25 percent of the average single-parent family’s income. Why does child care in Massachusetts cost four times what it does in Mississippi? Indices estimate that the ratio of overall cost of living between the two states is about 1.5, suggesting factors specific to child care account for part of the wide gap. Massachusetts mandates that child-care centers must have one staff member on hand for every three infants. In Mississippi, that staff member can care for five. Massachusetts requires a staff member for every ten preschool-age children. In Mississippi, that number is fourteen.…
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