Welfare reform efforts have been based on crucial assumption: single mothers moving off of AFDC and into the work force will be able to find affordable child care. Two parallel studies of child care supply and its distribution across rich and poor communities inform the debate over child-care availability. In the first study, data from 100 counties nationwide were analyzed to ascertain the differences in preschool availability per child, and multivariate models were constructed to identify factors that influence sharp variation in child-care supply. Findings revealed uneven distribution of child-care supply across regions of the country and local communities. Factors that contribute to these disparities include affluence and education of parents, and family preferences and patterns of expressed demand. The second study analyzed data similar to those of the first study from 368 smaller communities in Massachusetts, including neighborhoods with high concentrations of families on welfare and single-parent households. Findings revealed that targeting welfare benefits to low-income neighborhoods has spurred greater child care availability. Yet, working-class and middle-income communities and those with greater shares of single-parent families still display lower levels of child-care availability than wealthier communities; and providers tend to respond to demands of highly educated parents for more preschooling by raising supply in their affluent communities. The primary policy implication arising from these studies is the need to target resources to help equalize child care access. (BAC)