Democrats' Reckless Plan to Drive Up Child Care Costs

The Democrats’ reckless tax and spending spree includes a plan to transform America’s child care system – for the worse. Families will pay more and have less say about the care their children receive.

Expect Dramatic Increases in Child Care Costs

The legislation includes a one-size-fits-all model for child care and a massive new federal entitlement program for families earning up to 250% of their state’s median income. The federal government would impose onerous mandates on child care centers’ teacher qualifications, quality systems, wages, facilities, and more.

The liberal People’s Policy Project has calculated that the new requirements would raise the average cost to have one infant in a child care center from $15,888 per year today to $28,970 next year. For unsubsidized families, the Biden surcharge would add an average of $13,082 per year, per child.

Families with annual incomes just barely over the median income will not be eligible for subsidies. Next year, a family making the median income in their state – it was $67,521 nationwide last year – would get no subsidy at all and would be left to cover the full price of Democrats’ new gold-plated child care.

States would be required to serve all eligible families earning up to 150% state median income in fiscal year 2024 and up to 250% in 2025. This eligibility threshold is a dramatic increase from current law; today it is set at 85% of state median income. Families making between 150% and 250% state median income would pay no more than 7% of their income on child care, leaving the American taxpayer to cover the rest of the charge. In 2021, 250% of state median income for a family of four is more than $300,000 in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia. As a gimmick to hide the cost of the plan, Democrats end funding for the new entitlement program in FY 2027, leaving someone else to address its future.

States will be required to create a cost estimation model to be approved by the Department of Health and Human Services to determine reimbursement for child care providers. The model would have to offer providers a “living wage” consistent with the salaries of union-negotiated salaries for public elementary school teachers in their state. The legislation mandates the new wage standard, but it does not define the wage metric clearly, leaving the Biden administration’s bureaucrats to work out those details and drive up child care costs for families who do not qualify for subsidies.

The new program would also mark the end of a 30-year bipartisan agreement that allows religious child care providers to participate in child care and preschool programs without compromising their religious mission. Fifty-three percent of working parents who used center-based child care providers used faith-based providers last year. Eliminating this protection would leave families with less access to care for their children.

Instead of addressing the soaring inflation that is costing Americans more for everything they buy, Democrats are pushing a partisan plan to reduce parent options in the care of their young children and force working families to pay even more for child care.