WASHINGTON – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance touted their campaigns’ policies to improve the childcare crisis in Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate, even finding some common ground. But experts say their proposals drastically differ in their efficacy.
The data shows American families are feeling the squeeze. According to the advocacy group StrongNation, the crisis costs the U.S. an estimated $122 billion each year. According to another study from Care.com, respondents spent about 24% of their income on childcare on average. But only one administration is publicly advocating for a robust plan to specifically address the childcare sector.
A critical split on income thresholds interrupts the campaigns’ shared goal of raising the child tax credit. The current bill requires parents to be in the labor force and earning an income over $2500 to qualify for the credit. Vice President Kamala Harris said she would remove that requirement, matching President Joe Biden’s proposal from his first year in office.
Roughly 19 million children don’t benefit from the full credit because their family income is too low, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Proposals.
Katherine Michelmore, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, said the work requirement created a sort of “Catch 22” situation, where the high cost of childcare prevented some people from entering the workforce and their lack of income meant they couldn’t qualify for the support.
She says removing the work requirement again would provide needed relief and “could actually encourage parents to work more.”
Former president Donald Trump and Vance have not said whether they’ll get rid of the income threshold.
As for other changes to the credit, Harris has said she’ll also restore it to $3600 per child over six years old, which was a part of Biden’s 2021 American Rescue plan, and $6000 for newborns.
Trump increased the credit from $1000 to $2000 and decreased the qualifying income threshold to $2500 during his first term with his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. So far, Trump and Vance have expressed support for another expansion, though Trump has not committed to Vance’s proposal of a $5000 credit per child.
Paid family leave was one of a handful of agreements in the 90-minute debate, with Vance and Walz both speaking in support of the proposal.
Rutgers economics professor Steven Barnett says that despite the variability of the early childcare industry, this is a universally positive policy.
“That’s something that takes care of a chunk of the very youngest kids,” he said.
Trump campaign
While Vance has brought up child care during the debate and in interviews, Trump himself has not addressed many policies specifically targeted at solving the problem. The word “childcare” does not appear on the platform document on his official website.
Instead, they’ve taken a broader approach to the crisis, with Trump and Vance saying new economic policies would be the solution.
In a speech at the Economic Club of New York, the former president responded to a question about childcare prices by saying tariffs, a tax on international imports, would bring in enough revenue to offset the issue.
“We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars,” said Trump. “As much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kinds of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
Studies paint a riskier picture, including raised prices for American families.
According to a study from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Trump’s tariff proposals would reduce after-tax incomes by 3.5% for lower income Americans, while increasing costs for middle-income families by about $1,700 each year.
Harris Campaign
Harris has also spoken about capping childcare costs to 7% of a family’s income, a policy known as a “sliding fee scale” currently practiced in several states. However, she has not laid out how she’ll pay for that.
Barnett says one of the challenges with the policy is in maintaining the quality of care. He says the caps may endanger revenue for childcare centers, which might lead them to hire cheaper labor and in turn decrease that quality.
“[If] they can get an agreement in Congress on some kind of quality standards, that would ensure the programs were, in fact, good for kids,” Barnett said.
Harris has also spoken about introducing universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds. The proposal would build off of the Child Care Development Grant, which provides subsidies to low-income families for access to child care.
Barnett says this would “drive up” quality and pay, while also giving parents more space to enter the workforce.
“You add that to the child care subsidy system and the money that’s already been spent… that’s a big piece taken care of,” Barnett said.
