Education

Trump floats letting states handle day care. Advocates call it a lead balloon

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by Lexi Lonas Cochran - 04/04/26 6:00 AM ET

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by Lexi Lonas Cochran - 04/04/26 6:00 AM ET

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President Trump’s suggestion this week that the federal government should step away from day care and leave the matter to the states landed with a thud among advocates.

Trump during an Easter lunch at the White House said states should fully take over the responsibility of child care, adding states raise taxes to offset the cost.

But advocates say states would not be able to cover the cost alone and facilities are already struggling to remain open even with federal and state support.

“The United States can’t take care of day care. That has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people,” the president said.

“We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care, and they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to make up for it,” he added.

Child care, Medicare and Medicaid should be handled by the states while the federal government focuses on “military protection,” the president said.

The U.S. is estimated to have spent over $11 billion on the war with Iran in the first six days alone, The New York Times reported. In comparison, the federal government spent around $30 billion on child care in all of 2025, according to the First Five Years Fund.

“The comments, I think, especially on Easter, were particularly alarming. Easter is a day of hope and renewal, and the juxtaposition of comparing the funding the needs of children around child care and health care against the needs of war were just particularly egregious, alarming, shocking. I mean, it feels like there’s a war on children in this country and globally under this administration,” said Mary Ignatius, executive director of Parent Voices California.

The federal government’s primary role in day care is funding, with investments in the Child Care Development and Block Grant (CCDBG) and Head Start making up the bulk of its efforts.

Some advocates are skeptical Trump’s suggestion will make any headway considering the long tradition of bipartisan support for child care funding in Congress.

“As the president is talking about this, Congress ultimately has the power of the purse and the ability to make decisions on program funding levels, and we have again consistently seen strong bipartisan support in Congress for increasing investments in child care learning programs,” said Daniel Hains, policy chief for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

“Even in the fiscal year 2026 agreement, which was a challenging budget year for a number of reasons, we saw small but modest, important increases to both of those programs that were approved by a broad bipartisan coalition of members of Congress,” he added, referring to Head Start and CCBDG.

In the child care industry, states have the responsibility for oversight and creating licensing requirements, along with safety standards.

While states do invest in the issue, New Mexico is the only one to offer universally free day care. The top five states to get federal assistance for child care are California, Texas, Florida, New York and Michigan.

But even current levels of funding don’t seem to be keeping up with demand.

From 2024 to 2025, a NAEYC study found child care providers said costs of wages, property insurance, liability insurance and rent or lease payments all went up. In response, 65 percent of child care centers said they had to increase tuition costs.

Child Care Aware of America found in 2024 the average cost of child care was over $13,000 a year.

Despite the high costs of child care, the average child care worker only makes around $32,000 a year, adding to the sectors troubles to retain employees

The White House has hit back at critics of Trump’s comments during the Easter lunch, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt posting on X that his statement was taken “out of context.”

“President Trump was talking about the importance of stopping the scams and rooting out the billions of dollars in fraud in these vital programs that elected Democrat officials have allowed to happen,” Leavitt said.

Day care facilities have been put under a spotlight after accusations went viral against centers in Minnesota that allegedly had no children enrolled in their programs.

The Trump administration opened an investigation into Minnesota and several other Democratic states, attempting to block $10 billion in funding for the states’ child care programs.