A new Trump administration plan could alter California’s federal child care subsidy program by offering aid to certain couples with a stay-at-home parent. The move would draw from the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) without any plan to boost its total budget.
According to a brief published by the California Budget & Policy Center, one-parent families make up 75% of California children enrolled in programs that rely on federal childcare funding. These families could be affected by the proposal, as children from one-parent families would not be eligible for the proposed subsidy.
The CCDF is a $12 billion program that provides monthly childcare subsidies to approximately 1.3 million children in the nation, including a monthly average of over 232,000 in California in fiscal year 2023. The California Budget & Policy Center estimates that the number of children served in California was closer to 349,000 in 2024.
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The proposal would reduce CCDF funding for families who face unsustainably high child care costs and limited access to publicly funded child care. The Budget Center’s brief authors state that if the Trump administration implements this proposal without working with Congress to increase funding levels, families will have an even harder time accessing affordable child care.
Approximately one in five dollars for California’s publicly funded childcare programs come from CCDF. The decision to provide subsidies to married couples would not require approval from Congress, according to The New York Times, which first reported on the proposal.
