3 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — An advocacy group aiming to boost support for child and elder care plans to spend $50 million to back Democrats in congressional races, linking caregiving costs to the national affordability debate.
The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, founded a decade ago, seeks to raise the profile of caregiver issues in elections. This announcement comes amid rising child care costs and growing waiting lists for federal child care subsidies that assist working families in poverty.
Sondra Goldschein, executive director of the campaign and its political action committee, emphasized that child and elder care are critical to affordability discussions, especially as child care expenses now exceed housing costs for many families. She also highlighted the challenges faced by the "sandwich generation," middle-aged adults caring simultaneously for their children and aging parents.
"When child care can cost more than your rent or mortgage, or you have to sacrifice a paycheck to care for a loved one," these issues influence voting decisions, Goldschein said. "Each election cycle, more candidates recognize this."
She hopes the message resonates as families confront rising expenses, including higher gas prices driven by an unpopular war in the Middle East.
The campaign plans to support Democratic Senate candidates in North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, and Ohio, as well as House candidates in Iowa and Pennsylvania. Volunteers will also engage voters in conversations about caregiving.
The National Republican Congressional Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Republicans have begun to emphasize child care as vital to workforce growth, though their proposals are generally less expansive than Democrats'. Last year, under President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, approximately 4 million more families became eligible for a child care tax credit. The law also increased child care aid for military families and provided tax credits to employers offering child care to employees.
Before 2020, child care was rarely discussed by candidates. The pandemic exposed the fragility and importance of the child care sector, as preschools and centers remained open to support frontline workers, including healthcare professionals.
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In 2021, then-President Joe Biden secured $39 billion in child care aid from Congress, enabling states to assist more families and subsidize child care workers' wages. Later that year, Biden proposed nationwide universal prekindergarten and expanded subsidies to ensure no family pays more than 7% of income for care, but the proposal narrowly failed in Congress. Since pandemic aid ended, families have felt the impact of rising costs.
Several candidates have made child care affordability central to their campaigns. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, ran on universal child care to make the city more affordable for middle-class residents. Democratic Governors Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia won after pledging to expand child care subsidies.
In this election cycle, candidates including Democrats Janeese Lewis George, running for Washington, D.C. mayor, and Francesca Hong, a Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate, have pledged universal child care. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, seeking reelection, supports Mamdani's goals and plans to expand universal child care statewide.
Neither the White House nor the Department of Health and Human Services, which manages federal child care programs, responded to requests for comment. During his 2024 campaign, in a speech to the Economic Club of New York, Trump claimed that raising foreign tariffs would "take care" of child care costs, though this plan has yet to materialize.
During Trump's term, the administration focused on cracking down on fraud after a viral video alleged Somali-run child care centers in Minneapolis billed the government for children not in their care. While prosecutions occurred related to subsidy fraud, state inspectors disproved the video's main claims. Nevertheless, the administration attempted to freeze child care funding for Minnesota and five other Democratic-led states until a court ordered the funds released.
