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For a month, Stephanie Torres has been phoning and filing paperwork, trying to get state help to keep her daughter in a Glendale, Ariz., day care center.
The single working mom says she can't foot the $115 weekly day care bill on her $14-an-hour part-time office job.

Arizona has rejected her application, one of thousands of denials as the state reduces day care subsidies for low-income working parents.

"People like me, we're struggling," Torres says. "Take something else away, not child care. It's so crucial."

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As budget problems worsen, states are tightening rules for subsidies, eliminating enriched child care programs, raising fees that parents and providers pay, and halting new subsidies.

"The real impact of these cuts is on families," says William Eddy, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Early Education and Care. "Parents are forced to find makeshift care, one day with a neighbor, one day with an aunt, in order to get to work."

At least nine states have growing waiting lists for subsidies, says Helen Blank, director of leadership and public policy with the National Women's Law Center.

"It's a fragile system," says Blank, who tracked state child care subsidies in a report last month. She says states are having to "make choices in terms of who you help, what you pay providers and what you charge parents."

States use federal and state funds to help low-income working parents pay for child care. Without aid, child care costs normally range from $4,000 to $14,000 a year, says Eric Karolak, executive director of the Early Care and Education Consortium in Washington, D.C.