Excerpts
An advocacy group hoping to expand support for child and elder care plans to spend $50 million to back Democrats in congressional races, tying the costs of caregiving to the nation’s affordability debate.
The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, created a decade ago, aims to make caregiver issues more salient in elections. The announcement comes as the cost of child care continues to rise and as waiting lists for federal child care subsidies, which support working families in poverty, continue to grow.
Sondra Goldschein, executive director of the campaign and its political action committee, said child care and elder care are important to the affordability conversation, especially as child care costs exceed what families pay for housing. Then there is the pressure on the “sandwich generation,” composed of middle-aged people who are caring simultaneously for their own children and parents.
“When child care can cost more than your rent or a mortgage, or you have to sacrifice a paycheck in order to be able to take care of a loved one,” that can motivate how people vote, said Goldschein. “Each election cycle, we see candidates recognizing that more and more.”
...
Republicans have begun to back child care as an issue crucial to growing the workforce, but their proposals tend to be less dramatic than those offered by Democrats. Last year, through President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Republicans made an estimated 4 million more families eligible for a child care tax credit. The law also increased child care aid for military families and tax credits for employers who provide child care to their workers.
Before 2020, many candidates rarely spoke about child care. But the pandemic laid bare the child care industry’s precarity and necessity. Preschools and child care centers were pressed to stay open so parents in front-line jobs — such as those in health care — could return to work.
...
Now, several candidates have centered their campaigns around child care affordability. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who won election after pledging to make the city more affordable for middle-class residents, ran on universal child care. Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia won elections after pledging to expand child care subsidies.
Candidates this election cycle are running on universal child care pledges. They include Democrats Janeese Lewis George, who is running for mayor in Washington, D.C., and Francesca Hong, a gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is up for reelection this year, has pledged to support Mamdani’s ambitions and eventually to expand universal child care statewide.
Neither the White House nor the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees federal child care programs, responded to requests for comment. In his 2024 campaign, during an address to the Economic Club of New York, Trump said increasing foreign tariffs would “take care” of the expense of child care. That plan, thus far, has not materialized.
In Trump’s current term, the administration has largely focused on cracking down on fraud, after a viral video alleged Somali-run child care centers in Minneapolis were billing the government for children they weren’t caring for.
...