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childcare
'Outrageous and Backwards': Trump Officials Plot Raid on Childcare Funds Amid Affordability Crisis
"Raiding an underfunded program solely to score culture war points is not pro-family—it’s a wasteful grift that I will fight every step of the way," said Sen. Patty Murray.
Sep 09, 2026
The top Democratic appropriator in the US Senate responded with alarm and outrage on Tuesday to news that the Trump administration is preparing a rule change that would siphon federal dollars away from a chronically underfunded program that helps working-class parents afford childcare.
The diverted funds would be used to finance a new federal subsidy for "married couples with one stay-at-home parent in certain income brackets," The New York Times reported late last week. The proposed change, a top priority of Vice President JD Vance, is "outrageous and backwards," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday. Murray argued it would be illegal and immoral for the administration to shift taxpayer money away from the Child Care and Development Fund, which serves around 1 million families nationwide in a typical month.
"It’s not the 1950s in America—our government shouldn’t punish people for being single parents or choosing not to marry," said Murray. "Nobody cares what JD Vance thinks constitutes a ‘real’ family—single parents and parents who aren’t married pay taxes, too. Raiding an underfunded program solely to score culture war points is not pro-family—it’s a wasteful grift that I will fight every step of the way.”
The Times reported that "the policy change would effectively create a government incentive for parents to stay home with their children, an idea embraced as part of a broader conservative effort to advance policies that promote more mothers staying at home." Unmarried couples with one stay-at-home parent would not qualify for the newly proposed subsidy.
"The move could end up redirecting money away from working parents and their childcare providers, causing some to raise their rates or even close, critics said, potentially worsening what many experts say is a childcare crisis in the country," the newspaper added. "About 80% of the 870,000 families who currently get the childcare subsidies have single working parents, most of them mothers, according to Health Department data."
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), House Democrats' top appropriator, said in a statement that "supporting stay-at-home parents should never come at the expense of working families."
“At a time when families are already struggling to find and afford childcare, this proposal would force more parents to compete for the same inadequate pot of money, threaten childcare providers, and disproportionately hurt single working parents, most of whom are mothers," said DeLauro, "If Republicans want to support families, they should join Democrats in passing the expanded Child Tax Credit and increasing access to affordable childcare—not rob Peter to pay Paul while imposing their preferred definition of what a family should look like."
Childcare costs—which run many families tens of thousands of dollars per year—are a major concern of US voters. One recent survey found that more than 80% see childcare costs as part of the nation's broader affordability crisis, and 76% view them as "a crisis or major problem" for families with young children.
But the Trump administration has so far done nothing to lower childcare costs—and has taken steps that could raise them and deny low-income families badly needed relief.
Earlier this year, roughly a month after launching his costly and destructive war on Iran, President Donald Trump suggested that the federal government should not provide any funding for childcare.
"We’re fighting wars," the president said. "We can’t take care of daycare. You gotta let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too."
Amy Matsui, vice president for childcare and income security at the National Women’s Law Center, said it is "outrageous that the administration would propose siphoning money away from families who are struggling to afford childcare to send cash to married couples with a stay-at-home parent, when hundreds of thousands of families are on childcare waiting lists around the country."
"If this administration really wanted to support families," Matsui added, "it would invest more—not less—dollars in childcare, create a national paid family and medical leave program, expand access to a fully refundable Child Tax Credit, and restore health care and nutrition assistance."
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I Spent 32 Years Caring for Children and I Still Can't Afford to Retire—I'm Not Alone
The work that our families run on often happens where no one can see it. This Labor Day, as midterms near, I'm thinking about what it will take for the people who do that work—and the people who depend on it—to finally be counted.
Sep 07, 2026
What does it say about this country when you can work for more than 40 years and still can’t afford to stop?
I am 66 years old and have spent over 30 years caring for children across the South. When 2024 drew to a close, I tried to retire. I thought I had put in enough time to set myself free from the labor of surviving this economy.
But, as I worried, I couldn't afford it. The price of everything was increasing, including bread, and I realized I had no choice but to return to work within six months of my retirement.
You can tell workers like me that we should have saved more, planned better, chosen a better path toward our retirement. But here’s the problem many domestic and care workers encounter: You cannot save money you never had. When wages barely cover housing, groceries, medicine, and everything else life throws at you, retirement is less like a plan and more like a luxury. In 2025 (the year I was supposed to be retired), early educators had a median wage of $34,980. Other domestic workers, like house cleaners make an estimated median wage of $34,650, and home care workers in 2025 had a median annual income of $22,429. These wages reflect the reality that domestic workers overall are three times as likely to live in poverty as other workers.
With seven children and 18 grandchildren, I do not want another generation of women in my family to inherit a country’s economy where caring for others means giving up their own security.
I come from a legacy of domestic workers. My grandmother, Big Momma, was a Certified Nursing Assistant. My mother was a housekeeper. I became a childcare worker. Three generations of Black women in my family have cared for other people.
We are part of a much longer history, and that is why this work has never paid what it should.
In 1881, 20 Black laundresses organized a movement that grew to nearly 3,000 members and won better wages after striking. Nearly a century later, Dorothy Bolden organized domestic workers across this same city and founded the National Domestic Workers Union of America. Bolden understood that better working conditions and civic power went hand in hand and even made voter registration part of the strategy to organize domestic workers.
When this country finally wrote basic protections into law, such as the right to organize, a minimum wage, and a path to retirement, domestic workers and farmworkers were left out of these protections. That was intentional. Much of that work was done by Black women in the South; leaving it unprotected was no accident. A multigenerational legacy later, we are still living with the consequences these gaps created.
It’s why a person can care for children for over 32 years and still not be able to afford to retire. We didn’t fail to plan; our work was just kept out of sight and out of the protections other workers won.
For most of my career as a childcare worker, children knew me as Miss Cathy. If one of them came to me crying because they were being bullied or something was wrong, I would tell them, "Miss Cathy is going to get to the bottom of it." And trust that Miss Cathy always did.
I adore my work and the children I care for. But loving your work should not require sacrificing your own security.
Or your health.
I have Graves’ disease—a disease that is twice as likely to impact Black women—and often, we face delayed diagnoses and advanced symptoms because of healthcare disparities. For years, I managed it by going to quick clinics when I could afford them and, most of the time, went without care when I couldn't. It was ironic: I was spending my days making sure other people's children were cared for while struggling to afford consistent care for myself. It was not until I turned 65 and qualified for Medicare that I finally had access to health coverage. And even that coverage is at risk.
But this essay is not meant to share all of the challenges I face in care work. No, I am writing this to emphasize that I am no longer the exception. We, as working-class people, have become the rule.
Across the United States, retirement is slipping out of reach for working people of every kind. Wages have not kept up with the cost of the roof over our heads, a simple doctor's visit, a full grocery cart, or care of any kind. More and more people are working into their late 60s, 70s, even 80s, not because they want to, but because stopping simply is not an option. For me, I work until God tells me to stop. The insecurity I’ve referenced has always shadowed domestic workers, and now it’s reaching the rest of the working class. My story reflects the lives of so many working people.
But domestic workers are building a constituency around care: domestic workers, family caregivers, parents, and everyone who understands that care is not some niche issue. It is part of whether a family can afford to live and whether the people who provide that care can afford to grow old, in my case, preferably with a crisp beverage on a beautiful beach.
The economy and affordability are on people's minds. It’s the only thing that’s on my mind. My bank account tells me that things are expensive.
For Black women like me, the right to be heard was never simple. Our grandmothers cleaned other people's homes and were told their voice did not matter in their own country. My father, who raised my siblings and me in 1960s Memphis, taught us that sitting out of the civic process was not optional; he refused to be invisible, and engaging with elected officials was a way to ensure that.
And it is not only domestic workers who have a stake in this. Every family with childcare needs, every person with an aging parent or disabled loved one at home, all of us who will need care someday—we all deeply depend on this work. When we make that care visible, when we insist that it be counted and prioritized, we are looking out for one another.
I want the people in elected office to hear that childcare lets parents go to work, that home care lets people live with dignity, and that we, the people who do that work, should be able to retire from it one day.
Domestic workers are more than our labor. We are neighbors, parents, and grandparents.
With seven children and 18 grandchildren, I do not want another generation of women in my family to inherit a country’s economy where caring for others means giving up their own security.
My grandmother cared for people. My mother cared for people. I spent 32 years caring for children. We have done our part.
This Labor Day, I want the people who represent us—and the country we have spent our lives caring for—to show us they will do theirs.
And if they don't, Miss Cathy is going to get to the bottom of it.
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New York’s Childcare Expansion Could Redefine Early Education
The question is not only how many seats we create, but what those seats make possible and whether we are willing and able to build the systems needed to sustain them.
Aug 22, 2026
Imagine 2-year-old Malek, growing up in an Arabic-speaking home, entering childcare for the first time. At home, language carries feeling, memory, and family connection. In care, it may be the first time he learns that only one language is recognized and that the other must stay behind. As New York City expands care for 2-year-olds, the public conversation has largely centered on key logistics: seats, speed to implementation, and salaries for home-based providers. Another fundamental question is how this expansion will shape children’s relationships to language, community, and belonging, especially for multilingual families whose experience with formal education is associated with estrangement from their home culture and language.
For decades, growing up with more than one language was wrongly framed as a deficit; it was once described as “semilingualism.” A large body of research has documented the social, communicative, and educational benefits of multilingualism, including stronger connections to family and community, and broader cultural and economic opportunities. The evidence is clear: Multilingualism is an asset, not a liability, supporting not only how children learn, connect, and participate in the world, but also adding to their professional pathways in the future.
Anyone who works in education knows the pattern of language loss that begins when a child enters the school system. Over time, heritage languages begin to fade, a loss that is often normalized as an inevitable part of schooling and assimilation. Research, including our own, shows that heritage language attrition follows a predictable pattern when children enter settings where one language dominates socially and institutionally, causing the dominant language to expand at the expense of the other. This is not only a cultural issue; it is foundationally developmental. Sustained exposure to both languages supports more stable language development, while early shifts away from the heritage language can disrupt that balance.
In one of the most linguistically diverse cities, we continue to reproduce monolingualism despite overwhelming evidence of the benefits of multilingualism. New York City’s 2-K program, with its focus on community- and home-based providers, is significant not only for expanding access, but for reshaping how early education is experienced. These programs, and their providers, who are often members of the same community as the families, offer services that are qualitatively different from formal institutional care, offering environments where language, culture, and relationships are not separated from learning, but are its foundation. They are truly a child’s home away from home.
Taken together, the expansion of 2-K home-based care can reshape how language, culture, and education interconnect as a foundation for learning.
In home-based settings, children are more likely to hear and use multiple languages in meaningful, everyday interactions with caregivers and children across ages. Care is organized around relationships and participation, rather than standardized expectations of academic performance. These are not incidental features. They are developmental conditions that support how language is sustained, how children come to belong, and how communities reproduce themselves across generations.
If supported intentionally with professional development opportunities, mentorship, and resources, these community environments could play a critical role in addressing one of the most persistent and overlooked challenges in US education: the systematic erosion of heritage languages beginning in early childhood. One proven way to enhance language development in home-based settings is strengthening the quality of adult-child interactions. In a randomized controlled trial we conducted in linguistically diverse communities, we found that babies in home-based child care vocalized far more when their providers used a program designed to strengthen relationships than did babies in the control group. We also found that the program led to reductions in background noise (such as television and other electronic sounds).
Together, these transformations in the babies’ language environment point to a simple lesson: When caregivers are intentionally supported in building warmer, more responsive interaction patterns, children’s language environments improve in measurable ways. This matters because early language development lays the groundwork for school and lifelong success. Providers can be supported to embed language-rich emotionally responsive interactions across home and care settings, and to facilitate collaboration between families and early learning environments. This potential will not realize itself; it requires deliberate investment.
In addition, home-based settings may address a critical gap in New York’s Early Intervention (EI) system. EI under federal law, is intended to provide support early in a child’s life, before small differences become larger barriers. Each state defines its own criteria. In New York, children with mild delays in a single developmental area, such as communication, often do not qualify for services. The result is inequity: Families with resources turn to private providers, while others must wait until delays become severe enough to meet eligibility thresholds. What is intended as early intervention becomes, in practice, delayed access.
Language can also be supported through family-centered approaches that sustain bilingual exposure when designed from a strengths-based perspective. In our work with Arab American families in New York, this meant creating community-based spaces where parents strengthened their children’s bilingual language use and their own sense of belonging, along with a renewed commitment to bilingualism, and greater confidence in navigating and engaging with public institutions such as libraries and educational spaces. In clinical treatment settings, birth-to-five therapists strive to provide both treatment and supervision in the home languages; it is simply best practice.
As early care becomes more widely available for younger children, providers in these settings are increasingly positioned to notice differences in children’s development, support social participation, and guide families toward resources. This requires ongoing professional support, not only in developmental frameworks, but in approaches that are culturally grounded, transdisciplinary, inclusive, and evidence-based. This means building an interprofessional, holistic, and community-based system of care that brings speech-language pathologists, early childhood educators, mental health professionals, and other healthcare providers to work alongside home-based caregivers and families collaboratively as partners embedded in the same communities.
Evidence from community-based programs shows that when caregivers are supported in building responsive, relational environments, children’s communication skills increase. They grow not through more instruction, but through more meaningful engagement. The question, then, is not only how many seats we create, but what those seats make possible and whether we are willing and able to build the systems needed to sustain them. Home-based providers are already embedded in the communities they serve, often sharing language, culture, and lived experience with families. With intentional and focused support, they will be uniquely positioned to sustain children’s languages, relationships, and development. Without it, expansion risks reproducing the very inequities it seeks to address.
Taken together, the expansion of 2-K home-based care can reshape how language, culture, and education interconnect as a foundation for learning. This direction challenges approaches that pathologize differences and individualize the effects of poverty. It offers a possibility we can realize in New York, where children thrive without giving up who they are, and systems, not families, are accountable.
For Malek, this means entering childcare without being pulled away from his language, home, and identity. Arabic does not stop at the classroom door; it lives in caregivers’ voices and neighborhood interactions. His mother is not measured against narrow expectations of “engagement,” but recognized as a partner in his learning through everyday interactions grounded in their culture. She is not positioned as lacking. Malek does not have to choose between belonging and opportunity because he grows within both.
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The Lie at the Heart of Modern Motherhood
Modern motherhood has become obsessed with one word: choice. But a choice made under duress is no choice at all.
Aug 22, 2026
Mothers are seemingly given endless choices: to work or be a stay-at-home mom. Sleep train or not, breastfeed or bottle-feed. The list is endless.
But true choice only exists when the options are genuinely possible. For millions of mothers around the world, they aren't.
Reshma Saujani’s recent documentary, No Country for Mothers, has reignited a conversation about what it means to be a mother in a society that was never designed to support it. As clear evidence of this, more than 400,000 mothers of young children have left the US workforce, the steepest decline in 40 years. While Saujani’s documentary focuses on the United States, the friction it exposes is global.
There is a design flaw at the heart of modern motherhood:
Rather than judging mothers for these choices, we need to create a society that better supports them.
Our economies rely on the assumption of an uninterrupted worker, and our families rely on the expectation of an endlessly available mother.
We have witnessed this firsthand, as the founders of Kidogo Childcare Centres and Maziwa Breastfeeding, working alongside low-income mothers in Kenya, and as women who have confronted these tough choices ourselves.
Many of the mothers we work with either work informally, receiving sporadic daily income, or are living from paycheck to paycheck. For them, returning to work is not about ambition or professional identity. It is the only way they can feed their families. A few weeks without income can push a family onto the street.
However, if a mother is compelled to return to work, how is her child adequately cared for and fed?
Globally, the World Bank estimates 350 million children below primary school age need childcare but do not have access to it. Similarly, optimal breastfeeding could prevent more than 820,000 child deaths every single year and countless cases of serious illnesses, but working mothers are not supported to maintain breastfeeding.
Unfortunately, in the contexts we work in, maternity leave, safe and affordable childcare, lactation rooms, and breastfeeding breaks are nonexistent. Yet, when a child is left in unsuitable care or weaned off of breastmilk prematurely, we shift the blame to the mother—rather than the system that has failed her.
Society cannot expect mothers to work and then treat childcare and breastfeeding as a private burden for each woman to solve alone.
As female entrepreneurs, we face these impossible choices personally as well: Sabrina, feeling like she has missed out on early childhood development milestones for her own daughter, ironically while building the largest childcare network in Kenya; and Sahar, freezing her eggs to delay motherhood, while launching Kenya’s first wearable breast pump to allow mothers to balance working and breastfeeding.
Time and time again, we see these trade-offs play out: If a mother is working, she needs to find safe and adequate care. If she stays home, she must absorb the income loss. If she breastfeeds, she must do so without support, time, space, or privacy. If she cannot breastfeed, she is made to feel like she has failed.
When all these expectations collide, we call it choice. But for many mothers, it is not a choice at all. It is a system asking them to do the impossible.
Rather than confronting this friction directly, we often turn mothers against one another. The "trad wife" and the "girl boss" are presented as opposing ideals. Breastfeeding and formula feeding become moral tribes. Stay-at-home mothers and working mothers are asked to defend their choices as if one woman’s path invalidates another’s.
This reduces structural failures into identity camps. These divisions are not accidental. They distract us from the systems that create these impossible choices in the first place.
The choices are not being made from a place of agency—nor are they taken lightly. There is an immense amount of motherhood guilt with every decision. Rather than judging mothers for these choices, we need to create a society that better supports them.
To be sure, progress has been made to better support motherhood in some countries. For example, Sweden offers 480 days of parental leave with 80% of pay. However, across the globe, women's participation in the workforce is rising faster than the policies needed to support working mothers.
No Country for Mothers has clearly highlighted how mothers have been “failed by economic policies, workplace structures, political agendas, and cultural narratives that were never designed to support caregiving or family life.”
The impossible choices mothers face are the symptom, not the cause. Rather than expecting mothers to solve structural failures through individual sacrifice, we need our systems to adapt to motherhood.
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'A Slap in the Face to Moms and Dads': GOP Blocks Attempt to Stop Trump From Raising Childcare Costs
"If Trump had simply done nothing... some of these families would have ended up saving as much as $15,000 a year," said Sen. Patty Murray.
Jul 31, 2026
In what Democratic Sen. Patty Murray described as a “slap in the face to moms and dads,” Republicans have blocked her proposed resolution to restore a rule that could have saved low-income parents thousands of dollars per year on childcare before the Trump administration axed it.
Under a rule that went into effect earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rescinded a Biden-era rule that capped families’ copayments at 7% of their household income for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which helps about 994,000 low-income families pay for childcare so parents can work, attend school, or participate in job training.
The program is administered at the state level, and under the abandoned rule that was enacted in 2024, all states were required to begin phasing in the 7% cap, which is considered a federal affordability benchmark.
Under the Trump policy change, states will not be required to cap parents' copayments as long as they continue to use a sliding scale based on income level and don't present a "barrier” to receiving assistance, though it's not specified what that means.
As of March 2026, 19 states had not lowered their maximum copayment to 7%.
An April analysis by the Center for American Progress found that, by eliminating the federal cap, families in 10 states that have not enacted it would lose between $450 and more than $15,000 in potential annual savings, depending on how high their state sets the threshold.
In Ohio, which caps copayments at 27% of household income, families could lose up to $15,482 in annual savings under the maximum copayment. In Vermont, which caps copayments at 14.9% of household income, families could lose up to $11,712.
(Graphic from the Center for American Progress)
Murray (D-Wash), the former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), introduced a resolution last month under the Congressional Review Act, which would have nullified the administration's elimination of the 7% cap.
It also would have restored other Biden-era requirements that were reversed under the same rule, including requirements that states pay childcare providers based on enrollment rather than attendance, pay them in advance, and use grants and contracts to fund childcare for infants, children with disabilities, and those in underserved communities.
In a speech on the Senate floor before the resolution came to a procedural vote on Thursday, she told her colleagues bluntly, “You are either voting to lower childcare costs or to increase them.”
She challenged the senators who planned to vote against the resolution to “go home and tell the parents in your state you voted to raise their childcare bill,” adding that “you cannot call yourself pro-family while voting to make it more expensive to raise one.”
In a party-line vote on Friday, the bill was blocked from advancing by a margin of 52-47, with every Republican voting against it except for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is absent after being hospitalized in June.
After the vote failed, Murray described it as an example of Republicans taking money away from American families struggling to afford the basics of life while pushing for lavish spending on war and tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
“How about instead of a $1.5 trillion war budget, we make sure every working family in America can afford childcare?” Murray said. “If Trump had simply done nothing, and left the 7% cap in place, some of these families would have ended up saving as much as $15,000 a year for their family.”
According to a Century Foundation analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, childcare costs increased by 5% from August 2024 to August 2025 and now average more than $13,000 per child per year across age groups.
Trump has been surprisingly open about the fact that, under his control, and in direct contrast with his campaign promises, the federal government is prioritizing spending on his war in Iran instead of providing government subsidies for Americans’ basic needs, including daycare.
"We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare," he said during a speech in April. "You gotta let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too. It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”
“Trump says we can’t afford childcare. But he is wrong,” said Murray, who has co-introduced legislation to expand federal childcare subsidies and cover nearly all costs for low-income families. “The truth is we can’t afford to ignore childcare.”
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When Parents Got Loud, Newsom Had to Listen, But More Still Must Be Done
Funding childcare is the difference between realized dreams and delayed futures.
Jul 25, 2026
As California's final state budget has been signed and Gov. Gavin Newsom prepares to leave office, we can’t help but look at the impact of childcare funding on families. To build a future, we must look at the present and past.
Ours is a tale of two families. We are both mothers and parent leaders with Parent Voices—Carmen in Marin and Marilynda in Los Angeles. This year, we both attended the 30th annual Parent Voices CA Stand for Children Day, where we joined hundreds of parents, children, and childcare providers to say something simple and urgent: Children matter. Together, we testified at the State Capitol until the final lap to the signing of the final state budget—to remind lawmakers: Superheroes Choose Kids, Not Billionaires!
We are similar in so many ways, but when it comes to access to childcare, we learned there is a disconnect in state policy across counties.
Imagine a state where every child has access to care from birth, where no parent has to choose between working and staying home, and where no child spends years on a waiting list.
I, Marilynda, was living in a homeless shelter when I was pregnant with my first child. I was fortunate to get off the waiting list for a childcare voucher. Because of that, I was able to get through graduate school, work, hold an internship, and earn my Master of Social Work. My daughter, Serenity, is learning, socializing, and growing, and we wouldn’t be where we are without that childcare.
I, Carmen, saw my oldest son age out of eligibility for a childcare voucher after more than 10 years stuck on the childcare waitlist. Years later, my two daughters gained access to childcare when Newsom added new childcare spaces, and today they are thriving. But now, my youngest son, Dyson, is stuck on the waitlist because the state has not expanded childcare since 2023. I don’t have reliable care for him; I can’t work more hours because I can’t leave him, which hurts my ability to provide for my family.
Our stories make it clear: Funding childcare is the difference between realized dreams and delayed futures. No childcare means lost wages for many California families.
Newsom once recognized that waiting is a policy failure. He made a promise to expand childcare, and that promise gave families hope. But then the promise was delayed. Newsom's May revision of the state budget did not provide enough to reach 200,000 new childcare spaces. It will leave more than 77,000 families remaining on what is now known as the "No Hope” childcare waitlist.
So, we advocated. We put pressure on Gov. Newsom to get closer to fulfilling his promise to childcare. He announced 130,000 childcare spaces, much closer to the 200,000 than originally proposed.
Compromises were made. But more must be done when there are thousands of eligible children stuck on the “No Hope” waitlist.
We teach our kids to keep their word. Why should we expect anything less from our governor?
At the same time, childcare educators will receive a 2% cost of living adjustment while TK-12 teachers get 4.31%. The first five years of a child's development are among the most critical, yet the educators who show up for those years are already the lowest paid and getting less than half the investment. That’s a reminder that childcare providers continue to be disrespected in budget decisions.
We have to ask a hard question: What kind of world are we building for our children?
Imagine if the billions lost to incarceration and tax cuts for corporations were invested in universal childcare instead.
Implementing universal childcare and properly supporting the industry is the solution to the affordability crisis. It unlocks opportunities for parents like us to work, pursue education, pay bills, and afford essentials like gas and food. If care becomes available for every family, the future will brighten for all families.
Imagine a state where every child has access to care from birth, where no parent has to choose between working and staying home, and where no child spends years on a waiting list.
This is not out of reach. It is about priorities.
The State has the money. But the commitment to invest in childcare has fallen short.
Will the next governor get closer to fulfilling the promise to fund childcare for all families?
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Why 'Are You Going to Let Strangers Raise Your Baby?' Is the Wrong Question
What we should be asking is what would actually help families raise their children in the ways that work best for them. Unfortunately, the current administration isn't providing the answers.
Jun 09, 2026
Years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child, I called my mother in a panic: I had been trying to find a childcare spot for when I planned to go back to work. But every childcare center I called had a waiting list of at least a year. I was distraught. Then my mom suddenly cut me off and asked, “Are you going to have strangers raising your baby?”
Her question stopped me short. And yet, it was also nonsensical. I was a couple of years out of law school, and had just started a career that I loved. My husband and I had mountains of student loan debt. There was no way we could afford for one of us not to work. And we lived 3,000 miles away from my parents. The only choice for us, really, was to put our daughter in childcare.
I was reminded of that moment recently when, during a news conference, Alex Adams, who leads the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the US Department of Health and Human Services, bemoaned that childcare policies in the US limit parental choices and undervalue “mothers staying home with their children during their earliest years.” This follows reporting that Adams wants a “bonfire of regulations” around childcare, and recent actions by ACF that will increase childcare costs for families and financial challenges for childcare providers. As I listened, I realized that Adams is proposing the wrong answer, just as my mother was asking me the wrong question 23 years ago. What we should be asking is what would actually help families raise their children in the ways that work best for them.
The truth is that our country is not set up to give families real choices, then or now. Families can’t survive on one salary because wages have stagnated, with the federal minimum wage frozen at a measly $7.25 for over two decades. The costs of living are skyrocketing out of reach for an increasing number of families. We are one of only a handful of countries that do not offer paid family and medical leave. Our childcare system has been chronically underfunded to the point of crisis, with families unable to access or afford care, providers operating on razor-thin profit margins, and early educators earning poverty-level wages.
The policy failures that have limited families’ choices can only be fixed by making robust public investments—not by pitting families against each other.
It bears underscoring, moreover, that families’ needs vary wildly, and they want a range of options to care for their children, including having access to high quality, affordable childcare in a variety of settings. The policy failures that have limited families’ choices can only be fixed by making robust public investments—not by pitting families against each other. Cutting care supports and slashing programs that help families afford food and healthcare, as this administration has relentlessly done since last January, is only going to limit families’ choices even further.
My mother’s question still rings in my ears all these years later, even though that baby has since graduated from college. To be clear, I was startled by the question but not surprised. My mother comes from Southeast Asia. There was little care infrastructure in her country when she was young, by which I mean there was literally no alternative for caring for children, elders, and family members who are ill or have disabilities, other than family. Her grandmother took care of her when her mother was at work. That was the model in her mind.
When my parents got married and came to the United States, my dad was the breadwinner, and my mom stayed home to care for my two sisters and me (and at one point, for my grandmother while she was undergoing cancer treatment). For her, families take care of each other; there’s no other way.
Even though this administration likes to invoke a simpler, glorified past, the reality back then was more complicated, however: Part of the reason my mom stayed home with the three of us was that my parents didn’t have great options either. My mother, the first in her family to go to college, was a teacher who supported her extended family financially in her home country.
When she came to the US, her degree and teacher’s license weren’t recognized—she couldn’t have worked in her chosen profession without going back to school. For her to work outside the home, we would have needed a second car (which my parents couldn’t afford). There were even fewer childcare options then, and we didn’t live close to my dad’s family for much of my childhood—even if we had, my grandparents had their own health issues.
My mother is also quick to point out that, even though she and my dad raised three children on one salary, it was not easy. She cut our hair and made our clothes. She pretty much cooked everything from scratch, and it didn’t look anything like Ballerina Farm. She periodically watched kids in our neighborhood after school, and did some sewing to earn extra income. She traveled to visit her family only twice in 16 years, and the second time was to help care for her dying mother.
The truth of the matter is that raising young children is hard, especially in a nation that stubbornly refuses to invest in care. I am grateful that my husband and I had help, not only from exquisitely skilled and caring “strangers,” but also my parents who visited as much as they could, my in-laws who lived nearby, and friends and neighbors. To be sure, my family has had more options and flexibility and resources than many. But all families deserve choices that enable them to care for their children according to their values and needs. In order to give families real options, we must invest real dollars in care systems, communities, and in wages and benefits that allow all families to thrive.
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Trump Chose War Over Daycare
The president says we can't afford both. My neighbors are already paying the price.
Jun 03, 2026
In a single week, the Pentagon spent $11 billion destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities—the same capabilities the administration had declared "completely obliterated" just months earlier.
On Easter Sunday, President Donald Trump explained his priorities. "It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things," he said. "We have to take care of one thing: military protection."
He's right that a choice is being made. But in a democracy, we the people are the ones who are supposed to have that choice.
My neighbors didn't get one. Until recently, our children went to the same daycare, at least until prices went up by 10%. They provided several weeks notice, then phased the increase over a few weeks. For us, the raise meant $200 more per month. Our neighbors, on the other hand, had three kids in daycare.
For the Pentagon, it's bomb first, figure out the money later. For parents, the bills are due today.
The increase added up to $600 a month more than they'd been paying, so they pulled out. Two kids went to a super cheap option—more like group babysitting, really—because they were about to age out and attend free pre-K. Their youngest daughter switched to a place they didn't love, with food they didn't trust.
Overall, they were disappointed. It meant more logistics for pickup and dropoff. They felt more pressure to teach and cook healthy food for their kids. But ultimately, they didn't have a choice. Financially, this was the only way to make it work.
Millions of American families make calculations like this every day—cutting corners on childcare, food, healthcare—just to keep the math working. They do it quietly, without a press conference, without a vote.
The daycare crisis was already breaking families before the Iran war started.
The average American family pays over $13,000 a year per child—more than the average cost of in-state college tuition in many states. Waitlists stretch for months. In some counties, there are more children who need care than licensed spots available. For working parents, especially single parents, affordable daycare isn't a luxury. It's the difference between holding a job and not. And after an election fought on affordability, it was getting harder, not easier.
Economic shockwaves from the war hit immediately. Gas prices surged, adding an average of $175 (and counting) to every American driver's bill. Food prices followed. And in May, Spirit Airlines shut down entirely, citing Iran War fuel costs as the final straw—grounding a low-cost carrier that millions of working families depended on.
There are about 10.8 million US children enrolled in daycare at a national average of $13,128 per year. Collectively, parents spend roughly $390 million per day making sure their children are cared for.
The Pentagon's official tally for the war is $29 billion—almost certainly an undercount. Administration sources told CBS the real figure is closer to $50 billion. Even at their own number, that covers daycare for 2.5 months for every enrolled American child.
But the Pentagon's figure leaves out Midnight Hammer, Southern Spear, and the ongoing ceasefire costs. Harvard professor Linda Bilmes, who has spent two decades tracking the true costs of American wars, estimates the full bill could swell to over $1 trillion within a decade.
And then there's what no spreadsheet can measure. Thirteen service members killed. More than 400 wounded. Military families lend their loved ones to this country on the promise that their sacrifice means something—that the people sending them into harm's way are making choices worthy of that trust.
The daycare math suggests otherwise.
The combined price tag of Trump's wars, plus over $40 billion in extra gas costs borne by American drivers since the war began, brings the total north of $79 billion—enough to fund more than seven months of daycare for all 10.8 million enrolled children.
For the Pentagon, it's bomb first, figure out the money later. For parents, the bills are due today.
Simply put, you cannot make a meaningful choice—at the ballot box or anywhere else—when the numbers in front of you are at best incomplete and at worst deliberately misleading. And every day this war continues, Trump is deciding what your family can and can't afford.
Relief won't come in time for my neighbors. Their kids will age out of daycare before Washington does anything about it. They made the best choice they could with what they had. Most American families don't get any other kind.
Demand a vote on this war. Demand the real price tag. And in November, remember who made this choice for you.
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Providers, Parents Strike Nationwide in 'Day Without Childcare' to Demand Universal Program
"It's hard sometimes in our current political climate to imagine, but I think it's more important than ever for us to be imagining, because families cannot continue to be squeezed like this," said one advocate.
May 11, 2026
With the Trump administration announcing changes to federal childcare programs on Monday that advocates said would worsen the affordability crisis, the grassroots organizing group Community Change Action said President Donald Trump's attacks on the industry have made the push for a universal care system more urgent than ever as thousands of providers and parents joined the "Day Without Childcare" nationwide action.
"As families face a worsening affordability crisis and childcare costs are outpacing rent, providers have been shouldering the burden," said Community Change Action. "We can’t wait a second longer to create the universal childcare system we deserve—one that actually works, lifts the burden off of families and providers, and invests in our youngest generation to give them the strongest start possible."
The group said families and daycare providers are participating in at least 75 actions, including one-day center closures, across 28 states in its fifth annual Day Without Childcare (DWOCC)—an event that it said would "launch the nationwide campaign that will win universal childcare."
Events planned for Monday include a rally at the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton; a gathering of childcare providers and parents during working hours in Yakima, Washington; lobbying visits to state representatives in California; and an early closure of People's Day Care in Gary, Indiana in solidarity with programs that have had to shut down "due to Indiana's choice to not fund early care and learning."
According to Meredith Loomis Quinlan, childcare lead for Community Change Action, more than 3,000 parents and providers around the country had committed to going on strike for the day.
In January, the Trump administration initiated a funding freeze targeting all states in what it said was a response to "fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country." The attack came after a right-wing influencer posted a video of a Somali-owned daycare center in Minnesota and accused its owners of fraud at the behest of Republican lawmakers. A small number of members of the state's Somali community were charged with defrauding the state's social services system.
The White House later said it would slash $10 billion in childcare funding for five Democratic-led states—an attempt that was blocked by a federal court last month.
And as families joined childcare providers and advocates on Monday to demand universal care with fair wages for providers, Trump was announcing changes to the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) that officials said would put "parents back in charge"—but would actually eliminate a 2024 rule that capped childcare copayments at 7% of household income for low-income families, according to analysts.
Loomis Quinlan told Common Dreams that the changes to CCDF will also end requirements that "direct services be provided through grants or contracts and [will pay] childcare providers in advance for their services," as well as "requiring payment based on enrollment rather than actual attendance."
"Every one of those things is a direct attack on our childcare system," said Loomis Quinlan. "And they're trying to frame it as advancements. But it is absolutely not that. These rules are... not going to make childcare more affordable. They're not going to make sure that childcare providers are paid on time with consistency."
The administration's cuts and regulatory changes have come as families across the US are already facing rising grocery prices linked to the president's tariff policies, gas prices have surpassed $4.50 per gallon due to the US-Israeli war on Iran, and the White House's policies have worsened the already existing housing affordability crisis.
A report by Care.com found in 2024 that the average US family with young children was spending 24% of their income on childcare.
"Having this really big childcare bill for families is just untenable," Loomis Quinlan said. "And on the flip side, we know that the childcare providers are not making much in take-home pay, averaging around $14 an hour. And so they also aren't able to make ends meet."
Community Change Action emphasized that while attacking childcare centers' ability to keep their doors open, the Trump administration is also taking direct aim at many providers, more than 20% of whom are immigrants, through its mass deportation agenda. In Chicago last November, federal agents raided a daycare center and arrested a teacher in what one angry parent called an act of "domestic terrorism."
"We’ve had our funds frozen, violent armed ICE agents show up at our childrens’ safe spaces and our places of work, and our Black and Brown communities scapegoated," said the group, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "It’s time to take bold, sustained action that starts with this year’s DWOCC."
Loomis Quinlan said that while the Trump administration is waging war on the childcare sector, progressive leaders like New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani are making strides toward securing a universal childcare program for all families in the US. Mamdani joined forces with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, to fund a universal childcare program for the city earlier this year.
"We really feel like it's a moment to be clear about what families and providers need, which is a universal childcare program in this country," she told Common Dreams. "We need more investment, not less. Deregulating isn't the answer. The changes to the programs announced today by the Trump administration are not the answer. What we need, what we're organizing for today, is universal childcare."
Under the universal program proposed by the group, childcare providers would be paid "a wage that enables their own families to thrive, receive healthcare, paid leave, retirement, and other benefits, and be compensated on par with educators in their state’s K-12 system." It would also invest public resources to cover the true cost of care and professional development of the workforce, and protect against corporate profiteering.
Progressive US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has long advocated for a universal program, which he's said should be funded by taxing the wealth of the top 0.1% richest Americans.
Loomis Quinlan emphasized that once a publicly funded universal childcare system is a reality, "it's going to be so evident that this is something we always should have had in this country."
"Can you imagine what it felt like when we were setting up the K-12 public education system in this country?" she said. "People probably thought that this was just 'pie in the sky.' And here we are, we have a great public education system in this country."
"It's hard sometimes in our current political climate to imagine, but I think it's more important than ever for us to be imagining, because families cannot continue to be squeezed like this," said Loomis Quinlan. "We need to start envisioning what it really looks like for our country to set families and kids up to prosper and thrive."
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'Bold Ideas This Country Desperately Needs': Progressive Caucus Unveils Affordability Agenda
"The New Affordability Agenda shows how Democrats can actually make things cheaper for working people by taking on special interests who are ripping people off," said Rep. Greg Casar.
Apr 29, 2026
The Congressional Progressive Caucus on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping affordability agenda aimed at combating a cost-of-living crisis that President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have supercharged with tariffs, a war of choice in Iran, and deep cuts to safety-net programs.
The CPC's New Affordability Agenda comprises new and previously introduced legislation designed to lower the cost of housing, groceries, childcare, prescription drugs, and more. The caucus presented its slate of policy proposals—which are popular with American voters across the political spectrum—as a positive agenda around which "every single Democrat should be able to unite" heading into the pivotal 2026 midterms and beyond.
“Affordability is not a ‘hoax,'" said CPC Chair Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), referring to Trump's efforts to dismiss mounting concerns about cost increases under his administration as consumer sentiment plunges to all-time lows and affordability continues to top Americans' list of concerns.
"It also has to be more than just a slogan,” Casar added. “The New Affordability Agenda shows how Democrats can actually make things cheaper for working people by taking on special interests who are ripping people off. These are the kind of bold, populist ideas Democrats should talk about in 2026 and pass in 2027. We are glad that many of these ideas already have support across the Democratic caucus, and we look forward to working to get them actually passed as soon as possible.”
Endorsed by a broad coalition of labor unions, advocacy groups, and policy experts, the CPC agenda includes 10 planks, each with corresponding legislation.
The first six planks pertain to lowering the costs of essentials: medicine, groceries, housing, utilities, childcare, and gas.
On prescription drugs, for instance, the agenda calls for passage of the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act, which would establish a federal program to directly manufacture generic medications and offer them to consumers at an affordable price.
On childcare, the CPC is urging passage of a bill led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would ensure "every family in every community has access to high-quality, affordable childcare and early learning opportunities by establishing a network of federally supported, locally administered childcare options."
"In 2026, Democrats cannot politely nibble around the edges when taking on a rigged economic system,” Warren said Wednesday. “Americans want leaders who will fight for bold policies like universal childcare and affordable housing so that we can build an economy for everyone. The New Affordability Agenda is about fighting for the big structural change we need to put working people first."
The CPC agenda also calls for ending AI price gouging, guaranteeing paid vacation to every full-time worker, raising federal overtime pay, and capping contributions to super PACs.
“At a time when 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and billionaires and large corporations have never had it so good, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is putting forward bold ideas this country desperately needs,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement on Wednesday. “This agenda says that in the richest nation on Earth, we can create an economy that works for every man, woman, and child, and not just a handful of billionaires."
"Yes, we can lower the cost of prescription drugs," said Sanders. "Yes, we can build millions of units of low-income and affordable housing. Yes, we can provide universal, high-quality, affordable childcare in every community. And yes, we can create a vibrant democracy by abolishing super PACs and making sure billionaires can no longer buy elections.”
New polling conducted by Data for Progress indicates that all of the individual policies championed by the CPC are broadly popular with the American electorate.
"Every policy tested earns majority support from at least 3 in 5 voters," the polling outfit found. "Requiring two weeks of paid time off for all full-time workers and restricting private utility companies from passing unreasonable costs on to customers are the most popular policies on the list—each earning support from 79% of voters."
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), who heads the CPC's Ending Corporate Greed Task Force, said Wednesday that Democrats "need to be listening deeply and fighting hard for Americans."
"They have been loud and clear that everything is too damn expensive, and we must respond," said Balint. "This New Affordability Agenda is a strong slate of policy proposals that will help bring down costs. From increasing pay and taking on the corporations that have rigged our economy, to lowering everyday costs on housing, groceries, and childcare, this concrete approach reflects that we understand the scope of the problems and we are ready to take real action."
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