The President’s FY27 Budget Proposal

When the Lincoln Littles office was formed in 2020, our team was tasked with “moving the needle for early childhood in Lincoln, Nebraska.”

Child care administrators in our community have long been concerned about safety and emergency preparedness but without a centralized system of communication, shared protocols, and training—efforts were fragmented.

Emergency preparedness was just one of the ways Lincoln Littles could strengthen the early childhood industry. What we needed was a pathway.

 Child Care Aware® of America conducts an annual survey of Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) organizations and state agencies to collect information on child care supply and prices, across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. This year’s report, Child Care in America: 2025 Price & Supply, shows a small decrease (1%) in the number of licensed centers, a reversal of the upward trend seen over the past several years. Family child care (FCC) homes saw a small increase (1.4%), in line with the trend seen last year. Overall, supply is not moving in the direction we need it to. A gap remains between what families need and what is available, and, in 2025, no real progress was made in closing the gap. 

 Click here to see child care supply trends in your state