I LOVE WATCHING preschoolers from a local day care pass by, holding those ropes with handles, guided at each end by caretakers pacing their steps to match all those little legs. On most days, those brief, adorable bright spots might be the total attention I give to small people or their care. Not my kids, not my responsibility, right? But that is woefully shortsighted. A society and government that is stingy in its support of its youngest members is not good for anyone.
In the realm of government policy, there is reason for both despair and hope for young children in the U.S. On the federal side, things are grim. According to Babies in the Budget, an annual report by the bipartisan organization First Focus on Children, President Trump’s proposed FY2026 budget cut discretionary spending on programs for children under 3, including programs that support maternal and infant health, early learning, and environmental safety for babies, to 0.88% of the total budget. That’s down from 2.05% in FY2021. Massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) will also erode basic supports for young children. And the Trump administration has put up barriers to accessing federal child care funds and attempted to block child care funding to five states. A society that doesn’t prioritize sufficient food, stable housing, and access to medical care and education is a hard place to be at any age. But babies’ physical, emotional, and intellectual development can suffer long-term harm from insufficient access to these necessities.
We all pay the price for inadequate child care.
In contrast, at the state level there are positive developments, especially addressing the dearth of affordable child care, which has been a crisis: The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reported in 2025 that families paid, on average, $9,200 for child care per child per year. A 2022 poll by the First Five Years Fund found that “more than half (52%) of voters say they (or someone they know) has had to miss a shift or reduce hours at work or cut back on household essentials (51%) because of a problem with their child care situation.” Women, especially, may cut their hours or drop out of the workforce because of child care costs—damaging their family’s immediate financial security and long-term savings. We all pay the price for inadequate child care: A 2023 report estimated that the losses to individuals, businesses, and government cost the U.S. economy $122 billion. A 2024 study found that child care pay was so low that 43% of early educators used public assistance to feed their own kids.
This March, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed universal child care into law. The state will offer incentives to providers that pay entry-level child care workers at least $18 an hour. Several other states are working on ways to increase the supply of child care. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are seeking to implement universal child care. Vermont and Connecticut are setting up streams of public funding for child care. Iowa’s Child Care Solutions Fund pools public and private funds to invest in child care programs and increase wages for early childhood educators.
It’s not sentimental to believe that we can work together for all children, present and future. It’s just good policy.
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