Below is a list of talking points compiled from information provided by the National Council of Churches, the Children's Defense Fund, the Children's Alliance of NH, and the NH Commission on the Status of Women/IWPR Status of Women in New Hampshire Report.

• Federal investment in quality child care supports New Hampshire's economy. 60% of NH children under age 6 are in families where both parents work. The percentage of single mothers in the labor force grew from 65% to 72% in the 1990s. The availability of quality child care allows parents to find and keep jobs to stay off welfare.
• Repeated studies have shown that quality childcare - care that provides a loving, safe, and stable environment - helps children enter school ready to succeed, improve their skills, and stay safe while their parents work. Children can spend more hours in childcare before entering public school than they will spend in classrooms in grads 1 through 12 combined. If President Bush's No Child Left Behind education program is to succeed, children need to get a solid learning base in their preschool years.
• Childcare is unaffordable for many families. For a NH family with a child age 2-4, the average cost of full-time childcare in a licensed center is $4,112 a year. In some areas of the state the cost of center-based care is higher than the cost of tuition at a four-year college.
• Only one in ten families eligible for childcare assistance from NH gets it. Low-income parents who are unable to get help paying for childcare are forced to make impossible choices - whether to pay for rent, food or childcare; whether to choose less expensive (but potentially detrimental) care for their children. Some have no choice but to turn to welfare. The lack of childcare help forces some families to place their children in unsafe situations while they work, such as leaving them home alone or in the supervision of older siblings.
• NH Governor Craig Benson has proposed a 5% cut in childcare rates. NH will become even more reliant on the Childcare and Development Block Grant.
• Under the President's proposal, an estimated 20,000 families would lose childcare assistance by 2007. This bill will increase work requirements without increasing childcare funding.
• HB 4 continues to limit people to five years of benefits over their lifetimes and bans legal immigrants from aid programs.
• HB 4 also includes up to $300 million per year for experiments promoting marriage and also extends $50 million program promoting abstinence from sex until marriage, which bans any discussion of contraception.
• Since 1994, the number of families receiving monthly welfare checks has fallen by nearly 60%.
• In 1997, 74% of children under the age of 14 had dual working parents. Of these, 60% needed care outside the home (Women's Fund of New Hampshire). That same year, New Hampshire had only enough licensed childcare slots for 32% of the children needing care (Women's Fund of New Hampshire). In coming years, an estimated 6,500 additional children will need childcare as a result of welfare reform (Shapiro, 1998).
• The average New Hampshire family with children in childcare spends 18% of its income on childcare. Low-income families in the state spend as much as 25% of their income on childcare (Packard Foundation, 1997). Meanwhile, New Hampshire's relatively strict income criteria have cut eligibility for federal childcare subsidies to families by 62%. In 1998, of the 71,600 New Hampshire children who qualified for subsidies under federal provisions, only 9%, or fewer than 6,400 children, actually received aid through the state.
• In a recent survey, 25% of parents reported having to switch jobs or move from full-time to part-time work due to childcare responsibilities. As a result, New Hampshire companies lose up to $24 million per year in childcare-related absenteeism (Wallner, 1998).