CLASP
The Center for Law and Social Policy
By Shira Small
The Trump Administration continues to harm a child care and early education sector in desperate need of support. Recent efforts to weaken the programs meant to make child care more affordable and accessible are not new; the administration has only built on their destabilizing early education policies from year one in office. Through harmful regulatory action, illegal funding freezes, and unfounded fraud allegations, the Trump Administration has spent its second year continuing to dismantle the early childhood education programs children and families need most.
The child care sector is already on shaky ground: the average annual cost of child care has risen to $13,184, while only 1 in 6 children eligible for child care subsidies are able to access them, per the most recently available data. The rising cost of living is straining both families and the child care workforce, whose woefully low compensation drives turnover and attrition—especially for providers participating in the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the primary federal funding stream for child care assistance.
Working to increase funding, center family and provider needs, and engage state and local systems to expand access to care would all be critical steps in addressing the affordability crisis. Instead, here is how the administration has targeted the child care and early education sector in 2026 so far:
- Cast unfounded doubt on child care program integrity. In response to a YouTuber’s allegations of child care fraud in Minnesota, the Trump Administration illegally froze $10 billion in child care assistance funds and began requiring states to submit a “Defend the Spend” justification to access CCDF funds that Congress had already approved. The administration’s embrace of the unfounded influencer allegations initiated an avalanche of legislative and administrative attacks to CCDF, despite having no evidence of widespread fraud.
- Catalyzed legislative action that focuses on influencer allegations, not the root causes of the child care crisis. Congress has devoted more attention to the child care fraud narrative than the child care affordability crisis that came before it. It has passed legislation, held hearings, launched taskforces, and initiated investigations on child care fraud that ignore the foundational challenge facing the sector—inadequate funding for a broken market. A core facet of the legislative response has been the conflation of improper payments and error rates with intentional fraud, wherein administrative processing errors are being used as evidence for a widespread, calculated abuse of public dollars, without regard for the existing program integrity protections in child care assistance.
- Introduced regulations that weaken child care and early education programs.
- In January, the Trump Administration released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for CCDF proposing to repeal the Biden Administration’s 2024 requirements to limit family co-payments for child care at 7 percent; pay providers prospectively for their services; pay providers by their classroom enrollment rather than actual attendance; and use grants and contracts to help reach populations that have fewer care options. The rule was finalized in July.
- The administration has also released two proposed rules regarding Head Start:
- One in June proposing to roll back Biden Administration requirements to increase Head Start staff pay and benefits in June.
- One in August repealing nearly all of the Head Start Program Performance Standards, which provide guidance on how to ensure that families have robust access to Head Start’s comprehensive services.
- Combined with other sprawling regulatory actions meant to restrict any government agency’s access to funding if they implicate “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” these regulations all destabilize the early childhood sector and the critical government-funded programs that help families access the care they need.
- Weakened trust in public benefits while limiting their own transparency. The administration’s rhetoric has also played into longstanding narratives meant to weaken trust in public benefits and the people who receive them, in order to justify gutting the programs that help families in need of support. While casting doubt on public benefit program integrity, the administration has reduced its own government transparency and was sued in July for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request regarding their “Defend the Spend” policy and the January funding freeze.
Conclusion
The legislative and regulatory attacks to CCDF from the Trump Administration make one thing clear: they have no real solutions to the child care crisis. Instead of using their power to address skyrocketing costs for families and support a strained child care workforce, this administration has attempted to divert attention from their policy failures by weakening the public’s faith in public services and the public servants who administer them. Deregulation, attacks to program integrity, and attempts to censor the role that racial inequity plays in this country’s economy and history only amount to a destabilized sector, with parents still struggling to afford care and providers still not earning enough to provide it.
These attacks have real consequences for vulnerable families and an already fragile sector. Child care centers have been raided as a result of the administration’s rhetoric, and immigrant communities are being targeted and attacked, on top of the dangerous immigration policy agenda the administration was already leading. The result is communities in crisis, with families afraid to access the supports for which they’re eligible and the provider workforce shrinking further as immigrant early educators are attacked.
The child care and early education sector needs stronger investment and good-faith engagement from leaders who want the best for children, families, and providers, not the best for their political agenda.
The following statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, president and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Washington, D.C., August 19, 2026—On September 15, the U.S. Census Bureau will release reports with national data on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance for 2025. While we anticipate a slight rise in poverty across the board compared to the data from 2024, we know that next month’s numbers will serve as a bellwether for what’s coming.
The changes wrought by H.R.1, signed into law by President Trump in July 2025, are already taking effect in communities across the country. For example, Congress let the Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits expire last December when it passed H.R.1, pushing nearly three million people off their health insurance in early 2026. While the 2025 data don’t yet capture this drop in access to affordable health insurance for millions, we know that individuals and families are desperately struggling to pay for health care.
We should anticipate a rise in poverty for women, higher poverty for children of all races, and more poverty among immigrants, all driven by the many provisions in H.R.1 that are destabilizing families, such as the elimination of more than $200 billion in basic food assistance over the next decade. SNAP work requirements have also been tightened for elderly people and people with disabilities. Already, between October 2025 and February 2026, we’ve seen WIC participation decline by 250,000 people.
The administration’s relentless attacks on immigrants and their families will continue to have a chilling effect on access to the public benefit programs they are eligible for. This includes policymakers imposing significant eligibility restrictions on Medicaid, ACA, and SNAP for immigrants authorized to be in the U.S. In addition, immigration enforcement has created conditions in which workers lose wages and can fall into poverty if they stay home due to fear of ICE officers at workplaces.
While the administration and Congressional leaders have targeted immigrants in their slashing of social safety net programs, populations across the country are seeing their Medicaid, food assistance, and child care assistance gutted at the federal level in favor of funding military actions and aggressive immigration enforcement. We also know that last fall’s longest-ever government shutdown—a crisis manufactured by the White House and Congress—pushed countless people to the economic brink. Moreover, millions are living with the consequences of policy choices that have driven up inflation, driven down wages, and reduced funding for programs that meet basic needs. As a result, far too many people are taking on debt just to buy groceries and pay for the gas they need to commute to work.
We expect the September reports will show a wider gender pay gap and a rise in income inequality for Black households relative to white households. This phenomenon is largely driven by the disproportionate job losses experienced by Black women and the fact that it took Black women twice as long to find a job as white women in the second half of 2025. After attaining employment, Black women are paid less than their white peers, regardless of their educational level.
The Census reports will be much more than a look-back at the state of the country in 2025. Sadly, they will be a preview of the harm ahead for our communities because policymakers have chosen to enrich the wealthiest and finance a siege on immigrants over helping people meet their most basic, human needs. Poverty is the result of systemic failures, and our nation and the people who show up every day to make our economy work deserve better.
In recent years, states like New York and New Mexico have demonstrated that universal child care is possible. However, despite widespread awareness of the value of child care and positive progress at the state level, the Trump Administration has continued to dismantle the existing child care and early education system through funding freezes and fraud allegations. As a result, the administration has further destabilized an already fragile sector. But what if the fight to protect child care is also our opportunity to transform it?
CLASP’s next installment of Equity Matters, “What if the Current Fight to Protect Child Care is also an Opportunity to Transform it?” will examine what it means to build a truly equitable universal child care system—and why the building process matters as much as the vision itself.
Our panel of experts will discuss how meaningful engagement with families, providers, and other directly impacted communities—particularly communities of color, people with low incomes, and immigrants—strengthens policy design, informs implementation, and centers equity.
Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of why centering the leadership and expertise of those most impacted is essential to advancing racial equity and building a universal child care system that is just, inclusive, and responsive to all who rely on and sustain it.
Tune in on October 22 to learn more and join the conversation. We will share additional event details soon. In the meantime, please register below:
By Alecia Murray
What if the people most impacted by child care and early education policies helped design them?
This brief explores why systemic parent engagement is essential, how gaps at the federal level impact families locally, and why solutions like a state-level Parent Cabinet could transform how policy is shaped. This transformation is needed, because when parents move from being heard to having influence, systems do not just improve- they become more equitable, responsive, and effective.
By Lily Ana Marquez
Having a child can be one of life’s most profound joys. Yet, parenthood also means a constant balance between nurturing, protecting, and advocating.
This brief discusses how underinvestment in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act undermines the implementation of Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and requires parents to be the primary advocates for their children. Her report offers an IEP roadmap example for parents starting the process and highlights why stronger investment and meaningful parent-school partnerships are essential to improving outcomes for children with disabilities
By Alyssa Fortner and Shira Small
This brief provides an overview of the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the primary federal funding source for child care assistance for families with low incomes. It examines the program’s history, funding structure, eligibility requirements, and participation trends, while highlighting persistent gaps in access for eligible families and declines in provider participation. The brief also explains how federal and state policies shape families’ ability to access affordable child care.
By Rachel Wilensky, Shira Small, and Stephanie Schmit
Beginning in the summer of 2025, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) engaged with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) to support a workgroup of administrators of the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) Child Care program. CalWORKs Child Care is a critical supportive service associated with California’s Welfare-to-Work program. It is funded by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), as well as supplemental state funding.
Since 1997, CalWORKs Child Care has had three stages designed to provide care and to facilitate paths to self-sufficiency for CalWORKs participants. Stage One is currently administered by county welfare departments, and Stages Two and Three shift the family’s child care from county social service and welfare offices to Alternative Payment Programs (APPs), contracted organizations that administer child care vouchers.
The focus of the workgroup was to solicit feedback on factors that would be important for the state to understand when considering consolidation of the existing program. The administrator workgroup was established to enable CDSS and the State to learn from the expertise and experience of the counties and child care contractors to create a program that is more supportive for families and easier to administer—giving administrators more time to focus on the families they serve. The workgroup aimed to elicit insights and ideas using various feedback strategies, with the goal of informing a consolidation proposal for CDSS.
This report, drafted by CLASP, reviews the context for how the workgroup was initiated, outlines the feedback that was elicited in the workgroup, offers considerations and insights from CLASP based on the workgroup’s feedback, and documents the work materials from the group.
>Learn more information about the CalWORKS Child Child Consolidation Project.
Co-authored by Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, Center for Law and Social Policy, National Association for the Education of Young Children, and National Association for Family Child Care
[Editor’s Note: Last Updated July 22, 2026]
Medicaid is an important source of health coverage for the early childhood education professionals who support child development and care for children while parents work, and for the children and families these educators serve. Twelve states cover a third or more of the child care workforce through Medicaid, making the program an essential part of ensuring the health and well-being of child care professionals. In turn, a healthy early childhood workforce can most effectively support the positive development of children in their earliest years. Threats to Medicaid coverage for early childhood educators would likely further deepen a child care crisis driven in large part by inadequate compensation for this critical workforce. To address the root of this problem, the child care workforce needs higher wages and access to quality benefits which requires significant, robust, and sustainable public investments. Until this core problem is addressed, many workers necessarily rely on Medicaid and SNAP.
Read the report on the Georgetown Center for Children and Families’ website here.
On July 16, Wendy Cervantes spoke at the Early Childhood Policy in Institutions of Higher Education’s Federal Policy Institute on a panel entitled ”Thinking Broadly about Early Childhood Policy: Beyond the Classroom.”
On July 17, Alyssa Fortner served as a a panelist at the plenary session of the National Association for Family Child Care’s 2026 annual conference. “The Promise and Pitfalls of Universal Models for Family Child Care” examined what it takes to build universal systems that fully include family child care from the beginning, rather than treat family child care as an afterthought.