Our Child Care Policy Agenda

Our advocacy grew out of our experience as a child care provider at Moore Community House in Biloxi where we serve low-income working moms.

We learned how much it costs to provide quality child care and that it is not affordable for working moms. We also learned there is not enough state or federal assistance to fill in the gaps.

We created MLICCI to be a vehicle to organize child care centers like us to push for more funding so more moms can get the affordable child care they need in order to go to work and remain employed.

Mississippi moms work, but they most often work in low wage jobs. Child care is expensive, often costing as much as college tuition.

Mississippi uses the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) to help low-income working parents pay child care fees.

This child care assistance makes a huge positive financial difference, reducing the cost of child care by as much as 80 percent.

Other benefits include:

  • Reducing reliance on welfare
  • Increasing workforce participation
  • Reducing employee absenteeism and turnover
  • Increase the state’s general fund revenue

Despite these benefits, Mississippi is serving a small fraction (about 10 percent) of the children who qualify.

Thousands of children languish on lengthy waiting lists.

MLICCI calls upon you to help. We need more money for the child care assistance program so that more low-income moms get the affordable child care they need in order to work.

Decisions that shape the child care payment program are made by MDHS and State Early Childhood Advisory Council (SECAC).

To stay updated, follow our MLICCI Blog and signup for our Action Alerts. You may find additional information from MDHS here and from SECAC here.