If 2025 was the year of confusion and concern about the future of child care, 2026 may be the year that the field’s troubles all come to a head. The last year was filled with both direct and indirect hits to the sector, from the threat of defunding Head Start to expected cuts to Medicaid and the SNAP food assistance program that will leave many child care workers forced to tighten their already cash-strapped belts.
“All of these will create a perfect storm in an already fragile system,” says Shengwei Sun, associate director of research and policy at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.
The anticipated changes come as the child care sector is arguably more watched than ever. Moves from multiple states to expand public support for early learning made national headlines, from New Mexico’s universal child care program to California’s universal pre-K program. Meanwhile, several politicians made child care part of their ultimately winning platforms.
The rising cost of child care also peaked, outpacing rents in many metro areas across the country. It brought with it a larger discussion about fixing a long-broken system, even as “affordability” became the political buzzword of the moment.
The new year ushered in yet another upheaval for early childhood programs. Following allegations of child care center fraud in Minnesota in late December, a Health and Human Services official announced on Jan. 5 states will have to provide “a justification and a receipt or photo evidence” to receive payments from the federal Administration for Children and Families that support care for low-income families. Head Start programs will reportedly be unaffected.
As 2025 came to a close, EdSurge spoke with a group of child care and early education experts on what we can expect for the coming year. While no one has a crystal ball, one thing is crystal clear: they are all concerned about the already-strained sector.
⚡ Funding Concerns Reach New Heights
2026 will bring a slew of budgetary changes and challenges for the sector. Many states have officially run out of pandemic-era relief dollars. The Child Care Stabilization Program, part of the American Rescue Plan Act that launched in March 2021, helped more than 225,000 child care providers. It ended in September 2023.
“We’ve finally wrapped up the infusion of resources during the pandemic that had opened up incredible tools, stabilizing grants, recruitment and retention bonuses for the field,” says Anne Hedgepeth, senior vice president of policy and research at nonprofit Child Care Aware of America. “Those resources and investments were there and they were responsive to an immediate need. I think to see some of that gone, that certainly is a new and unique part of this.”
H.R.1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, in the new year will bring cuts to social programs like Medicare and SNAP, formerly known as the food stamps program. That places the onus of funding on states, which may have to pull dollars from other sources — including child care.
“States are going to have to spend a lot more of their money and there’s just going to be less money to go around,” says Aaron Loewenberg, senior policy analyst within the education policy team at New America. He pointed to states already freezing enrollment in child care subsidy programs and reducing reimbursement rates. “We’re already seeing some worrisome signs. Unfortunately, I think we’ll probably see more of that as these fiscal realities become real.”
Even if states do decide to focus on child care funding, the other social program cuts will still affect children, according to Melissa Boteach, chief policy officer at the nonprofit Zero to Three.
“In either case, even if you protect child care, if you’re cutting child welfare or you’re cutting nutrition assistance, children don’t compartmentalize that way,” she says. “They need food and health care and housing in order to be ready to learn in early education.”
The federal government allocated flat funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant and Head Start, both which help low-income families access child care. Because of inflation, program proponents view this as, in effect, a funding cut.
“The infusion of federal aid paired with some smart state policy in the last two years or so have really helped programs reopen or stay open,” Sun says. “But with the ending of the relief funds and the flat funding for the CCDBG program, many states will be grappling with what to do next.”
It could ultimately create a system of haves and have-nots, where access to high-quality child care varies even more by state than it does already.
“Because we are in this place of fiscal arm-twisting, it’s going to be really interesting to see which governors and state legislators really are rising to this moment and responding to the need that families are very clearly articulating and which of them are not stepping into that,” Boteach says. “And as some states are rolling out high-quality child care in early ed and others cutting back, we’re probably going to see a lot of those outcomes and disparities exacerbated.”
⚡ A Spotlight on Early Childhood Education Programs
While the pandemic kicked off a larger appreciation for child care programs, last year’s splashy state program launches –- including New Mexico’s universal child care program and newly elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s emphasis on the same — further cemented the field as an issue to watch.
“One of the things that has just recently become even more clear for us is this tipping point or dividing moment we’re in, when it comes to states and child care and early learning investments and policies,” Hedgepeth says. “I think going into 2026, this is what we’re going to be watching. We want to see what governors say. We want to see what legislatures propose. We’re really interested in those state budgets and whether or not they prioritize child care and early learning where those investments are being made.”
Beyond the political arena, there was an uptick in awareness about the sector’s needs as the rising costs of child care crept past those living at the poverty line and into the middle class.
“When people are not just seeing it as like, “Oh, this is happening to somebody else,” but rather, ‘This is me and my neighbors that are experiencing these things,’ I suspect that may begin to register more with people,” Phil Fisher, director of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, says. “So, I don’t think it’s going to just be a kind of a blip on the radar or something that’s more in policy wonk circles.”
⚡ Future of Child Care Workers Remains Murky
Staffing remains a concern. There’s the continued low pay — to the point that more than half of child care providers experienced hunger in the last year — as well as the newer issue of many workers in the field now fearing arrest due to their immigration status. Cuts to social programs like Medicare are expected to further place strain on both child care workers and providers.
Sun, of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, said her group expects “child care availability to decrease next year as providers don’t get the support they need.”
She also pointed out some states are trying to counteract the concern by lowering staffing standards. Idaho made waves earlier in 2025 by attempting to widen the mandated ratio of adults to children in classrooms, though that was ultimately amended out in the final legislation. And over the last few years, states including Iowa and Kansas lowered the minimum age of child care workers to 16, who would not have to have additional supervision in classrooms.
Those left in the field continue to experience economic hardship, but it is unclear whether that will drive out the current workforce. Fisher pointed toward a 2025 report that states 70 percent of early care and education workers had difficulty accessing basic needs like food, paying a mortgage, affording their own child care accommodations and paying for health care. Those rates may not worsen in the new year, he says, given that “the rates are so high already if they’re at 70 percent, that we also may be reaching kind of a ceiling.”
“The rates of burnout and stress among folks who are really struggling to afford the cost of daily goods is quite high and intentions to leave continue to be an issue that we see a lot of people talking about,” he added. “Whether people actually do, and how that affects the kind of supply and demand equation, also remains to be seen.”
But there are some slivers of hope for the advocates, with Hedgepeth saying “it is by no means doom and gloom.” Boteach from Zero to Three pointed out that community organizations are stepping up even as federal contributions recede. Fisher’s organization, for example, began collecting data on food insecurity that the U.S. Department of Agriculture previously handled.
“I’ve seen just increased organizing and increased momentum amongst advocates, parents, providers, organizers, that are saying, ‘We’re reaching a tipping point,’” Boteach says. “Sometimes things have to get really bad before the momentum swings of really putting something at the top of the political agenda. With all this momentum in the states, with all of this sort of political halo around child care coming off of these elections, there’s really a moment where we can continue to push and to hopefully break through and make some real progress for kids and families.”