National Childcare Costs Database
National Childcare Costs Database
ATTACHMENT D
National Childcare Costs Database
OMB: 1290-0025
ATTACHMENT D – DRAFT MAILING MATERIALS
Contact 1: Prenotification Letter to State Childcare Administrators
Contact 2: Notification Letter to State Childcare Administrators
Women’s Bureau National Database of Childcare Costs Overview
What is the Women’s Bureau?
The Women's Bureau develops policies and standards and conducts inquiries to safeguard the interests of working women; to advocate for their equality and economic security for themselves and their families; and to promote quality work environments.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Women’s Bureau (WB) was created by law in 1920 to formulate standards and policies to promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment. Women in the workforce are vital to the nation’s economic security; thus, the Women’s Bureau aims to empower all working women to achieve economic security.
The Women’s Bureau also conducts outreach to raise awareness of working women’s issues and identifies and builds collaborations in order to achieve the implementation of policies and practices that benefit working women. The Women’s Bureau is made up of a national office and ten (10) regional offices across the country, through which it fosters and maintains local and community partnerships, and conducts meaningful outreach and education initiatives.
Why is the Women’s Bureau collecting this information?
The Women’s Bureau seeks to better understand how childcare costs affect women’s labor supply. With support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families, in the fall of 2019, WB will be collecting Market Rate Survey (MRS) reports and county tabulations. Currently, efforts to understand childcare price effects on employment have been limited due to a lack of local-level price data. Existing research relies on state-level childcare price data, which underestimate prices in urban areas and mask significant county to county differences.
With your help, we can close this critical research gap and provide a more comprehensive picture of the costs of childcare at the local level in the United States.
How will the data be used?
The data collection will result in a public-use database of county-level childcare prices and women’s labor force participation rates. Data collected for this project will be aggregated and used for statistical purposes only. No identifying information will be disclosed. The WB is requesting available historical MRS data back to 1998.
National Database of Childcare Costs
The National Database of Childcare Costs will publish data on the following topics. The information requested for this database may have been collected as part of the state’s Market Rate Survey used to develop the Child Care and Development Fund State Plan or published in the state’s Child Care Market Rate Survey report. If your state does not have all of the data elements requested, please submit as many data elements as you have available. We are interested in all Market Rate Survey data you have available for these data elements as far back as 1998. If your state did not conduct data collection at the county level, please contact Kenley Branscome at ICF at Kenley.branscome@icf.com or (857) 334-4966 for assistance. We appreciate your help in making this the most complete and accessible database on childcare costs for all counties in the United States.
General Survey Information For Each Market Rate Survey Conducted:
State
Geographic reporting level (state, region, county, cluster)
Year of survey
Mode of survey administration (mail, phone, internet)
Survey response rates for center-based care
Survey response rates for family/home-based childcare
Childcare Prices:
Median price of center-based care (infants)
Median price of center-based care (toddlers)
Median price of center-based care (preschoolers)
Median price of center-based care (school-age children)
Median price of family/home-based childcare (infants)
Median price of family/home-based childcare (toddlers)
Median price of family/home-based childcare (preschoolers)
Median price of family/home-based childcare (school-age children)
Median additional fees in addition to regular rate for center-based care (e.g., registration, enrollment, supplies, activities, etc.)
Median additional fees in addition to regular rate for family/home-based care (e.g., registration, enrollment, supplies, activities, etc.)
Indicate if prices are hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly
Indicate ages used to define infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age
Indicate pricing method if pricing other than the median price is provided
Available Spaces and Hours of Care:
Definition used for part-time care and full-time care
Number of part-time spaces
Number of full-time spaces
Contact 3: Email Sent 1 week before deadline
To: Primary contact e-mail
From: Kenley Branscome
Re: Women’s Bureau Request for Child Care Market Rate Surveys (MRS)
Dear [Dr. /Mr. /Ms.] [Last name]:
Recently, we mailed you a letter asking you to provide copies of all available child care market rate surveys that have been published since 1998.
As a reminder, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau has launched an initiative to create a database of childcare prices. The National Database of Childcare Costs will provide the most comprehensive information on the price of childcare at the local level in the United States. The Women’s Bureau will use these data to evaluate how the prices that parents pay for childcare affect women’s labor force participation rates. When completed, this database will be available to the public and can support further research and analysis into the affordability of childcare in different parts of the country.
Your response to this request is voluntary and may take an average of three hours to complete. Data collected for this project will be aggregated and used for statistical purposes only. No identifying information will be disclosed. For your convenience, an overview of the project is attached.
If you have any general questions or comments about this initiative, please do not hesitate to contact Sarah Miller (Miller.Sarah@dol.gov, 202-693-6716, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Room S-3009, Washington, DC 20210).
The research is being conducted for the Women’s Bureau by ICF International. We need your help to gather this critical information. We request that you provide copies of all available childcare market rate surveys (MRS) that have been published since 1998 no later than Month dd, 2019. Please submit the MRS reports and any required data files based on the guidance below:
Upload the final copy of the MRS report for each year available from 1998 through 2018 to the secure link created for your state. Please submit a report for each year using the following naming convention: MRSREPORT_XXXX [where XXXX = the year study was published].
If there are years in which the final MRS reports submitted do not include childcare rate estimates for each county in your state, upload the extant data file(s) that were used to develop the rate estimates for each of those years that include the county name and the rates by age group and provider type. Upload a separate file for each year of data to the secure link created for your state in an Excel format or other file format that can be converted to Excel. Upload the data for each year using the following naming convention: MRSDATAFILE_XXXX [where XXXX = year study was published].
Kenley Branscome from ICF is the technical lead on this project. If you have any questions about the project or the process for uploading files, contact him at Kenley.Branscome@icf.com or 857-334-4966.
Thank you and we look forward to being able to share our findings with you and your colleagues across the nation.
Respondents are not required to respond to any information collection unless it displays a valid
approval number from the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB number for this
collection is: XXXX-XXXX.
Enclosure: Women’s Bureau National Database of Childcare Costs Overview
Women’s Bureau National Database of Childcare Costs Overview
What is the Women’s Bureau?
The Women's Bureau develops policies and standards and conducts inquiries to safeguard the interests of working women; to advocate for their equality and economic security for themselves and their families; and to promote quality work environments.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Women’s Bureau (WB) was created by law in 1920 to formulate standards and policies to promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment. Women in the workforce are vital to the nation’s economic security; thus, the Women’s Bureau aims to empower all working women to achieve economic security.
The Women’s Bureau also conducts outreach to raise awareness of working women’s issues and identifies and builds collaborations in order to achieve the implementation of policies and practices that benefit working women. The Women’s Bureau is made up of a national office and ten (10) regional offices across the country, through which it fosters and maintains local and community partnerships, and conducts meaningful outreach and education initiatives.
Why is the Women’s Bureau collecting this information?
The Women’s Bureau seeks to better understand how childcare costs affect women’s labor supply. With support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families, in the fall of 2019, WB will be collecting Market Rate Survey (MRS) reports and county tabulations. Currently, efforts to understand childcare price effects on employment have been limited due to a lack of local-level price data. Existing research relies on state-level childcare price data, which underestimate prices in urban areas and mask significant county to county differences.
With your help, we can close this critical research gap and provide a more comprehensive picture of the costs of childcare at the local level in the United States.
How will the data be used?
The data collection will result in a public-use database of county-level childcare prices and women’s labor force participation rates. Data collected for this project will be aggregated and used for statistical purposes only. No identifying information will be disclosed. The WB is requesting available historical MRS data back to 1998.
Contact 4A: Non-response Follow-up 1 [Telephone]
Call primary contact at organizations that have not provided the information
Talking directly to the primary contact
Issues to be highlighted during a telephone call to primary contact from data collection staff:
Indicate that you are calling on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau regarding the Women’s Bureau National Database of Childcare Costs.
Point out that they should have received a letter from Patricia Greene, Director of the U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau and Shannon Christian, Director of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Care requesting that they provide Market Rate Survey information.
“We have been trying to contact you about Women’s Bureau National Database of Childcare Costs. Patricia Greene, Director of the U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau and Shannon Christian, Director of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Care sent a letter requesting that your office provide Market Rate Survey information from 1998 to present. At this time, we have not received the Market Rate Survey data and want to remind you about the importance of providing that data.”
If needed, tell contact: “We are conducting this research to create a database that will provide the most comprehensive information on the price of childcare at the local level in the United States.
If needed, be prepared to respond to common questions such as
I am not the right person to do this
Response: Please let me know who the correct person is and I would be happy to contact him/her.
I don’t know what you are talking about
Response: As I am sure you know, childcare has been identified as a barrier to employment and career advancement for women. The Women’s Bureau is undertaking an initiative to develop the National Database of Childcare Costs. To support this initiative, we are collecting county-level data from the childcare Market Rate Survey (MRS) reports that states have conducted in order to evaluate how the prices that parents pay for childcare affect women’s labor force participation. Your response to this request is voluntary and may take an average of three hours to complete.
The MRS reports for my state do not include county-level data.
Response: That is okay. Do you have access to copies of the final MRS reports and the raw data used to develop them? If so, you can submit via a secure portal to our data collection team.
Tell the respondent you will e-mail the instructions and be sure to verify the correct e-mail address.
Ask the respondent if he or she has any questions and let them know that if they have any questions in the future, they can send an e-mail to Kenley.Branscome@icf.com or 857-334-4966.
Leaving a message
If the respondent cannot be reached, leave a voice-mail identifying yourself and the request, the purpose of the call, the date of letter referenced, and the action the respondent must take.
Voice-mail example: “Hello my name is [staff], and I’m calling on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau about the National Database of Childcare Costs initiative. We have been trying to contact you about receiving your state’s childcare market survey data and hope that you might be willing to provide the data. Please call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx when you have some time to discuss your participation in the research.”
.
During a call cycle, typically a week, leave only one message, but continue to try to contact respondents at different times of day throughout the cycle.
Contact 4B: Incomplete Follow-up 1 [Telephone]
Call primary contact at agency that has submitted some, but not all of the requested information.
Talking directly to the primary contact
Issues to be highlighted during a telephone call to incomplete from data collection staff:
Indicate that you are calling on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau regarding the National Database of Childcare Costs.
Thank them for the data that they provided and alert them to the missing data. For example:
“It looks like you provided data for some but not all of the years. Do you have all of the Market Research Surveys back to 1998?” Tell the respondent that we are trying to get complete information on some specific question(s) that have not been answered or we have incomplete information.
Tell the respondent you will e-mail the instructions and be sure to verify the correct e-mail address.
If needed, be prepared to respond to common questions such as
I am not the right person to do this
Response: Please let me know who the correct person is and I would be happy to contact him/her.
I don’t know what you are talking about
Response: As I am sure you know, childcare has been identified as a barrier to employment and career advancement for women. The Women’s Bureau is undertaking an initiative to develop The National Database of Childcare Costs. To support this initiative, we are collecting county-level data from the childcare Market Rate Survey (MRS) reports that states have conducted in order to evaluate how the prices that parents pay for childcare affect women’s labor force participation. Your response to this request is voluntary and may take an average of three hours to complete.
The MRS reports for my state do not include county-level data.
Response: That is okay. Do you have access to copies of the final MRS reports and the raw data used to develop them? If so, you can submit via a secure portal to our data collection team.
Ask the respondent if he or she has any questions and let them know that if they have any questions in the future, they can send an e-mail to Kenley.Branscome@icf.com or 857-334-4966.
Leaving a message
If the respondent cannot be reached, leave a voice-mail identifying yourself and the request, the purpose of the call, the date of letter referenced, and the action the respondent must take.
Voice-mail example: “Hello my name is [staff], and I’m calling on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau about the National Database of Childcare Costs initiative. We received your Market Rate Survey data for xxxxx years, but did not receive the data for xxxx years. We wanted to make sure that was not an oversight and to find out whether the missing data exists. Please call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx when you have some time to discuss this.”
During a call cycle, typically a week, leave only one message, but continue to try to contact respondents at different times of the day throughout the cycle.
Contact 5: Reminder Email Sent 1 week after deadline
to non-respondents
To: Primary contact e-mail
From: Patricia Greene, U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau and Shannon Christian, U.S. Health and Human Services, Office of Child Care
Re: Women’s Bureau Request for Child Care Market Rate Surveys (MRS)
Dear [Dr. /Mr. /Ms.] [Last name]:
You have been requested to provide copies of all available child care market rate surveys (MRS) that have been published since 1998 no later than xxxxx. To date, we have not received them and request that you submit them as soon as possible.
Access to safe, reliable, and affordable childcare is a barrier to employment for many Americans. Many working parents are caught between the need to work in order to provide for their families and the need for safe and reliable child care for their children.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau has launched an initiative to create a public database of childcare prices. The National Database of Childcare Costs will provide the most comprehensive information on the price of childcare at the local level in the United States. The Women’s Bureau will use these data to evaluate how the prices that parents pay for childcare affect women’s labor force participation rates. For your convenience, an overview of the project is attached.
This research will allow policy-makers to accurately measure potential economic impacts and identify strategies for enhancing employment options and economic security for women. By making the database publicly available, states will have a tool at their disposal that can combine county-level childcare prices and economic indicators to evaluate characteristics of underserved areas. Your response to this request is voluntary and may take an average of three hours to complete. Data collected for this project will be aggregated and used for statistical purposes only. No identifying information will be disclosed.
ICF has been retained to conduct the research. We request that you provide copies of all available child care market rate surveys (MRS) that have been published since 1998 as soon as possible. Please submit the MRS reports and any required data files based on the guidance below:
Upload the final copy of the MRS report for each year available from 1998 through 2018 to the secure link created for your state. Please submit a report for each year using the following naming convention: MRSREPORT_XXXX [where XXXX = the year study was published].
If there are years in which the final MRS reports submitted do not include childcare rate estimates for each county in your state, upload the extant data file(s) that were used to develop the rate estimates for each of those years that include the county name and the rates by age group and provider type. Upload a separate file for each year of data to the secure link created for your state in an Excel format or other file format that can be converted to Excel. Upload the data for each year using the following naming convention: MRSDATAFILE_XXXX [where XXXX = year study was published].
Kenley Branscome from ICF is the technical lead on this project. If you have any questions about the project or the process for uploading files, contact him at Kenley.Branscome@icf.com or 857.334.4966.
Thank you and we look forward to being able to share our findings with you and your colleagues across the nation. If you have any general questions about this initiative, please do not hesitate to contact Sarah Miller (Miller.Sarah@dol.gov, 202-693-6716, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Room S-3009, Washington, DC 20210).
Attachments: Women’s Bureau National Database of Childcare Costs Overview, National Database of Childcare Costs
Respondents are not required to respond to any information collection unless it displays a valid
approval number from the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB number for this
collection is: XXXX-XXXX.
Women’s Bureau National Database of Childcare Costs Overview
What is the Women’s Bureau?
The Women's Bureau develops policies and standards and conducts inquiries to safeguard the interests of working women; to advocate for their equality and economic security for themselves and their families; and to promote quality work environments.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Women’s Bureau (WB) was created by law in 1920 to formulate standards and policies to promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment. Women in the workforce are vital to the nation’s economic security; thus, the Women’s Bureau aims to empower all working women to achieve economic security.
The Women’s Bureau also conducts outreach to raise awareness of working women’s issues and identifies and builds collaborations in order to achieve the implementation of policies and practices that benefit working women. The Women’s Bureau is made up of a national office and ten (10) regional offices across the country, through which it fosters and maintains local and community partnerships, and conducts meaningful outreach and education initiatives.
Why is the Women’s Bureau collecting this information?
The Women’s Bureau seeks to better understand how childcare costs affect women’s labor supply. With support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families, in the fall of 2019, WB will be collecting Market Rate Survey (MRS) reports and county tabulations. Currently, efforts to understand childcare price effects on employment have been limited due to a lack of local-level price data. Existing research relies on state-level childcare price data, which underestimate prices in urban areas and mask significant county to county differences.
With your help, we can close this critical research gap and provide a more comprehensive picture of the costs of childcare at the local level in the United States.
How will the data be used?
The data collection will result in a public-use database of county-level childcare prices and women’s labor force participation rates. Data collected for this project will be aggregated and used for statistical purposes only. No identifying information will be disclosed. The WB is requesting available historical MRS data back to 1998.
National Database of Childcare Costs
The National Database of Childcare Costs will publish data on the following topics. The information requested for this database may have been collected as part of the state’s Market Rate Survey used to develop the Child Care and Development Fund State Plan or published in the state’s Child Care Market Rate Survey report. If your state does not have all of the data elements requested, please submit as many data elements as you have available. We are interested in all Market Rate Survey data you have available for these data elements as far back as 1998. If your state did not conduct data collection at the county level, please contact Kenley Branscome at ICF at Kenley.branscome@icf.com or (857) 334-4966 for assistance. We appreciate your help in making this the most complete and accessible database on childcare costs for all counties in the United States.
General Survey Information For Each Market Rate Survey Conducted:
State
Geographic reporting level (state, region, county, cluster)
Year of survey
Mode of survey administration (mail, phone, internet)
Survey response rates for center-based care
Survey response rates for family/home-based childcare
Childcare Prices:
Median price of center-based care (infants)
Median price of center-based care (toddlers)
Median price of center-based care (preschoolers)
Median price of center-based care (school-age children)
Median price of family/home-based childcare (infants)
Median price of family/home-based childcare (toddlers)
Median price of family/home-based childcare (preschoolers)
Median price of family/home-based childcare (school-age children)
Median additional fees in addition to regular rate for center-based care (e.g., registration, enrollment, supplies, activities, etc.)
Median additional fees in addition to regular rate for family/home-based care (e.g., registration, enrollment, supplies, activities, etc.)
Indicate if prices are hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly
Indicate ages used to define infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age
Indicate pricing method if pricing other than the median price is provided
Available Spaces and Hours of Care:
Definition used for part-time care and full-time care
Number of part-time spaces
Number of full-time spaces
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