Waitlists for Federal Childcare Aid Triple to 400,000 Kids

An estimated 400,000 children were on waitlists for federal childcare assistance in the second half of last year, according to a report released in May by the National Women's Law Center — more than triple the roughly 118,800 children on waitlists in early 2024.

The program in question, the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), is the federal government's main source of funding to help low-income working families pay for childcare. It serves more than 1.6 million children nationwide in a typical month, but reaches only 22% of families who qualify under their state's rules.

Valentina Sosa, a single mother and part-time real estate assistant in Cypress, Texas, applied for assistance for her 18-month-old daughter in March and is still waiting. She works largely from home while caring for her daughter, saying, "I know she needs the development that she's not getting, the engagement that she's not getting here with me... That's horrible to see for her. But I do what I can."

Karen Schulman of the National Women's Law Center said Congress has failed to appropriate enough money for the CCDF. "We have public funding for our schools because we recognize it as a public good that is important for our economy... We don't fund our childcare system like that," she said.

Seventeen states currently have waitlists or have stopped taking new applications, the report found. That's fewer than the 21 states with waitlists in 2001, but those waitlists held only about 202,900 children combined — roughly half today's total.

Advocates point to the expiration of pandemic relief funds as a major factor. About $39 billion in American Rescue Plan money went to childcare, but states had to spend it by September 2024. States also have discretion over whether to direct Temporary Assistance for Needy Families dollars to childcare, and budget pressures have limited some states' ability to do so.

Oregon, which established a statewide waitlist in 2023, now has about 26,000 children waiting, with no families coming off the list in nearly three years except for priority groups. Officials there have chosen to keep family co-payments low and pay providers well, meaning fewer families are served overall.

Meanwhile, childcare costs rose 29% between 2020 and 2024, according to Child Care Aware of America, intensifying the demand for assistance that states and the federal government have struggled to meet.