The Trump administration is drawing up plans to allow some married couples with a stay-at-home parent to claim federal childcare subsidies, in a move championed by Vice-President JD Vance that could redirect funds from working families.
The proposal would create the first federal scheme to pay parents for caring for their own children at home. It is being developed by the Department of Health and Human Services and could be introduced without a vote in Congress.
Under the draft rules, married couples within specified income limits could qualify when one parent worked at least 35 hours a week and the other remained at home to care for their children. The subsidy would be intended to compensate, in part, for the income lost by the parent who left paid employment.
The money would come from the $12 billion Child Care and Development Fund, which was established during the Clinton administration to help low- and moderate-income parents pay for childcare while they worked, studied or underwent job training.
Families currently receive assistance mainly through vouchers or payments made directly to childcare providers. The benefit is typically worth about $9,000 per child each year.
Officials involved in the discussions said the proposed changes could take effect as soon as next year, although the draft must first be approved by the White House and published for public consultation. The final version could still be altered.
Concerns over childcare funding
Critics fear that expanding eligibility without increasing the size of the fund would leave working parents competing for a smaller share of available support. About 80 per cent of the 870,000 families currently receiving the subsidies are single-parent households, most of them headed by women.
Childcare providers could also lose income if families opted to receive the money while caring for their children at home. Around 225,000 providers rely on subsidy payments, and experts warned that some could be forced to raise fees or close if funding was diverted.
Krystal Gastineau, who runs the Cribs 2 Crayons childcare centre in Aurora, Colorado, said about half of the children in her care were supported through the programme.
“If they could, I think parents would choose to take the money and stay home,” she said. “That would take away a major source of income.”
Lezlie Cranston, a single parent in Auburn, Washington, uses the subsidy to pay for care for her four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter while she studies for a qualification at Skagit Valley College.
She said the support had enabled her to continue her coursework, but warned that allowing stay-at-home parents to claim the money could make it harder for single parents to obtain help.
“We’re already trying to figure out how more working parents can get the subsidies,” she said. “This could lead to single parents not being able to afford childcare again.”
Joshua McCabe, director of social policy at the Niskanen Center, said he supported providing more assistance to stay-at-home parents but believed the proposed approach risked harming those who needed childcare in order to work.
“Expanding the eligibility without increasing funding would mean more parents competing for the same dollars, and leaving more parents — particularly single working parents — worse off,” he said.
JD Vance’s family policy agenda
The plan is understood to be a White House priority and a particular concern of Mr Vance, who has repeatedly argued that more mothers should be able to remain at home with young children.
More than 80 per cent of stay-at-home parents are mothers, according to the Pew Research Center. Mr Vance’s wife, Usha, a former corporate lawyer, gave birth to their fourth child in July.
Mr Vance has also called for greater support for “kinship care”, in which children are looked after by relatives. In a 2021 opinion article, he argued that young children were better off spending the day at home with a parent rather than in childcare.
The proposal echoes the conservative Project 2025 blueprint, which said federal childcare funding should be available to parents who stayed at home or relied on relatives for care.
Roger Severino, a Heritage Foundation vice-president who wrote the blueprint’s childcare section, said the policy would give stay-at-home parents equal recognition alongside commercial providers.
However, some HHS lawyers have questioned whether restricting the proposed benefit to married couples would be lawful. Officials have also raised concerns about fraud, particularly because payments would be made to individuals rather than childcare businesses.
Unmarried couples with one parent at home would not qualify under the current draft. Single parents who do not work would also remain ineligible.
