Harris wants to limit child care costs to 7% of family income

(CNN) — Two weeks after former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance raised eyebrows when answering how they’d make child care more affordable, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked how she’d address the problem vexing millions of American families.

Harris responded that she’d cap child care costs at 7% of working families’ income, following the Biden administration playbook that she was heavily involved in writing. But she didn’t provide details on how she’d achieve that goal or how she’d pay for such a measure.

“My plan is that no family, no working family, should pay more than 7% of their household income in child care,” Harris said Tuesday at a National Association of Black Journalists event, noting that steep child care expenses make it difficult for many parents to work.

The 7% threshold was an early objective of the Biden administration. President Joe Biden’s ambitious – and ultimately unsuccessful – Build Back Better package in 2021 called for limiting child care costs for families with children younger than age 6 to no more than 7% of income for those earning up to 250% of state median income, expanding access to about 20 million children. Funding would have lasted six years.

The provision, along with a universal pre-K measure, would have cost an estimated $382 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Stymied by Congress on a broader effort, the administration issued a rule earlier this year that instituted a 7% cap for low-income families receiving federal child care subsidies. It will reduce costs for about 100,000 children, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The rule, which Harris announced, also contained provisions to encourage more providers to participate in the federal grant program, and the vice president noted Tuesday that child care providers should “receive the wages that they deserve based on the dignity of their work.”

Asked for more details about her current plan, a Harris campaign spokesperson pointed to the administration’s rule.

Child care advocates were buoyed by Harris’ answer on Tuesday. It was the first time Melissa Boteach, vice president of child care and income security at the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, heard Harris reference a specific figure as a candidate, though she long supported that threshold while in office.

“It tracks with her history of being a strong champion on child care and early learning and her understanding the stress of parents trying to find and afford care and of providers trying to make a living wage,” Boteach said.

Unaffordable care

Child care is a major financial burden for many families in the US. Parents with two kids in a child care center paid on average at least twice as much for that care as they did for the typical rent in 11 states and the District of Columbia in 2023, according to a Child Care Aware of America report released in May.

Nationwide, the average annual cost of care rose to $11,582 per child last year. That equates to 10% of median household income for a married couple with children and 32% of median income for a single parent with children, Child Care Aware found.

Trump and Vance’s plans

Child care has been in the political spotlight this month. Asked at an economic forum two weeks ago how he would make child care more affordable, Trump responded that his plan to hike tariffs would raise enough revenue, without explaining how that would help families.

“We are going to be taking in trillions of dollars. And as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it is relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in,” he said in remarks at the Economic Club of New York.

Vance was also asked that week about lowering the cost of day care.

“Maybe like grandma or grandpa wants to help out a little bit more. Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle who wants to help out a little bit more,” he told Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at a campaign event in Arizona.

Acknowledging that not everyone can turn to family, Vance said two problems with the current child care system is that a lot of people who want to work in the industry can’t “either because they don’t have access to the education that they need, or maybe more importantly, because the state government says you’re not allowed to take care of children unless you have some ridiculous certification that has nothing to do, nothing to do with taking care of kids.”

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