A limited federal funding program has been thrust into the spotlight amid intense debate among conservatives on whether the resource should expand who is eligible for the assistance.
The White House is reportedly preparing a proposal to expand the Child Care and Development Fund, a federal program intended to assist working families, to include married couples with a stay-at-home parent as a benefactor. Doing so would create the first federal subsidy for parents who choose to stay home and raise their children, something that has been pushed by figures in conservative circles for years.
The proposal, which was reported by The New York Times but has not been officially announced, is seemingly being pushed by Vice President JD Vance within the administration, according to the outlet. A spokesperson for the vice president told the Deseret News that Vance “is not involved with or pushing this effort.”
But Vance appeared to hint at the program expansion in remarks over the weekend, telling supporters in Georgia the administration has “a different approach” and that they “want to fight for your children’s future.”
“We’re going to defeat socialism by giving you a stake in the American dream and that’s how we’re going to win the future,” he said. “Our goal is to reverse a consensus that has screwed over communities like this one for decades.”
The plans have received mixed reactions on social media, particularly from those in conservative circles. While many high-profile figures have praised the proposal as a way to restore traditional values and increase birth rates, others have warned it could negatively affect low-income families who currently rely on the federal program.
“There’s pluses and minuses to this approach,” Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank, told the Deseret News in an interview. “I think everybody on the right, to a first-degree of approximation, wants to see more support for families, whether that’s through tax cuts or spending or whatever else. And so, the question is: Is this the best way to go about that?”
How do the subsidies currently work — and what would this change?
The proposal would seek to alter the Child Care and Development Fund, a federal program approved in the 1990s to assist low-income and working families in receiving childcare while the parents work or go to school.
The Health and Human Services Department heads the program by sending the money directly to states, which then decide which eligible families receive the subsidies. That money, typically a $9,000 payment per child, is distributed through vouchers or in direct payments to daycare providers.
Roughly 80% of the 870,000 families who receive those subsidies have single working parents, according to HHS data.
The number of children who received those benefits declined from 2 million in 2019 and 2020 to just 1.8 million in 2021, which is only 15% of those eligible for the funds, according to the Government Accountability Office.
“The idea was to get some money to low-income parents so that they can work and afford daycare, and specifically, that whole reform had to do a lot with single parents,” Robert VerBruggen, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told the Deseret News in an interview.
“The idea was that you were going to reorient that whole system around work and say, ‘OK, we’re still willing to help support you, but you need to work,’” VerBruggen added. “And obviously, if you’re telling people with very low incomes, oftentimes low education (and) single parents, that they have to go and get whatever job is available to them, you have to make it possible for them to survive on that and get them some child care.”
The proposal, which could change before it is formally introduced, would expand eligibility to allow married couples with one stay-at-home parent to receive those funds, according to The New York Times. The subsidies would be based on income, although exact details of those restrictions are not yet clear.
Under current rules, parents are required to prove their income is lower than 85% of the median income in their home state and that they are currently working or in school. The income threshold varies by state.
But the new rules would only apply to married couples, according to the outlet. Single parents who do not work are ineligible under current rules and would remain that way under the new proposal.
Proponents say change could increase birth rates, return to traditional marriage values
Some conservatives have demanded changes for years to the subsidy program, claiming the current system unfairly discriminates against married couples and stay-at-home parents.
While the program currently offers assistance to those who work, some argue that parents who stay at home raising children also deserve support for their efforts.
“Being a stay at home parent is a full time job and there should be resources and reward available to families that do this,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said in a social media post. “Raising the next generation is an INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT job.”
Others have also praised the decision as incentivizing traditional family values by encouraging adults to get married and stay at home with their children.
“Policies like this are exactly what America needs to incentivize more traditional families,” conservative commentator Benny Johnson wrote in a post on social media. “This is what our tax dollars should be going to instead of Somali fraudsters and illegal aliens. More of this.”
The idea to expand childcare subsidies has been floated in conservative circles for years, including by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
The proposal was included in the think tank’s “Project 2025,” a blueprint the group published during the 2024 election outlining conservative policies they wanted to be implemented by the Trump administration. Several of those ideas overlap with what Trump has done so far in his second term.
“Congress has made a deliberate choice to privilege and subsidize out-of-home, marriage-agnostic, non-parental childcare, while not including or privileging at-home, married parent-provided childcare and child-raising,” the blueprint states. “At-home parents that are left behind are thereby induced by these policies to enter the workforce when many would prefer to stay at home if the options were truly equal.”
“Instead of providing universal day care, funding should go to parents either to offset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial, in-home child care,” the blueprint added.
Proponents also argue that the proposal would not require additional spending as it would reallocate spending that has already been approved for the program.
Opponents warn change could deplete resources for low-income families
But the prospect of repurposing existing funds is exactly what concerns opponents of the plan, including those in the same conservative circles.
Because the proposal would only increase the number of eligible families, without increasing the funding along with it, childcare policy experts warn it could squeeze a system that is already limited — particularly affecting single mothers.
“If you’re not increasing the size of the pie and you’re just selling more tickets to entry, so to speak,” Brown said. “It’s kind of like an airplane that sells more seats after it’s already full. You’re overbooking the flight. That’s kind of what this would be doing, and so you want to be careful when you’re making these promises.”
The federal government could allocate more funds to the program, but such a change would have to be approved by Congress. While the Trump administration can unilaterally change who is eligible for the funding, only Congress has the authority to carve out more money.
Experts have also warned about the strict eligibility requirements causing constant “phaseouts and cliffs” for families who receive pay raises or bonuses while benefiting from the program. Others have said it could restrain stay-at-home parents who decide they’d like to return to work or enroll in school — or even discourage parents from wanting to earn money.
“If you were to participate in this program and then maybe you do decide to go to work or your spouse who is working gets a raise, you’re already going to be facing a lot of cliffs through a lot of these other programs like earned income tax credit, food stamps, all those things phase out as you earn more money,” VerBruggen said. “This is going to be another sort of obstacle in the way that once you put somebody on a program like this, it creates a cliff and a disincentive to earn more money or to go to work.”
Conservative figures want government out of private homes
Other conservative figures who have opposed the plan have expressed opposition to having the government involved in family decisions, particularly when it comes to providing federal funds as part of a welfare program.
“No, government-subsidized stay-at-home payments aren’t going to increase the birth rate,” conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said in a post on X. “We’re trying to fix spiritual and social problems with the gun and cash-firehose of (the) government. And it ain’t gonna work.”
Similarly, some conservative voices say it could lead to fraudulent payments or some families attempting to abuse the system.
“Pay parents to stay home? So kind of like that COVID mailbox money that destroyed our workforce and supply chain?” Tomi Lahren, a conservative commentator and TV host, wrote in a social media post. “Or the at-home care idea that turned into a giant fraud boondoggle? Nah. Get government out.”
Some experts have acknowledged the new program could encourage single mothers to pursue loopholes in order to receive the federal funding, such as by marrying someone who is unemployed.
“To the extent that this facilitates things that are kind of fraudulent, where people are doing things to opt into the program that aren’t genuine and aren’t real. That could be an issue,” VerBruggen said. “I think anytime you have a pot of money that’s going out to people, there are ways that it could kind of cause them to do things that you wouldn’t expect or be vulnerable to fraud.”
Experts say stay-at-home parents, married couples already have some government support
Another issue at hand: Experts such as VerBruggen say there are already government programs and funding that support stay-at-home parents and married couples that have gotten overlooked in this recent debate.
“I think there’s a common narrative on the right that the entire government is sort of aligned against stay-at-home parents, and you’re pressuring people to work by subsidizing daycare,” he said. “And there are certainly individual policies that do subsidize daycare, and I think those should be the object of some debate.”
But, VerBruggen said, stay-at-home parents are eligible for Social Security benefits despite not working. Instead of taxing adults by their individual incomes, married couples are given higher tax benefits, he added.
“If you’re a dual-income couple, that doesn’t really help you because you might have double the tax brackets, but you also have double the income,” VerBruggen said. “Whereas, if you have a single-earner family, that ability to file your taxes as a married couple and get double the tax brackets — that can be a really big tax cut, especially the wealthier you are. So, I think there are a lot of really big ways that that government policy is very friendly in the U.S. to single earner families, and I think that’s not appreciated.”