Brief: Revised CACFP Rates Don’t Make a Dent

Five young children sit at a table, using tongs to pick up pretzels and apple slices from plates.

At a time when children and providers are going hungry and federal food aid is shrinking, food costs pose a significant risk to provider sustainability and the wellbeing of children that they serve. The new brief underscores how the current increases in CACFP reimbursement fail to grapple with the broader, structural challenges facing HBCC providers: rising food costs, inadequate reimbursement rates, burdened policy systems, and shifting eligibility criteria. All of which leave puts provider sustainability at risk and impacts child wellbeing.

Although we celebrate Provider Appreciation Day one day a year, the home-based child care providers who care for our children earn our gratitude and support every single day, every single moment of the year.
Hayley Village, a home-based child care provider in San Mateo County, California, shares her experience with unaffordable housing and what it means to have to relocate her family and her business.
Women’s contributions and experiences are not well represented in the record books, but it is just as rich and worth celebrating. Ours is a tale of community, resilience, and connection to one another, and it is inextricably linked with care work.