Improving school readiness in low-income children: The effect of public child care subsidies on early cognitive achievement

In addition to the primary goal of improving employment outcomes for low-income parents, public child care subsidies are intended to improve development outcomes for low-income children. Since the major changes to child care subsidy policies associated with welfare reform in 1996, empirical research has focused almost exclusively on the first of these goals. Using cross-sectional data from the 2005 Early Childhood Program Participation survey, this study uses Ordinary Least Squares and ordered logistic regression models to test for differences in cognitive achievement between low-income children in subsidized child care and low-income children in unsubsidized child care. In both models no statistically significant association was found between subsidy receipt and cognitive achievement. Recommendations for future research follow a description of the multivariate results.