The Child Care Funding Crisis

November 26, 2025

Across the U.S., states are quietly cutting child care funding, including by slashing the rates they pay providers on behalf of low-income families. To Ruth Friedman, the child care crisis, put simply, “disrupts parents’ employment, reduces earnings and savings, and it hurts parent wellbeing and family life.”

Take the example of the crisis acutely faced by parents and caregivers in Indiana, where the waitlist for child care assistance has ballooned from 3,000 to 30,000 kids. No one is coming off the list, at least not until 2027. As Chabeli Carrazana reports, due to funding cuts, Indiana is lowering child care reimbursement rates. The state will now pay providers “10 to 35 percent less to care for low-income kids.” In response, some child care centers have closed classrooms or fired workers. Many low-income families – thousands now shut out of child care assistance programs entirely – are out of options, left to contend with impossible choices. Should they go to work, only to be able to hardly afford (if at all) child care during their shift? Or should they stay home and face losing their income entirely?

Families should not be faced with such a needless dilemma. We at the Woodhull Freedom Foundation firmly believe that divesting from families is diametrically opposed to what the government should be doing. Governments should facilitate people’s ability to work and to support their families. Our fundamental human right to sexual freedom encompasses our right to reproductive justice. This includes our right to decide if, when, and how to form a family. When governments deny families access to affordable child care, they violate these rights.