Every parent should have the freedom to go to work knowing their children are being cared for in safe environments by nurturing caregivers and early educators that will support their children’s development and well-being. Most families with young children have all available parents in the workforce, and we know that when parents have high-quality, reliable, affordable child care, children are safer and more likely to arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed and families are stronger and better able to thrive. Good child care options also support parents’ ability to work, family income to rise, and our country’s economic engine to be stronger.
However, today, too many families are stuck on child care waitlists or breaking the bank to afford the care they need—if they can find it. Pandemic-era policies showed that when the United States has invested robustly in child care programs and choices for families, public funding has eased the challenges for families and made it easier for providers to pay higher wages and recruit and retain great staff to work with children and support their healthy development. With that funding now shrunk—and with the programs that still exist such as the Child Care Development Fund and Head Start at risk of shrinking even further under Trump—families are struggling and facing potentially even worse challenges ahead.
More than ever, the child care sector requires robust public investment to lower prices for families and cover providers’ growing overhead expenses. Instead, the Trump administration’s actions are (1) making it more challenging for parents to find and afford child care where and when they need it, (2) making children less safe and able to thrive, and (3) threatening child care providers’ ability to continue operating their programs.
President Trump signed more than 100 executive orders in his first 100 days in office. The orders impacting child care, children, and families fall into five main categories:
- Banning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
- Targeting Immigrant Communities
- Threatening Child Care and Early Education via DOGE
- Dismantling the Department of Education
- Impoverishing Families through Economic Policies
1. Banning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Federal civil rights laws extend equal legal protections to all Americans. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and programs are tools to enforce civil rights laws by counteracting systemic discrimination and ensuring all people have access to opportunities for advancement. In the context of child care and early education, children of all races, ethnicities, genders, disabilities, and national origins need access to affordable, high-quality child care programs. President Trump has signed at least seven executive orders targeting DEI policies in the federal government and institutions that receive federal funding, and that has already directly impacted Head Start. These attacks negatively impact children’s well-being and the stability of the child care sector.
The Administration of Children and Families (ACF) sent a letter to Head Start providers warning that their programs will not be funded if they “promote or take part in” DEI initiatives and programs have been asked to certify that they are not implementing DEI initiatives in order to receive funding. They do this without defining “DEI,” creating confusion and chaos for Head Start’s providers whose mission is to enhance the “cognitive, social, and emotional development of low-income children” and who use a wide range of initiatives to achieve that.
One of the ways Head Start increases the diversity and inclusion of its classrooms is by requiring programs to provide high-quality disability services to children with disabilities and suspected delays. Ten percent of all children enrolled in Head Start are eligible for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Head Start promotes inclusion, fostering a sense of belonging in its classrooms, through the use of culturally responsive practices. Children’s healthy development necessitates learning environments that support their individual needs, including their cultural background and social/emotional well-being. In order to optimize joyful learning and age-appropriate growth, Head Start and other child care programs must take into account the diverse needs of their children and create a welcoming environment for all regardless of their race, gender, ability, or other factors.
The Trump administration’s attacks on diversity hamper providers’ ability to ensure children of all backgrounds and abilities have access to safe and engaging learning environments, decreasing the quality of care they are able to offer.
2. Targeting Immigrant Communities
“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respected Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges.”
—President George Washington
The United States has historically been a place where families hoping for a better life could work to make those dreams a reality. Their dreams and ambitions have benefited all Americans, because immigration is not just a cornerstone of the American dream: it is also critical for sustaining economic growth. The Trump administration’s actions threaten immigrants and their valuable contributions to the United States by creating a climate of fear that negatively impacts the safety and well-being of immigrant children and families and further harms a child care sector already plagued by child care staffing shortages.
Nine of President Trump’s executive orders have targeted immigrants. The president has given agencies broad discretion to target and conduct raids in immigrant communities. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for example, ended its prohibition against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents entering schools and child care programs. ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents have subsequently conducted raids in educational facilities in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, underscoring how damaging these federal actions are to children’s safety and well-being.
These threats and actions are having a chilling effect on the child care sector, where one in five workers is an immigrant. Some early educators are not showing up for work and some families are pulling children out of care. Should this continue, classrooms or facilities may close due to the sudden reduction in children and inability to retain early educators. The already short-staffed child care sector will find itself struggling even more to meet the demand for child care, making it even harder for parents to find child care programs that work for their families. Program quality also may be impacted even in programs that are able to stay open as early educator turnover is disruptive for children, who benefit from bonds with consistent and reliable caregivers.
3. Threatening Child Care and Early Education via DOGE
For decades, millions of low-income families have relied on Head Start and the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF). The Trump administration has given its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) wide latitude to make staffing and budgetary decisions through seventeen executive orders. DOGE has decimated the offices that administer the federal child care program and the Head Start programs. These reckless and poorly planned firings will make it more difficult for the federal government to oversee child care and early education programs, reducing families’ access to child care and leaving providers without important guidance and information.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has had its staff cut by 24 percent and cuts have been even more dramatic at HHS agencies that manage child care services. The Administration of Children and Families (ACF) had its staff cut by 45 percent. The General Services Administration, which oversees eighty-two programs for children of federal workers, eliminated its child care office, posing an existential threat to programs that DOGE is not already forcing to close. The Office of Head Start (OHS) and Office of Child Care (OCC) closed and terminated all staff at five of their ten regional offices.
Regional staff serve as primary points of contact for Head Start and state and local tribal agencies. Normally, regional staff would seek clarity on the administration’s arbitrary and ambiguous new rules and advise providers on how best to continue their work ensuring children receive child care, health care, and nutritional services. Their absence is creating chaos for providers, who do not know whether providing dual-language learning services, for example, will be punishable under the new rules.
Many Senate Democrats signed a letter to Secretary Kennedy expressing concern that the Trump administration’s staff cuts undermine the government’s ability to administer federal child care grants and oversee child care and early education programs. We are already seeing the impacts of these cuts in the state of Washington, where a Head Start program temporarily closed due to delays in the distribution of federal grant funds.
DOGE actions have also impacted parents in the military. More than thirty Salt Lake City military families lost child care when the Hill Air Force Base closed its child care facility due to a DOGE-initiated civilian hiring freeze. Families at the Peterson Space Force Base and Fort Carson Army Base in Colorado are also experiencing the impacts of the Trump administration’s hiring freeze: Programs have paused their waitlists and disenrolled families due to staffing shortages. DOGE has also cut a $1 billion Department of Agriculture (USDA) program that helped schools purchase food from local farmers. As a result the Local Food for Schools program is estimated to lose out on $660 million that would have helped child care programs and schools buy food to feed the children in their care.
These layoffs strike at the heart of the child care sector, making it more challenging to build the supply of affordable programs. The military is the largest employer-sponsored child care provider in the country and serves around 200,000 children. Head Start was funded to serve 778,420 children in 2023 and, in a survey of ten states, was found to provide more than one fifth of the center-based child care capacity in rural counties. Any cuts to these programs will reduce child care supply that families rely on. DOGE’s actions may also make child care more expensive for families. The Administration of Children and Families distributed $12.4 billion in child care grants and $12.3 billion in Head Start funds in 2024. Cuts to OHS and regional office staff make it more challenging for the federal government to distribute these grants and for Head Start programs to use their federal funding effectively.
4. Dismantling the Department of Education
The Department of Education (ED) plays a critical role in helping children develop the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in adulthood. This begins with child care and early education: ED invests in more than 1.5 million preschool students through Title 1 grants and serves 500,000 preschoolers and 400,000 infants and toddlers with disabilities. ED’s mission to promote equal access to education is currently being threatened by the Trump administration. On March 20 signed an executive order to close ED. (The president does not have the authority to close ED without a statutory change through Congress.) Meanwhile, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have sued to prevent the Trump administration from shutting down ED. But the president and his senior advisor Elon Musk are bypassing lawful means, de facto terminating ED by instituting mass layoffs and closing seven of the department’s twelve Office for Civil Rights (OCR) locations.
Undermining ED will make it more challenging to for providers to offer safe and nurturing care by threatening the distribution of Title I funds, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) grants, and Twenty-First-Century Community Learning Centers (21CCLC) programming and by reducing the capacity of researchers whose data collection and analysis is used to improve program quality and equity. Staff cuts will negatively impact program quality by making it more challenging for ED to coordinate with other federal departments to serve dual-language learners and children experiencing homelessness. ED’s staff and programs support early educators in offering enriching environments for children and should be continued.
5. Impoverishing Families Through Economic Policies
Good economic policy strengthens the middle class and decreases income inequality by creating jobs with family supporting wages and opportunities for professional development, ensuring all workers have equal access to jobs, investing in the care economy, promoting labor rights, prosecuting financial corruption, controlling inflation rates, and maintaining growth and stability. These conditions make it possible for families to afford basic expenses such as quality child care for their children and for early educators to stay in business. President Trump’s trade war has so far done the opposite, and will make it more challenging for families to afford child care and for providers to keep their programs afloat.
Tariffs raise prices for American consumers, leaving families with less disposable income to pay for services such as child care. They are a regressive tax and pose the greatest financial burden for households that can least afford it. One in three families already reported experiencing material hardship—difficulty affording necessary goods and services including child care—before President Trump imposed tariffs. Now that President Trump has implemented universal tariffs, these same families will have even more difficulty affording child care. To compound the problem, tariffs may make it more expensive for child care providers to afford essential goods such as food, learning supplies, and utilities. Providers may need to raise tuition rates to offset these costs, putting even more strain on families’ finances and forcing some families to pull their children out of child care. The trade war will worsen the child care crisis by raising prices without subsidizing tuition for families who need child care.
Conclusion
Child care supports the well-being of American families and the economy and is a worthwhile investment of public funds. But while some members of Congress are proposing robust investments that would make care more affordable, build the supply of child care programs, and strengthen the child care workforce, President Trump has led the charge in cutting the departments, staff, and budgets that make it possible for the federal government to expand child care access.
America’s children are its greatest asset. It is our responsibility as adults to build a world in which children are safe, nurtured, loved, healthy, and well-educated. The government must stop reducing essential departments and agencies whose work funds the child care sector. It also must stop cutting critical programs and services that families rely on to ensure their children have child care and health care.
Tags: head start, donald trump, child care, tariffs
The Top Five Trump Attacks Exacerbating the Child Care Crisis
Every parent should have the freedom to go to work knowing their children are being cared for in safe environments by nurturing caregivers and early educators that will support their children’s development and well-being. Most families with young children have all available parents in the workforce, and we know that when parents have high-quality, reliable, affordable child care, children are safer and more likely to arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed and families are stronger and better able to thrive. Good child care options also support parents’ ability to work, family income to rise, and our country’s economic engine to be stronger.
However, today, too many families are stuck on child care waitlists or breaking the bank to afford the care they need—if they can find it. Pandemic-era policies showed that when the United States has invested robustly in child care programs and choices for families, public funding has eased the challenges for families and made it easier for providers to pay higher wages and recruit and retain great staff to work with children and support their healthy development. With that funding now shrunk—and with the programs that still exist such as the Child Care Development Fund and Head Start at risk of shrinking even further under Trump—families are struggling and facing potentially even worse challenges ahead.
More than ever, the child care sector requires robust public investment to lower prices for families and cover providers’ growing overhead expenses. Instead, the Trump administration’s actions are (1) making it more challenging for parents to find and afford child care where and when they need it, (2) making children less safe and able to thrive, and (3) threatening child care providers’ ability to continue operating their programs.
President Trump signed more than 100 executive orders in his first 100 days in office. The orders impacting child care, children, and families fall into five main categories:
1. Banning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Federal civil rights laws extend equal legal protections to all Americans. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and programs are tools to enforce civil rights laws by counteracting systemic discrimination and ensuring all people have access to opportunities for advancement. In the context of child care and early education, children of all races, ethnicities, genders, disabilities, and national origins need access to affordable, high-quality child care programs. President Trump has signed at least seven executive orders targeting DEI policies in the federal government and institutions that receive federal funding, and that has already directly impacted Head Start. These attacks negatively impact children’s well-being and the stability of the child care sector.
The Administration of Children and Families (ACF) sent a letter to Head Start providers warning that their programs will not be funded if they “promote or take part in” DEI initiatives and programs have been asked to certify that they are not implementing DEI initiatives in order to receive funding. They do this without defining “DEI,” creating confusion and chaos for Head Start’s providers whose mission is to enhance the “cognitive, social, and emotional development of low-income children” and who use a wide range of initiatives to achieve that.
One of the ways Head Start increases the diversity and inclusion of its classrooms is by requiring programs to provide high-quality disability services to children with disabilities and suspected delays. Ten percent of all children enrolled in Head Start are eligible for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Head Start promotes inclusion, fostering a sense of belonging in its classrooms, through the use of culturally responsive practices. Children’s healthy development necessitates learning environments that support their individual needs, including their cultural background and social/emotional well-being. In order to optimize joyful learning and age-appropriate growth, Head Start and other child care programs must take into account the diverse needs of their children and create a welcoming environment for all regardless of their race, gender, ability, or other factors.
The Trump administration’s attacks on diversity hamper providers’ ability to ensure children of all backgrounds and abilities have access to safe and engaging learning environments, decreasing the quality of care they are able to offer.
2. Targeting Immigrant Communities
“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respected Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges.”
—President George Washington
The United States has historically been a place where families hoping for a better life could work to make those dreams a reality. Their dreams and ambitions have benefited all Americans, because immigration is not just a cornerstone of the American dream: it is also critical for sustaining economic growth. The Trump administration’s actions threaten immigrants and their valuable contributions to the United States by creating a climate of fear that negatively impacts the safety and well-being of immigrant children and families and further harms a child care sector already plagued by child care staffing shortages.
Nine of President Trump’s executive orders have targeted immigrants. The president has given agencies broad discretion to target and conduct raids in immigrant communities. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for example, ended its prohibition against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents entering schools and child care programs. ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents have subsequently conducted raids in educational facilities in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, underscoring how damaging these federal actions are to children’s safety and well-being.
These threats and actions are having a chilling effect on the child care sector, where one in five workers is an immigrant. Some early educators are not showing up for work and some families are pulling children out of care. Should this continue, classrooms or facilities may close due to the sudden reduction in children and inability to retain early educators. The already short-staffed child care sector will find itself struggling even more to meet the demand for child care, making it even harder for parents to find child care programs that work for their families. Program quality also may be impacted even in programs that are able to stay open as early educator turnover is disruptive for children, who benefit from bonds with consistent and reliable caregivers.
3. Threatening Child Care and Early Education via DOGE
For decades, millions of low-income families have relied on Head Start and the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF). The Trump administration has given its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) wide latitude to make staffing and budgetary decisions through seventeen executive orders. DOGE has decimated the offices that administer the federal child care program and the Head Start programs. These reckless and poorly planned firings will make it more difficult for the federal government to oversee child care and early education programs, reducing families’ access to child care and leaving providers without important guidance and information.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has had its staff cut by 24 percent and cuts have been even more dramatic at HHS agencies that manage child care services. The Administration of Children and Families (ACF) had its staff cut by 45 percent. The General Services Administration, which oversees eighty-two programs for children of federal workers, eliminated its child care office, posing an existential threat to programs that DOGE is not already forcing to close. The Office of Head Start (OHS) and Office of Child Care (OCC) closed and terminated all staff at five of their ten regional offices.
Regional staff serve as primary points of contact for Head Start and state and local tribal agencies. Normally, regional staff would seek clarity on the administration’s arbitrary and ambiguous new rules and advise providers on how best to continue their work ensuring children receive child care, health care, and nutritional services. Their absence is creating chaos for providers, who do not know whether providing dual-language learning services, for example, will be punishable under the new rules.
Many Senate Democrats signed a letter to Secretary Kennedy expressing concern that the Trump administration’s staff cuts undermine the government’s ability to administer federal child care grants and oversee child care and early education programs. We are already seeing the impacts of these cuts in the state of Washington, where a Head Start program temporarily closed due to delays in the distribution of federal grant funds.
DOGE actions have also impacted parents in the military. More than thirty Salt Lake City military families lost child care when the Hill Air Force Base closed its child care facility due to a DOGE-initiated civilian hiring freeze. Families at the Peterson Space Force Base and Fort Carson Army Base in Colorado are also experiencing the impacts of the Trump administration’s hiring freeze: Programs have paused their waitlists and disenrolled families due to staffing shortages. DOGE has also cut a $1 billion Department of Agriculture (USDA) program that helped schools purchase food from local farmers. As a result the Local Food for Schools program is estimated to lose out on $660 million that would have helped child care programs and schools buy food to feed the children in their care.
These layoffs strike at the heart of the child care sector, making it more challenging to build the supply of affordable programs. The military is the largest employer-sponsored child care provider in the country and serves around 200,000 children. Head Start was funded to serve 778,420 children in 2023 and, in a survey of ten states, was found to provide more than one fifth of the center-based child care capacity in rural counties. Any cuts to these programs will reduce child care supply that families rely on. DOGE’s actions may also make child care more expensive for families. The Administration of Children and Families distributed $12.4 billion in child care grants and $12.3 billion in Head Start funds in 2024. Cuts to OHS and regional office staff make it more challenging for the federal government to distribute these grants and for Head Start programs to use their federal funding effectively.
4. Dismantling the Department of Education
The Department of Education (ED) plays a critical role in helping children develop the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in adulthood. This begins with child care and early education: ED invests in more than 1.5 million preschool students through Title 1 grants and serves 500,000 preschoolers and 400,000 infants and toddlers with disabilities. ED’s mission to promote equal access to education is currently being threatened by the Trump administration. On March 20 signed an executive order to close ED. (The president does not have the authority to close ED without a statutory change through Congress.) Meanwhile, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have sued to prevent the Trump administration from shutting down ED. But the president and his senior advisor Elon Musk are bypassing lawful means, de facto terminating ED by instituting mass layoffs and closing seven of the department’s twelve Office for Civil Rights (OCR) locations.
Undermining ED will make it more challenging to for providers to offer safe and nurturing care by threatening the distribution of Title I funds, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) grants, and Twenty-First-Century Community Learning Centers (21CCLC) programming and by reducing the capacity of researchers whose data collection and analysis is used to improve program quality and equity. Staff cuts will negatively impact program quality by making it more challenging for ED to coordinate with other federal departments to serve dual-language learners and children experiencing homelessness. ED’s staff and programs support early educators in offering enriching environments for children and should be continued.
5. Impoverishing Families Through Economic Policies
Good economic policy strengthens the middle class and decreases income inequality by creating jobs with family supporting wages and opportunities for professional development, ensuring all workers have equal access to jobs, investing in the care economy, promoting labor rights, prosecuting financial corruption, controlling inflation rates, and maintaining growth and stability. These conditions make it possible for families to afford basic expenses such as quality child care for their children and for early educators to stay in business. President Trump’s trade war has so far done the opposite, and will make it more challenging for families to afford child care and for providers to keep their programs afloat.
Tariffs raise prices for American consumers, leaving families with less disposable income to pay for services such as child care. They are a regressive tax and pose the greatest financial burden for households that can least afford it. One in three families already reported experiencing material hardship—difficulty affording necessary goods and services including child care—before President Trump imposed tariffs. Now that President Trump has implemented universal tariffs, these same families will have even more difficulty affording child care. To compound the problem, tariffs may make it more expensive for child care providers to afford essential goods such as food, learning supplies, and utilities. Providers may need to raise tuition rates to offset these costs, putting even more strain on families’ finances and forcing some families to pull their children out of child care. The trade war will worsen the child care crisis by raising prices without subsidizing tuition for families who need child care.
Conclusion
Child care supports the well-being of American families and the economy and is a worthwhile investment of public funds. But while some members of Congress are proposing robust investments that would make care more affordable, build the supply of child care programs, and strengthen the child care workforce, President Trump has led the charge in cutting the departments, staff, and budgets that make it possible for the federal government to expand child care access.
America’s children are its greatest asset. It is our responsibility as adults to build a world in which children are safe, nurtured, loved, healthy, and well-educated. The government must stop reducing essential departments and agencies whose work funds the child care sector. It also must stop cutting critical programs and services that families rely on to ensure their children have child care and health care.
Tags: head start, donald trump, child care, tariffs