According to the National Center  for Child in Poverty, (http://nccp.org/publications/pub_971.html )   24% of children under three years old live in families earning less than the federal poverty level ($22,050 a year for a family of four.) and 42% of children under three live in families that are considered low income (below 200% of the FPL).   The percentage of infants and toddlers living in low-income families (both poor and near poor) has been on the rise – increasing from 42 percent in 2000 to 46 percent in 2009. During this time period, the overall number of the very youngest children (children under age 3) increased by 10 percent while the number who were low-income and poor increased by 21 percent and 41 percent, respectively. This upward trend in low-income and poor children follows on the heels of a decade of decline in the 1990s.  Children’s poverty levels are, not surprisingly, very dependent on their parent’s employment status.

• 29 % of infants and toddlers with at least one parent who works full-time, year-round – 2.4 million – live in low-income families.
• 73 % of infants and toddlers with at least one parent who works part-time or part-year – 2.1 million – live in low-income families.
• 88 % of infants and toddlers with no employed parents – 1.4 million – live in low-income families.

It is a vicious cycle.  Diapers can command a sizeable portion of a family’s budget.  A healthy infant requires about 8-10 diapers a day, and a healthy toddler requires about 6-8.  Parents without transportation to a grocery store or “big box” discount store must rely on convenience stores, where disposable diapers and diapering supplies can cost $ 120 per child per month (or some $1440 per year).  When a parent works 40 hours a week and is paid the federally-required minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, the bill for diapers is nearly ten percent of a monthly gross salary of about $1256.

A recent survey of mothers found that 4% of mothers have cut back on child care because they could not afford diapers.^[1] The same study found that in families where obtaining sufficient diapers is a struggle, 22% of mothers have stayed home with their child even though they were supposed to be somewhere else because they did not have enough diapers.^[2]

Most day care centers, including free and subsidized facilities, will not admit a child who arrives without a sufficient supply of diapers.  Parents who cannot leave their children with a day care provider cannot attend work or school.  Because federal law also requires parents receiving assistance to work or attend training, parents on assistance without access to day care are at risk of losing federal support.   The child suffers, the parents suffer, and the community suffers, all for the want of a diaper.

This fact is recognized by the Federal Government through its Early Head Start program.  Early Head Start Program Instructions provided that “All center-based programs, consistent with the requirements of 45 CFR § 1304.53(b), are expected to provide whatever diapers are needed by the child during the part of the day that the child is at the Early Head Start/Head Start center. Parents may not be required to provide diapers for their enrolled child nor may parents be charged a fee for the costs incurred by the program in providing diapers to children that need them.”

See Administration for Children and Families Program Instruction, ACF-PI-HS-09-03, “ Provision of Diapers”, March 10, 2009.

No federal assistance program directly addresses diaper needs.

Needy families cannot buy diapers with either WIC vouchers or food stamps. WIC [the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children] is administered by the USDA and covers nutrition only. Thus, it provides funding for food containing nutrients particularly beneficial to small children and their expectant and nursing mothers.  But it doesn’t cover diapers. Likewise, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”) can be used for many types of food, but cannot be used for non-food items like diapers.

There is no restriction on using unrestricted TANF [Temporary Assistance to Needy Families] funding on diapers. However, the amount of funding available to families is not enough for a family to absorb the cost of diapers in addition to the other necessities the very small amount of money must cover. As reported in the Temporary Assistance to Family, Eighth Annual Report to Congress (2009) (“TANF Report”), “States are now spending considerable proportions of their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds on families who receive benefits and services other than traditional assistance.” TANF Report, at 67. The traditional assistance received does not amount to enough that diapers would be an insignificant expense. “Of TANF families, 99.5 percent received cash and cash equivalent assistance, with an average monthly amount of $372. . . . Some TANF families who were not employed received other forms of assistance such as child care, transportation and other supportive services. … Less than one in every five TANF families had non-TANF income. The average monthly amount of non-TANF income was $587 per family.”