Trump Admin Wants To Make Stay-At-Home Parents Raising Their Own Kids A Priority

Trump administration officials are drafting a rule that would let married couples with a stay-at-home parent tap into a federal child care fund currently reserved for working families, people familiar with the plan told The New York Times.

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The proposal would rework the Child Care and Development Fund, a roughly $12 billion Health and Human Services program dating to the Clinton era that helps low- and moderate-income parents pay for care so they can work, attend school, or complete job training. Under the draft rule, a married couple could still collect aid — worth about $9,000 per child annually — if one spouse stays home to raise the child while the other works at least 35 hours a week. No such federal benefit currently exists.

The change would not require congressional approval, though it still needs sign-off from the White House and a public comment period before taking effect, potentially as early as next year, the Times reported.

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Vice President JD Vance, who for years has argued that young children fare better with a parent at home than in day care, is said to be the driving force behind the effort. The draft also draws on child care legislation Secretary of State Marco Rubio authored while in the Senate, and echoes a proposal in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump term. Heritage’s Roger Severino, who authored that blueprint’s child care section, told the Times the change would put stay-at-home caregiving on equal footing with paid day care and would likely survive legal scrutiny, including for married same-sex couples under existing Supreme Court precedent.

The plan would not extend to unmarried couples or non-working single parents. Critics warn that without new funding, opening eligibility to a wider pool of families would squeeze the roughly 870,000 households — 80% led by single working parents, mostly mothers — that currently rely on the subsidy, along with the child care providers that depend on those payments, according to the Times. Some administration lawyers have reportedly flagged legal risk in conditioning benefits on marital status, as well as fraud tied to sending money directly to individuals rather than licensed providers — a concern that has drawn administration scrutiny before. Vance announced a Justice Department task force in January after a child care fraud scandal in Minnesota involving shell organizations posing as day care providers.

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