Using Administrative Records to Evaluate Child Care Expense Reporting Among Child Care Subsidy Recipients

Kathryn Shantz , U.S. Census Bureau
Liana Fox, U.S. Census Bureau

Policy leaders look to quality data and statistics to help inform and guide programmatic decisions. As a result, assessing the quality and validity of major household surveys in capturing accurate information is essential. One method for evaluating survey quality is to compare self-reported information in surveys to administrative records. Using federal case-level administrative records from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) program, we can examine how self-reported child care expenses in the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) compare to reported copayments for families participating in CCDF. In this paper, we are interested in how closely self-reported child care expenses in the CPS ASEC align with CCDF administrative records for families receiving subsidized child care.

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 Presented in Session 3. Population, Development, & the Environment; Data & Methods; Applied Demography