Sponsors (10)
The bill expands affordable, higher-quality early childhood programs and strengthens the workforce and safety standards — improving access and equity for families — but does so with large new federal commitments and complex requirements that could strain public budgets, increase administrative burdens, and risk provider disruption if funding or implementation capacity falls short.
Millions of young children and their families gain much greater access to affordable child care and early learning because covered children are entitled to federally supported programs with a very high federal funding share and caps on family fees.
Early childhood educators and staff get stronger pay, career pathways, professional development, and workplace protections that raise wages, reduce turnover, and improve program stability and teacher quality.
Children from prioritized groups (low-income children, children with disabilities, dual-language learners, homeless and foster children) — including Tribal and Native Hawaiian children — receive targeted access, culturally and linguistically appropriate services, and presumptive federal supports that improve equity in early learning.
Large new and open-ended federal spending commitments could increase the federal deficit or require offsets (higher taxes or cuts elsewhere) and put pressure on taxpayers and federal budgets.
Mandated higher wages, stronger program standards, facility codes, and fee caps will raise operating costs and administrative obligations for sponsors and providers — if federal funding does not fully cover those costs, the number of available child-care slots or service quality could fall.
Extensive reporting, monitoring, data collection, compliance tasks, and new administrative requirements increase workload for prime sponsors, delegate providers, and states, diverting staff time from direct child care and raising implementation complexity.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a federal child care and early learning program with national standards, funding to prime sponsors, required pay scales and workplace protections, facility codes, and state maintenance-of-effort rules.
Introduced September 30, 2025 by Elizabeth Warren · Last progress September 30, 2025
Creates a new federal child care and early learning program that aims to make affordable, high-quality child care available to all children before they reach compulsory school age. It sets national definitions and program purposes, requires local planning and community-run programs, mandates pay scales and worker protections for staff, establishes uniform facility standards, requires data reporting and research, and adds state maintenance-of-effort rules tied to existing Child Care and Development Block Grant funds. The law directs the Secretary to award financial assistance to prime sponsors to plan, run, and evaluate programs, requires coordination with Tribal governments and early intervention services, and sets rules for compensation, collective bargaining, and ongoing program evaluation. It also creates a facilities-code process and ties state eligibility for some federal child care funds to maintaining prior-year spending levels for child care services.