This hypothesis-generating study of New York, Michigan and California social services for children attempts to assess the adequacy of Title XX social service programs, the WIC (women, infants and children) feeding program, and the EPSDT (early periodic screening, diagnosis and treatment) program. Data were obtained through literature searches, analysis of government documents, and interviews with government service providers, legislative aides, and consumers of services. Initial conclusions from work in progress are: (1) In the field of children's social services, data compilation is approximately 20 years behind the state of the art for education, and basic data on services provided is not collected for submission to state or federal authorities in any standard format on a recurring basis; (2) From the limited data available, the access of children to quantity and quality in social service programs varies enormously within states, with much larger variations than those discovered in the public financing of education even before the recent school finance reform movement (1968-1978); (3) Federal allocations to states for social service programs comprise a substantial proportion of state Title XX budgets; for several reasons, there is not the same degree of accountability for these funds as for federal education grants; and (4) In all three states Title XX state allocations to localities are purported to be based on need, but closer examination of the formulae and interviews with policy makers revealed that Title XX allocations are determined primarily by political criteria. (Author/RH)