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TRUMP’S CHILDCARE FUNDING FREEZES ARE GOING TO HIT ALL KIDS HARD  
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Grace Segers
January 8, 2026
The New Republic
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_ The administration added new strings for states to receive funding.
This could have ripple effects for all households, not just those with
low-income children. HHS said it would specifically freeze $10 billion
in childcare funds to five blue states. _

The Minnesota Legislature made historic investments in child care.
It’s not enough. Massive federal funding is still needed, and is now
being not only cut, but withheld., Minnesota House Information file
photo.

 

In recent days, the Trump administration has taken dramatic steps to
make federal funds for childcare more difficult to obtain. A lack of
clarity around how a slew of new requirements will be implemented has
left childcare providers reeling, and raised the specter of facility
closures even as childcare costs skyrocket. As providers work to sort
through the confusion, experts are warning that no family will be
immune from the impact of these policy changes.

The administration has made it more difficult for childcare providers
to obtain federal subsidies. In the wake of unverified allegations of
fraud in Minnesota day care centers by right-wing influencers, the
Department of Health and Human Services said it would freeze childcare
funds
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to all states unless they met additional verification requirements.
Days later, HHS announced that it would roll back
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Biden-era rules governing the Child Care and Development Fund, or
CCDF, with the ostensible goal of preventing fraud, now requiring that
states base payments to providers on attendance rather than
enrollment, no longer mandating that providers be paid ahead of
services, and reprioritizing vouchers instead of guaranteed slots for
providers. On Tuesday, HHS said
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that it would specifically freeze $10 billion in childcare funds to
five blue states—Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois, and
Colorado—including nearly $2.4 billion from the CCDF.

“There is no evidence of clear or widespread fraud in the states
that they have chosen now, so there is no way to anticipate who they
would choose next. This is not evidence-based or data-based. This
looks to be a form of punishment,” said Ruth Friedman, a senior
fellow at the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. “HHS is
not following their normal processes for investigating and responding
to fraud.”

Although HHS has provided some guidance on the requirements that
states will need to meet to receive federal childcare funds, there are
still open questions on timelines for providing proof that money is
being used to the administration’s liking.

“The fact that everyone has these big questions about something that
is so integral to families’ ability to just function day to day, and
for communities and businesses to be prosperous, and that this chaos
and confusion is reigning is—in and of itself—a big problem in the
short and long term,” said Melissa Boteach, chief policy officer for
Zero to Three, an advocacy organization focused on early childhood
care.

In 2019, around 1.4 million children and 857,700 low-income families
nationwide received federally subsidized childcare through the CCDF,
according to the most recent data
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from HHS. States, tribes, and territories can draw down these federal
funds under certain guidelines, and then pay providers directly to
assist low-income families that may otherwise struggle to afford
childcare. States have flexibility in how these funds are used; while
the CCDF requires that states also contribute a certain amount of
money to childcare, the amount that states contribute varies.

This means that a childcare provider in a state that offers
significant childcare assistance, such as New Mexico, may have a bit
more flexibility to maintain operations even if federal childcare
payments are delayed. But a childcare provider in a state that does
not provide funding for childcare outside of what is required by the
federal government, such as Oklahoma, may not have the resources to
keep its doors open, said Cindy Lehnoff, director of the National
Child Care Association.

Lehnoff added that most small providers she knew in higher-income
areas had cash flow to maintain operations for three months without
federal assistance, but providers that serve lower-income families
that don’t benefit from CCDF may only have a cushion to remain open
for a month or less.

“Once they close their doors, there’s no coming back from that,”
Lehnoff said.

Christina Killion Valdez, the director of a childcare center in
Rochester, Minnesota, said in a press briefing that the Minnesota
state government had promised support, and that her organization had a
cushion of three months for its overall program. But if the freeze
continues for several months, her childcare center will be at risk,
along with others in the state.

“If the children we serve lose their tuition assistance, it will
destabilize our entire budget, like it will for 4,000 other programs.
In many areas, there aren’t enough families that can afford
childcare to take these spots, and programs will have to cut staff,”
said Valdez. “Cutting staff means cutting spots for kids, whether
they receive assistance or not. In many cases, it means closing
childcare centers altogether. It means a collapse of the childcare
system in Minnesota.”

Even for those centers that stay open, if a provider offers care for
both low-income families who rely on assistance and households that
are able to pay the full cost, losing that funding could result in
providers needing to up their prices.

“If you lost all of your subsidized children, that would raise the
cost of care to those paying. And we’re already seeing unaffordable
childcare in our country,” said Lehnoff.

State agency staff responsible for distributing funds may subsequently
have their attention divided by the need to provide evidence of proper
spending to the federal government, which could also slow down the
distribution process. Experts say there are already guardrails in
place to prevent the misuse of federal dollars, so providing an extra
layer of verification would increase work for state agencies.

“The staff at state agencies are already overburdened by the work
that they’re doing, and adding even this additional small step is
going to take additional capacity,” said Stephanie Schmit, director
of childcare and early education at the Center for Law and Social
Policy. Even if a state meets necessary requirements, the length of
time it takes to verify could result in delays in funding being
distributed.

The five states specifically singled out by the Trump administration
will be the most immediately affected because they will not be able to
draw down on funds at all. But the new requirements could also amount
to a “de facto freeze” for every other state, said Eliot Haspel, a
family policy expert at the think tank Capita. “You’re still
asking [for] hoops to jump through before you can get the money
you’re otherwise owed,” said Haspel in a press briefing.

Then there is the potential impact on quality of care as a whole,
given that a portion of CCDF funds are used to improve childcare
programs for all. “There’s a certain percentage of the resources
that are allocated to quality activities, and those resources actually
impact all children. It’s not just the children who are receiving
childcare assistance; it’s all the children in a center whose
providers are receiving this additional quality support funded through
the resources,” said Schmit.

Because the CCDF funds may be used for paying childcare staff, the
freeze in funding could exacerbate workforce shortages
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for childcare workers. Without those subsidies, staff could lose their
jobs or seek employment elsewhere, at a time when wages for childcare
providers are frequently insufficient to keep workers afloat
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“When you disrupt an important source of funding in a system
that’s already strained to the brink, you’re going to see some
providers going out of business. You’re going to see some early
educators leaving the field. And that has ripple effects beyond the
children who are getting vouchers,” said Boteach.

The funding freeze comes as the Trump administration works to rapidly
reshape the social safety net as a whole. Last summer, the
Republican-majority Congress approved legislation that made dramatic
cuts to Medicaid and the food stamp program, known as SNAP. Although
some of these cuts have yet to go into effect, states are already
preparing for a loss in funding. The White House also froze funding to
several government programs last year and has significantly reduced
the workforce
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for the Administration for Children and Families, which oversees the
CCDF. Moreover, the government shutdown in October and November
threatened services for low-income households, including SNAP and Head
Start. As a result, families that are already vulnerable to cuts to
social services will be deeply affected.

“They’re not going to have access to health insurance, they’re
not going to have access to food, and now are going to have a
challenging time accessing childcare. It’s going to be multiple hits
to families who already are in a position where they need support,”
said Schmit. “I see this as, on the whole … something that’s
really aiming to undermine the needs of families with low incomes in
this country.”

_[__GRACE SEGERS_ [[link removed]]_ is a
staff writer at The New Republic.] _

* childcare
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* free childcare
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* children
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* families
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* Day Care
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* Donald Trump
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* HHS
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* Department of Health and Human Services
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* Blue States
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* Minnesota
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* New York
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* California
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* Illinois
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* Colorado
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* subsidized childcare
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