Using results from NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator, this report illustrates Child Care policy challenges and discusses possible solutions that would better help Colorado’s low- to moderate-income workers meet their child care needs.

Through the Making “Work Supports”Work project, NCCP aims to promote policies that make work pay—with the goal that all full-time workers should be able to provide for their families and that earning more should always improve a family’s financial bottom line. This project description highlights key findings and points the way toward policy reforms.

Many of Detroit’s parents struggle to support their children, despite full-time work. This fact sheet shows that work supports—such as the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and child care subsidies—can help. But reforms are needed to ensure that these policies effectively support workers in the transition from low-wage work to economic self-sufficiency.

More than a third of Illinois' children live in low-income families. This fact sheet shows that although most of these children have employed parents, many families do not receive the work supports that can close the gap between resources and expenses.

Using the Family Resource Simulator, Supporting Work in Illinois shows how benefit losses can outweigh increases in earnings. In all localities discussed, and in both single- and two-parent families, workers face similar challenges as they try to get ahead. The report offers policy strategies that better reward work.

More than a third of Michigan’s children live in low-income families. This fact sheet looks at employment and the use of work support benefits among low-income families in Michigan as a whole and also in Detroit. It finds that most low-income children have employed parents, but many families do not receive the work supports that can close the gap between resources and expenses.

This brief informs policymakers and others about the difficulties faced by low-income working parents as they strive to make progress in the workforce. Based on results from NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator, When Work Doesn’t Pay highlights ways in which the current structure of work support policies often leads to unintended consequences.

Federal budget proposals put forth by President Bush and the U.S. Congress call for dramatic cuts to programs that assist low-income families and their children. The majority of these families have at least one parent who works full time, yet they still struggle to make ends meet. This brief uses NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator to illustrate how proposed cuts in vital work supports—Medicaid, food stamps, housing assistance, and child care—will affect these families.