Asked recently how he would lower the high cost of child care, former President Donald Trump said it would be relatively “not very expensive” to do so — at least compared to the revenue he will impose on foreign goods from tax increases.
Economists are skeptical that the tariffs will raise enough to cover Trump’s tax cuts and a sweeping child care program, and Democrats said higher tariffs would raise costs for families by raising the price of consumer goods. A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign did not respond to questions about his child care plans.
On one point, some child care experts agree with Trump: Fixing the child care system wouldn’t be very expensive compared to some other government spending. But as previous proposals have shown, the price tags associated with a federally funded child care system make it difficult to achieve politically.
“I think his comments are kind of right — that child care fixes, making child care easier and more affordable for families is actually probably that expensive compared to a lot of other things that we’re already spending money on,” said Chloe Gibbs, an economist at the University of Notre Dame who served on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in 2022 -2023.
Trump spoke about child care during an appearance at the New York Economic Club on Thursday.
“We’re going to take trillions of dollars,” Trump said, referring to his proposed tariffs. “And as much as childcare is said to be expensive, it’s not relatively expensive compared to the numbers we’re taking in.”
His election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, says she wants to ease the financial burden of caring for families with children or disabled adults. He says he will raise the salaries of childcare workers, preschool teachers and other professional nurses. His plan lacks more specifics on how he would pay for these initiatives.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called the childcare industry a “broken market.” Despite low wages, labor costs are high in part because one person can care for only a small number of children. These costs are passed on to families who often struggle to afford tuition. Mothers end up staying at home because childcare costs more than they would earn by working.
Many argue that child care will never be affordable for American families without massive taxpayer dollars.
Three years ago, President Joe Biden proposed a program to ensure that no family would spend more than 7 percent of their household income on child care as part of Build Back Better, a package of legislation aimed at strengthening the social safety net and combating climate change. Its proposals for universal preschool proposals alone were $400 billion, falling short of concerns from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin that the overall cost of the package was too high.
Biden has reintroduced child care and preschool proposals as part of his budget plan, but it is unlikely to get off the ground.
High-quality early childhood education can change the course of a child’s life, said Hailey Gibbs, a policy analyst at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Researchers have linked it to higher lifetime earnings and lower incarceration and dropout rates.
Another proposal, introduced in 2019 by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, would have created a network of public early childhood education centers and free home day care for low-income families. Warren proposed funding the programs, estimated to cost $700 billion over a decade, and taxing millionaires.
Such proposals have failed largely because of the costs involved, but there has been bipartisan support for some fixes. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat, and Sen. Katie Britt, a Republican of Alabama, jointly introduced bills in July that would expand the tax credit that households pay for child and dependent care. It would also increase the tax credit for companies that provide childcare services to their employees.
During his own administration, Trump proposed a $1 billion fund that would have given states subsidies for child care and made the money conditional on them loosening regulations. It never materialized.
Experts and advocates emphasize that childcare expenses are an investment that can pay dividends. In the short term, it could get many more parents and carers back to work. The Council for a Strong America, a since-disbanded nonprofit that advocated for public funding to support youth, estimated last year that the nation lost about $122 billion in income and productivity due to child care issues.
___
Associated Press educational offerings receive financial support from several private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. You can find AP’s standards for philanthropy, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
