The Trump administration is drafting a rule that would allow certain married couples with a stay-at-home parent to qualify for federal child care assistance of about $9,000 per child annually, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke with The New York Times.
The reported proposal would expand eligibility under the Child Care and Development Fund, a roughly $12 billion Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) program that currently subsidizes care for children from low- and moderate-income parents while their parents work, attend school, or participate in job training.
Under the draft rule, a new category of “parent-based child care” would allow one married parent to receive assistance to care for the couple’s child while the other spouse works at least 35 hours a week, according to the Times. The payments would come from the program’s existing funding rather than a new congressional appropriation.
Families would still have to meet income limits established by their states. Federal rules generally limit eligibility to families earning no more than 85% of their state’s median income, although states may set lower thresholds. Unmarried couples and single parents who are not working would not qualify under the reported proposal.
The Times described the proposal as a top priority for Vice President JD Vance. Vance has previously endorsed the idea of using federal child care assistance to support families whose children receive care from a parent or relative.
During an August 2024 interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Vance said child care policy should accommodate different family arrangements, including care from stay-at-home parents and grandparents.
“I grew up in a poor family where the child care was my grandparents, and a lot of these child care proposals do nothing for grandparents. If you look at some of these proposals, they do nothing for stay-at-home moms or stay-at-home dads,” Vance said at the time. “I want us to have a child care policy that’s good for all families, not just a particular model of family, and that’s what I’ve said.”
In a May 2021 opinion essay co-written with Jenet Erickson for The Wall Street Journal, Vance expressed a similar view, opposing then-President Joe Biden’s proposed expansion of a government-subsidized day care and arguing that “young children are clearly happier and healthier when they spend the day at home with a parent.”
According to the Times, the draft also incorporates elements of legislation introduced in 2024 by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a U.S. senator from Florida, that would have allowed married couples working a combined 40 hours per week to receive direct assistance if one parent cared for their children at home. Unlike the reported Trump administration plan, Rubio’s bill would have added $5.25 billion to the child care fund and offset the increase by eliminating a separate child care tax credit.
The change would not require congressional approval, but it would still need White House approval and would be subject to a public comment period before taking effect. The rule could be implemented as early as 2027, according to reports.
The Times reported that some HHS lawyers have questioned whether limiting the benefit to married couples would be lawful. Officials have also raised concerns about possible fraud if subsidies are paid directly to parents rather than child care providers.
Meanwhile, critics have argued that expanding eligibility for the program without adding funding could reduce assistance available to the single parents already receiving support.
Conservative commentator Michael Knowles praised the reported proposal during a Sept. 6 appearance on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” calling it “one of the very best policies to come out of either Trump administration.”
“We already have a fund that is supposed to help parents take care of their kids,” Knowles said. “There’s no new spending here. There’s no new bill that needs to be passed. The problem is the current system incentivizes single parenthood, and it’s basically just a subsidy for corporate America that wants to keep women locked up at the widget factory.”
Knowles, host of “The Michael Knowles Show,” also said the proposal raises broader questions about whether government policy should encourage marriage and allow children to spend more time with their parents.
“To me, this is a grand slam, no-brainer, and I can’t wait to see it in action,” he said.
Knowles also invoked a disagreement between second-wave feminist writers Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan over whether women should be encouraged or even permitted to stay at home and raise their children.
“Simone de Beauvoir said, ‘No, feminism cannot succeed if women are even permitted to stay home and raise their kids,’” Knowles said, contrasting that position with what he characterized as Friedan’s view that women should be encouraged to work but remain free to stay home.
“That’s what this policy asks: ‘Should women at least be allowed to?’” he added. “I think so.”
Knowles also pushed back against conservatives who oppose modifying the existing federal benefit and instead favor abolishing the broader welfare system.
Knowles wrote Sept. 7 on X, “If I understand the establishment conservatives correctly, we should not reform a 30-year-old entitlement program to stop incentivizing single parenthood because it would be better to abolish the entire 91-year-old welfare state, which no one even pretends to think is possible.”
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