You know a piece of legislation is in trouble when lawmakers start backtracking just weeks after passing it. But with far more Americans opposed to the reconciliation bill President Trump signed this month than in favor of it, GOP politicians are moving to limit the political blowback. Republicans are trying to convince voters that the bill that guts social programs like Medicaid and SNAP actually helps working families.
Speaking in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, for example, Vice President JD Vance all but ignored the massive reductions to social programs that made up most of the bill’s spending cuts. Instead, he argued the law’s provisions were pro-children and plugged its child care-related tax credits. “Whether you’re working at Don’s Machine [Shop] or you’re the vice president,” he said, “it’s all in the service of giving our kids the incredible opportunities that we’ve had.”
These tax credits will not begin to solve the child care crisis.
It’s true that the bill will provide modest support for child care costs for some families. The Dependent Care Assistance Program, the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit all got small expansions. Vance and others have also been singing the praises of “Trump Accounts,” which are really just savings accounts with a flat $1,000 for families to invest their own money into; they will not build significant wealth.
But the larger truth is that the amount of money most families will actually get from these measures is peanuts compared with the astronomical costs of child care, let alone the totality of household expenses. On average, low-income households will save about $150 on their taxes next year, and middle-income households will save about $1,800. These small savings pale in the face of families’ expenses: In 2024 the annual average cost of child care alone was a staggering $13,128 for one child.
Furthermore, the poorest families most likely will not earn enough to access any of the child-related tax credits, even as they suffer the law’s worst impacts. Overall, including the changes to taxes and cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the law will wipe out an estimated 2.9% (or about $700) of income for the poorest 20% of Americans.
These tax credits will not begin to solve the child care crisis. The average annual price of child care for families with two children exceeds other skyrocketing household expenses, including housing, in most parts of the country. That’s assuming, of course, that families can find care providers: Half of U.S. families live in child care “deserts,” areas with ratios of more than three young children for every child care opening, and struggle to find even prohibitively expensive spots for their kids.
For too long, U.S. policymakers have treated child care as a problem primarily for the private market. But child care is a broken market. The work is both high-cost and labor-intensive. Child care programs cannot raise wages to attract enough workers without increasing prices for families beyond what they can afford. The result is a damaging combination of supply shortages and sky-high costs across the country.
Tax credits cannot fix this failed market; direct government investment is the policy tool we need. We recognize this for kids the minute they turn 5. If your child is school-age, you know you have a place to keep them safe while you’re at work. Why should the care of our youngest children be any different?
It’s time to stop tinkering around the edges and start treating child care as the essential public good it is.
Two-thirds of Americans support free or low-cost child care and similar policies. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Ga., and over 100 other House and Senate Democrats recently reintroduced the Child Care for Working Families Act, which represents something closer to what families and child care providers need: a public solution to pay workers fairly, actually expand the supply of programs and ensure every family can find high-quality care.
But we can go even bigger, even bolder. Voters can demand free public child care for every family in this country. It’s time to stop tinkering around the edges and start treating child care as the essential public good it is. The reconciliation bill’s small tax credit expansions are the latest of many weak, ineffective attempts by lawmakers to address the child care crisis. The only real solution is a universal public child care system.