Recently, the National Women’s Law Center analyzed each state’s child care policies, and have complied the results in their report: Downward Slide: State Child Care Assistance Policies 2012. Some key findings from the report include:

• Families in twenty-seven states were worse off in February 2012 than in February 2011 under one or more child care assistance policies.
• Only one state had reimbursement rates at the federally recommended level for providers who serve families receiving child care assistance in 2012.
• Approximately three-fifths of the states had higher reimbursement rates for higher-quality providers in 2012, but in approximately four-fifths of these states, even the higher rates were below the federally recommended level.
• Twenty-three states had waiting lists or frozen intake for child care assistance in 2012.
• Wisconsin implemented a new tiered reimbursement system after February 2012 with more tiers than its previous system. However, the lowest rate under the new system is lower than the lowest rate under the previous system and the highest rate under the new system is no higher than the highest rate under the previous system.