THE UNFORTUNATE REALITY is that The Journal’s Aug. 10 story “Who’ll watch the children?”— about the Reyes family — could have been written about some slightly better-paid family at any time before the Rhode Island General Assembly’s recent changes to child-care subsidies. On pace to earn $44,702 this year, Juan and Dismery Reyes of South Providence are $1,268 beyond the new maximum income for a family of five to participate in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program, which is now $43,434, or 180 percent of the poverty level. Previously, the formula allowed 225 percent, or $54,293 for such families.

For some standard of judgment, consider that Rhode Island’s median household income was $47,037 in 2004 (according to the U.S. Census Bureau); in Providence County, it was $40,284. Fairness to the Reyeses requires clarification that a 2005 estimate puts the median income for Rhode Island families of their size at $75,082. But fairness to the Rhode Island taxpayer requires a reminder that parents are responsible for the number of children they have.

As a treading-water father of three myself, I’m not inclined to fault Juan and Dismery for their choices in that regard. The question to which we must return, however, is what constitutes a fair maximum for public assistance, and the reality is that child-care funding for this particular family amounts to subsidization of their three-bedroom house.

That is not a reasonable expectation of a state with Rhode Island’s financial troubles.

Of course, nobody wishes for hard-working citizens to lose their homes, and there are steps that we could take to make that outcome less likely.

Juan “takes home” about $250 a week, which suggests that he’s earning around Rhode Island’s minimum wage of $7.40 an hour. To make up for the lost handout, Mr. Reyes could choose the not uncommon option of working more than a 40-hour week; he could also switch careers, taking on work that would pay more at the outset and offer greater opportunity to advance than factory work.

For its part, the public could enact policies to reduce the supply of low-skilled workers. One part of the solution would be to target illegal aliens and to increase penalties for hiring them. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Rhode Islanders employ 20,000 to 40,000 illegal immigrants, and their outside-the-system presence can’t do otherwise than pull down wages. Policies could also be reformed to decrease the state’s attractiveness to low-skilled, high-cost citizens.

In addition to decreasing the size of the workforce, Rhode Island could strive to grow the demand for workers. Paring down regulations, fees and taxes that frighten away or restrain businesses would help. So would attracting consumers. Dismery Reyes works in retail, so she would benefit directly were the state to lower its sales tax to a percentage apt to bring out-of-staters across the border and encourage Rhode Islanders not to travel in the other direction for their own shopping. A lower sales tax would also help the Reyes family on the cost side of the ledger.

Turning to the cost that specifically threatens to overwhelm the Reyes family, child-care services needn’t be so high. As well intentioned as the slate of certifications, inspections, requirements and restrictions might be, their cumulative effect is to push the price of child care beyond the level at which lower-income families will find the expense worth the opportunity to work.

Easing regulations would also help us to remember that we are capable of private action. If those 1,500 families that will now be left without child-care assistance were given the freedom to forgo some of the securities currently imposed on the child-care industry — from the maximum number of children to fire-code inspections to hours of annual provider training and CPR certification — then they could more easily join together with church groups or neighborhood associations to the benefit of everybody involved.

The Reyes family is no longer on the winning end of Rhode Island’s system of overburdening productive citizens to be overly generous to those who have been less fortunate, less wise, or less industrious. Juan and Dismery now face the choice that has left better-paid families gasping against the waves: Find some way to stay afloat in this sinking state or leave. The powers that be could give motivated families an opportunity to do the former by implementing change quickly, rather than allowing only piecemeal dilution of endemic corruption and ill-advised socialism. Unfortunately, the slow, painful route appears inevitable, given the vested interests, and the hard-luck stories will only migrate up and down the income ladder.

Justin Katz, an occasional contributor, is administrator of anchorrising.com, a public-policy-discussion Web site.