09/06/2026
Nothing says "pro-family" party like imposing a hierarchy and taking from single, working parents. But let’s be real, this has always been the case on the right.
The New York Times reports that HHS is drafting a rule to let one married parent collect a federal child care subsidy — about $9,000 per child — for staying home, as long as the spouse works 35 hours a week.
The money would come out of the Child Care and Development Fund, the $12 billion pot created in the 1990s so low-income parents could afford day care and go to work or school.
Not one new dollar is being added.
Unmarried couples don't qualify.
Single parents who stay home don't qualify.
The only new category is married.
Here's who's currently in that pot: 870,000 families, four out of five headed by a single working parent, most of them mothers.
Open the door to more recipients without increasing funds and someone will necessarily be pushed out.
HHS's own lawyers have questioned whether the marriage requirement is legal, and flagged the fraud risk of mailing cash to individuals — in a year the administration spent freezing this same fund in five blue states over fraud claims.
Project 2025 called for this of course. And Vance wrote in 2021 that "normal Americans" don't want their kids in "crap day care" so parents can enjoy "freedom" in the workforce.
The freedom in question is a single mother finishing a certification while her two kids are in care — she's the one set to lose.
It goes to public comment before it takes effect. Comment.
