Washington, D.C.—With the release of the Trump Administration’s full Fiscal Year 2026 Budget request, Susan Gale Perry, Chief Executive Officer at Child Care Aware of America, issued the following statement:
While the Administration’s FY 2026 budget recognizes the vital role of high-quality child care by preserving funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and Head Start at current levels, proposed reductions or eliminations of essential programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, Community Services Block Grant, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and more would do real harm to America’s working families and their children. As it stands, this budget cannot be considered pro-child or pro-family.
Moreover, keeping CCDBG at its current funding level would limit its potential to meet the needs of more eligible working families. CCDBG supports more than 1.4 million children and 870,000 working families each year, which is only a fraction of the families eligible.
The budget proposal also eliminates the Preschool Development Grant Birth-5 program, which helps states enhance and streamline their early learning programs; the Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools (CCAMPIS) program; the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC), which supports afterschool programs; and other education programs, which means that the child care system as a whole would face reduced funding in FY26.
We urge Congress to instead follow the lead of the 285 Members of Congress who have called for increased funding for federal child care and early learning programs in FY26.
Child Care Aware of America (CCAoA) is the only national organization that supports every part of the child care system. Together with an on-the-ground network of Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) organizations working in states and communities, CCAoA advances high-quality, affordable child care and turns a patchwork of resources into a system that works for everyone. Together we make America child care strong—and that makes everyone stronger.
