protection.” Millions of PA families literally beg to differ, especially the people who took candidate Trump at his word as a child care advocate and voted for him.
This is quite the departure from President Trump just seven months who bragged that tariffs were going to cover child care “We’re going to be taking in trillions of [tariff] dollars. And as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world.”
Tariffs brought in $287 billion last year and instead of supporting children and families, $2 billion a day to is going to the military attacks on Iran.
Even the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative Washington, DC, think tank raised an alarm about Trump’s outright abandonment of working families, child care, and healthcare. “The message that we can’t devote resources to help families struggling with child care or health care costs because we have to spend money on a war of choice strikes me as pretty tone-deaf headed into an election cycle that will doubtless focus on ‘affordability.’”
Pennsylvania receives $400 million from the federal government each year to make child care affordable for working families through the Child Care Works program. It is clearly not enough to solve the ongoing child care crisis – high costs, closed classrooms, staffing shortage – that is putting the squeeze on Pennsylvania families.
Should the Trump Administration renege on federal child care funding, it couldn’t come at a worse time. Just today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released an alarming report on inflation – prices on everyday items are higher, and gas prices have skyrocketed. And economists don’t anticipate a quick rebound.
The child care sector already operates on razor-thin margins, so providers feel the impact of any rising prices. But they know that parents can’t afford to pay more for care, so they’ll be forced to lay off more staff, close more classrooms, and add to their growing wait lists.
Here in Pennsylvania, in contrast to federal policy, Governor Shapiro proposed greater investment in child care in his state budget to expand child care access and boost the staffing levels while keeping costs low.
– $10M increase for the Child Care Staff Recruitment and Retention
Program
– $2M increase for the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program
– $7.5M increase for Pre-K Counts
As a member of the Start Strong PA coalition, Children First is pushing for these increases in the PA FY27 budget scheduled to be passed in June. (see Advocate & Serve below.)
Families deserve real leadership on child care on a nationwide scale, especially from a president who had previously elevated it as a national imperative. That’s putting America First and putting children first.
