Comment: Shutdown raises profile of childcare as an issue

By Erika D. Smith / Bloomberg Opinion

Although the longest government shutdown in American history will soon be over, it will be hard to forget for the frazzled travelers stranded at airports and desperate people waiting in long lines at food banks. Though far less publicized, the same should be said for the shutdown’s impact on Head Start, the federal program that provides free daycare and preschool to low-income families.

Faced with a loss of funding, the program had no choice but to close several locations across 17 states and Puerto Rico. All told, some 65,000 kids, or 10 percent of all Head Start children, were put at risk because of the shutdown. But — at last count — only about 9,000 children, their parents and, in many cases, their employers were ultimately left in the lurch, according to the National Head Start Association.

The Head Start locations that managed to stay open did so by relying on donations and grants, and, in some cases, by taking out high-interest loans. But many have still had to lay off teachers, reduce hours and cut back on basic services. And when the government reopens, there’s no guarantee every Head Start location will reopen as well, potentially adding to what’s already a lengthy waiting list in some communities.

As the executive director of one program in upstate New York told NPR earlier this week: “We’re really kind of in a limbo and we just keep watching every day on what’s happening, so that we don’t have to shut our doors on December 1. But at this point we don’t know.”

This is a moral issue, of course, depriving children of their education as well as their breakfast and lunch, which Head Start also provides. But this is also an economic issue; one that goes directly to Americans’ broader gripes about the high cost of living and affordability.

Numerous polls show that voters increasingly blame President Donald Trump for making their lives more expensive. And cuts to the social safety net during the shutdown have not been popular. For example, polling by Feeding America found that 71 percent of Americans were worried about the shutdown’s impact on food assistance after Trump fought to deny SNAP benefits to 42 million people.

It remains to be seen whether this will cause problems for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, when the cost of groceries, housing and utilities will undoubtedly be front and center. Child care, though?

“Historically, child care has been largely ignored in this conversation, despite the fact that it’s been unaffordable for decades and been a real burden for families,” acknowledged Anna Markowitz, an associate professor of early childhood education at UCLA who has researched Head Start. But, as she told me, that might be changing.

In New Mexico, Democrats just launched the nation’s first statewide universal child-care program. It will take a while to scale up. But, as I’ve written before, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ultimately expects families to save about $12,000 per child, per year with the program. In a state where about 18 percent of residents live below the poverty line, free child care could make a huge difference for many; especially after a government shutdown that only made life more unaffordable.

There’s also the economically diverse coalition that elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York. A big part of his platform was a popular promise to provide free child care to all families in the city, regardless of income. That’s because child care is a financial burden for the middle class too.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, most families spend between 9 percent and 16 percent of their income on care for each child. In New York City, the average price tops $23,000 a year for a toddler. For that to be considered “affordable,” families must earn at least $334,000 a year, according to the comptroller’s office.

The families who qualify for Head Start earn far less than that. The program, by design, serves those on the margins. That includes households with incomes below the federal poverty level, currently $32,150 for a family of four; children who are homeless or in foster care; and families receiving public assistance. Hence, many are among the millions of Americans who were denied food assistance.

For these families, suddenly not having access to child care isn’t just a minor emergency. “If my kid can’t go to care, I can’t go to work,” Markowitz told me, noting that eligibility for SNAP can depend on proof of employment. Soon, so will eligibility for Medicaid. “So, they’re probably trying to see if they can take fewer hours, but still keep the job. They’re shifting around their hours. There’s sort of an immediate financial loss there.”

For families living paycheck to paycheck, some economic pain cannot simply be forgotten whenever the federal government turns the funding taps back on.

Erika D. Smith is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. She is a former Los Angeles Times columnist and Sacramento Bee editorial board member.