Glossary — Childcare

These are the jargon, acronyms, and constructs a non-expert hits in the Childcare whitepaper. Use this as a reading companion; the filing remains the source of truth.

• Workforce constraint
  The binding limit this filing names: educator headcount and pay, not the ability of Congress to appropriate dollars.
• Universal childcare
  Coverage designs for ages 0–12 (or a stated band) that treat access as a system goal rather than a residual means-tested program.
• CCDF
  Child Care and Development Fund — the main federal block-grant/subsidy architecture states administer.
• Take-up
  The share of eligible families who actually enroll; gaps here break cost models that assume full participation.
• Staffing ratios / FTE
  Licensed adult-to-child requirements that translate coverage targets into millions of educator positions.
• Market-rate survey
  State price surveys used to set subsidy reimbursement ceilings — often lagging real provider costs.
• Childcare desert
  Geography where licensed slots are scarce relative to young children; a supply map, not a funding slogan.
• 0–3 vs pre-K vs school-age
  Age bands with different labor pools, ratios, and facility needs — conflating them hides the hard segment.
• DoD / military child care
  The U.S. precedent the filing cites for retaining educators by paying competitively.
• Byrd rule / reconciliation
  Senate procedure that can carry financing but strips policy mandates — instrument choice is the pass-through.
• Quebec / Germany / NYC precedents
  National and large-city programs used as evidence that funding ahead of workforce produces queues or price effects.
• Sequencing
  Pay workforce first, build supply second, extend benefits third — the filing's feasibility order.

Scope note: docs/glossary-scope.md. Challenge a definition: [email protected].