What Moms Want in 2026: Child Care Investments and Safety for Kids

(StatePoint) For years, young families have struggled to find quality affordable child care—a problem created by long-term lack of government investments and exacerbated by the pandemic and inflation. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called the nation’s child care system “a textbook example of a broken market.” Thousands of programs have closed in recent years and for those still operating, prices are high and waitlists long.

Now, intensified immigration enforcement is creating new pressure on this already-fragile system. Immigrants are essential to the care workforce, making up 20% of child care workers, including 26% of center-based child care providers and early educators, and 23% of preschool teachers, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy. Young families in particular depend on these care workers, but advocates say they can’t stay in their jobs when they are living in fear, detained or deported. The Better Life Lab reports the sharp increase in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) activity starting in January 2025 has already resulted in roughly 39,000 fewer foreign-born child care workers nationwide and 77,000 fewer mothers of preschool-aged children in the workforce.