For low-income working families in the United States, the federal government offers financial aid to help pay for childcare. That is, if families can get off the waitlist for it.
In the second half of last year, there were an estimated 400,000 children on waitlists for childcare assistance programs across the U.S., according to a report by the National Women's Law Center released in May. That's nearly the size of the population of Minneapolis.
That figure has more than tripled over the past two years. Around 118,800 kids were on waitlists in early 2024, the group found.
But there has not been nearly enough money available for caregivers looking for financial help, especially recently as childcare costs have ballooned nationwide.
Valentina Sosa of Cypress, Texas, first applied for childcare assistance for her 18-month-old daughter, Ameea, in March. She's still on a waiting list. Sosa's wages as a part-time real estate assistant aren't enough to cover the cost of local daycare. While the family waits, Ameea mostly stays at home with Sosa while she works, which she often does remotely.
"I know she needs the development that she's not getting, the engagement that she's not getting here with me, because if I'm working, I can only do so much," said Sosa, who is a single mother. "That's horrible to see for her. But I do what I can."
Childcare advocates blame the expanding waitlists in part on a failure by Congress to appropriate enough money for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the federal government's main source of funding to help families pay for childcare. The program serves over 1.6 million children across the U.S. in a typical month.
"We have public funding for our schools because we recognize it as a public good that is important for our economy, for the well-being and future success of young people," said Karen Schulman, senior director of state childcare policy at the National Women's Law Center. "We don't fund our childcare system like that."
Other forces have compounded in recent years to make waitlists even longer. More low-income families are applying for assistance, advocates say, and federal COVID-19 relief money that temporarily helped boost U.S. childcare programs ran out. It's forced many caregivers balancing their jobs with their childcare responsibilities to wait and see if their number on the waitlist will be called.
Almost one third of U.S. states have waitlists
Seventeen states currently have waitlists for childcare assistance or have stopped taking new applications, according to the NWLC report. (In states where county governments run the childcare assistance program, waitlists may exist in some counties but not others.)
In the past, the number of states with waitlists has been higher, but Schulman said she doesn't remember a time when this many children were in line for assistance. For example, 21 states had waitlists in 2001, encompassing a total of around 202,900 children — roughly half of the current total.
A big reason for the queue is a lack of funding for subsidized childcare. Federal stimulus dollars had buoyed the childcare sector during the pandemic, Schulman said; now, that money is gone. Roughly $39 billion from the American Rescue Plan went toward childcare, but states had to use the money by September 2024. She added that CCDF funding has been "stalling" in recent years.
Furthermore, childcare assistance programs are operated by states, which have different eligibility requirements for families and subsidy rates for providers. States can also decide whether to spend their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars on childcare, and Schulman said some states facing budgetary pressures may have less of their own money to divert to assistance programs.
That creates a difficult math problem for state officials, who have to balance the number of families they serve with the amount they spend on care, said Jordan Pargeter, federal initiatives and strategic policy administrator in Oregon's Department of Early Learning and Care.
"Is it better to serve more families but not help them very much with the cost of care?" Pargeter said. "Or is it better to serve less families but actually get closer to the true cost of care that providers are facing?"
Oregon established a statewide waitlist in 2023 that currently has around 26,000 children waiting to apply (though not all of them may be eligible). Certain priority groups, such as families in the state's child welfare system, can bypass the waitlist. Beyond that, though, no families have come off the waitlist in nearly three years.
Alyssa Chatterjee, director of Oregon's Department of Early Learning and Care, said Oregon pays childcare providers well and doesn't require high co-payments from families. Co-payments in Oregon are typically just 2% to 4% of a family's income, well below the 7% maximum allowed under a previous federal rule. It has meant that a smaller number of families is receiving a greater amount of financial aid.
"Oregon really has chosen to focus on maintaining that quality of programming that works well for providers and families by keeping those copays low, paying providers well," Chatterjee said. "That means we have to serve fewer families with the resources available."
Because of those financial pressures nationwide, the CCDF only reaches a fraction of the families it was designed for. The program has had one of the lowest participation rates among federal safety net programs, with just 22% of families who qualify under their state's rules receiving assistance in a typical month.
This comes at a time when childcare costs are spiking across the country. According to the group Child Care Aware of America, childcare costs increased 29% between 2020 and 2024.
'It would definitely change a lot'
Parents with very young, pre-school aged children — for whom schooling is not yet an option — may be at a particular disadvantage.
Kim Kofron, executive director of early childhood education at Children at Risk, a Texas nonprofit that advocates for children, said waiting lists of even a few years can impact some families during a critical period when they need childcare.
"If you think about a child's life in that zero-to-five space, a one- or two-year waiting list is a huge period of that time," Kofron said.
There were more than 93,000 children on childcare assistance waitlists in Texas as of January 2025, according to the most recent data provided by the state.
Right now, Valentina Sosa earns around $300 per week in her real estate job. The cheapest childcare option she found was $975 per month at a local church, which would eat up a significant share of her monthly income.
"I'm also living at my mom's house, so if I can't even pay for rent, how am I also going to do both or even one right now?" she said.
With Ameea at home, Sosa manages to work around 20 hours per week, flipping open her laptop when her daughter is eating lunch or taking a nap.
With an affordable childcare option, though, Sosa said she could take on more hours at her job and earn more money for her family. She strives to make enough to be able to move out of her mom's house and get an apartment for her and Ameea.
Getting off the waitlist and receiving government assistance to pay for childcare could make that a reality, Sosa said. "It would definitely change a lot."
Changes to CCDF under Trump
The Trump administration said recent changes to the $12.3 billion program could help get more children off of waitlists across the country, but advocates worry those changes could also destabilize the childcare system for low-income families.
During the Biden administration, officials overhauled CCDF rules to lower costs for families and make payments to childcare providers more predictable. States were pushed to cap a family's co-payments at 7% of their household income. They were also instructed to pay providers in advance based on enrollment — much like a family would pay out of pocket — rather than retroactively and based on attendance.
The Department of Health and Human Services recently reversed those rules, citing in part the potential for fraud by childcare providers.
In an emailed statement, the Administration for Children and Families said removing the 7% cap allows "states to halt costly implementation efforts and redirect funds toward serving additional children, including getting more children off waitlists and into child care. This allows states to serve more children as they deem possible."
The statement noted that while the Trump administration removed those Biden-era requirements, states could still adhere to the previous rules.
Kofron, of Children at Risk, said all levels of government will have to step up to ensure the national system works as it should and that families aren't left waiting for years for financial assistance. Ideally, she said, Congress would increase CCDF funding, states would find other sources of revenue to supplement their programs, and cities and counties would work on their own solutions to the problem of high childcare costs.
"When we all have a piece of the pie, then we can really actually get our waitlists down to a manageable level and actually get families the care that they need," she said.
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