Universal Child Care

It's Time for Universal Child Care in America

The United States is one of the only developed nations in the world without universal child care—and that is a national embarrassment.

While other advanced economies invest heavily in families, early education, and working parents, we’ve left millions of American families to fend for themselves—forced to choose between paying the rent or paying for child care.

This isn’t just a policy failure. It’s a moral failure—and one we’ve had the chance to fix before.

We Were This Close in 1971

In 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, a bold, bipartisan plan to create a national system of high-quality, universally accessible child care centers—complete with education, nutrition, and medical services. It had support across party lines and passed both chambers of Congress.

Then President Nixon vetoed it. And for over 50 years, working families have paid the price.

What’s the Cost of Inaction?

Today, the U.S. spends just 0.2% of GDP on child care for children under two—one of the lowest rates in the developed world. That amounts to an annual tax credit of around $200, while the average cost of infant child care is over $10,000 a year in many states.

And that burden falls hardest on mothers, who are often forced out of the workforce entirely due to child care costs, widening both the gender pay gap and the wealth gap.

What Would It Take to Fix This?

According to Moody’s Analytics, a universal child care program would cost around $70 billion per year.

To put that in perspective:

  • The Trump tax cuts are projected to cost $4.5 trillion—universal child care would cost less than 0.5% of that.

  • A 25% wealth tax on Elon Musk alone could fund it entirely for a year.

This is not a question of affordability. It’s a question of priorities.

The Benefits Are Clear

Universal child care is more than an investment in working families—it's a policy that:

  • Boosts the economy by enabling more parents, especially women, to return to the workforce

  • Closes educational gaps early, by providing quality early childhood education

  • Lifts families out of poverty and reduces long-term inequality

  • Supports small businesses by expanding the pool of available workers

My Position is Simple

I support fully-funded, universal child care for every family in America. Because no parent should have to choose between a paycheck and their child’s wellbeing—and no child should be denied early education because of their ZIP code or their family’s income.

We don’t need more tax breaks for billionaires. We need child care for working families.

Let’s make it happen.