AP Exclusive: Hundreds of thousands of eligible kids are waiting for childcare assistance

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — There's the mother of two who needs a full-time job to keep up with the bills, but can’t afford full-time childcare . There’s the medical technician who stopped buying groceries and turned to food banks so she could pay for her infant's care.

There’s the baby who remained in foster care, even after his mother completed the steps to bring him home. She had found a job, as the state required, but couldn't afford his childcare.

It’s hardly news that childcare is expensive, straining the budget of even middle-class parents. But these families all qualify for government-funded childcare assistance, intended to drastically reduce the childcare bills of needy parents so they can work or go to school. Instead, Indiana's program, which had run short on funds, waitlisted them.

Hundreds of thousands of children were sitting on childcare assistance waitlists in 23 states and the District of Columbia as of this spring, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. In three more states, many eligible families who applied were simply turned away.

Childcare assistance, funded by the federal government with help from states, is supposed to aid working parents who are low-income, homeless or caring for foster children. But waitlists have ballooned since 2023, when eight states had them, according to the AP analysis. Reporters collected waitlist and enrollment data from 47 states and the District of Columbia.

Many of the waitlists first started after $28 billion in pandemic aid expired in the fall of 2024. The Republican-led Congress declined to extend the extra money. Some states have increased funding to try to fill the gap, but families' need for childcare assistance has only grown, as they've faced mounting costs for food and gas .

While eligible families sit on waitlists, untold numbers of adults are sidelined from education or the workforce because they can't afford childcare. Those parents who remain in school or keep working make difficult tradeoffs. In interviews, parents described forgoing necessities, falling behind on bills or relying on acquaintances to watch their children. Unable to find viable childcare, some have resorted to bringing their children with them to work or class.

For Meygan Maloney's family in rural Indiana, waiting for childcare assistance means month after month of falling short financially. Maloney was working as a caregiver for disabled adults before she had her second child in 2023. Around the same time, the family took emergency custody of a close relative’s newborn daughter.

The next three years were marked by deepening financial struggles. Maloney only received $300 a month to care for her foster daughter, and both toddlers were put on a waitlist when she applied for childcare vouchers for 2025.

While the girl returned to her family in the fall, Maloney and her husband are still behind on bills. They recently refinanced their home, and her husband is working seven days a week as a tire technician and delivery driver. A local childcare provider gave her a steep discount, allowing her to leave her son four mornings a week to clean at a local hospital.

“I felt useless as a stay-at-home mom. I felt like I wasn’t contributing to our household,” Maloney said, her voice cracking. “We’re trying to get out. But for us to get out, we need the assistance."

Indiana started its waitlist in December 2024, a few months after pandemic aid ran out and it became clear the state would struggle to support families already in the program. Until May of this year, it put virtually everyone who applied on the waitlist, including foster parents. By spring 2026, nearly 37,000 children were waiting for assistance.

Maloney and other foster families feel like they were misled by the state, which had for many years paid for childcare for foster children. Malinda Cox, an Indianapolis mom who took in a newborn last year, said she was forced to dip into her family’s savings to pay for the baby boy's childcare so she could return to work. At one point, she considered giving up custody of the boy because her family could not afford his childcare bill.

In the meantime, the boy’s biological mother was completing the requirements she had to satisfy to take him home. She had taken parenting classes and gotten a job. But she could not afford daycare, and because the boy could not get childcare assistance, he had to remain with Cox.

“We started to feel, like, guilty. He should be home with his mom, but (because of) this massive system upset, he’s not,” Cox said.

In April, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, announced the state would send $200 million in surplus funds to the state’s childcare assistance program, which would allow it to move roughly 8,000 children off the waitlist.

Even before the recent growth in waitlists, federal funding for childcare assistance has always fallen short of providing for every needy family, providing enough money to serve a fraction of those eligible. Experts say waitlists represent the tip of the iceberg, because many eligible families who need the help don't know about the program or haven't applied, daunted by tales of long waitlists.

The origins of the funding shortfall are cultural, said Ruth Friedman, who headed the Office of Child Care under Democratic President Joe Biden. For decades, “childcare was the responsibility of the family,” she said. “The system is fundamentally broken, and if the government doesn’t help fix the system … it will not be affordable for families.”

There are stark differences of opinion on whether the government should provide help — or how much. This year, 40 congressional Republicans called for “robust” funding of the federal program that underwrites childcare assistance. Instead, it received the same money as the year before. President Donald Trump said during his campaign that he could make childcare more affordable by using tariff revenue , but this spring he told a White House audience that paying for childcare should be up to the states.

“We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare. You got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it, too,” Trump told people gathered for an Easter luncheon.

His administration has largely focused on allegations of fraud in the program, at one point halting funding to five Democratic-led states . After a lawsuit , a judge ordered Trump's administration to restart the funding.

Without affordable childcare options, parents have resorted to bringing their children with them to work or school.

In Minnesota, Deaira Gresham's 1-year-old daughter has been on the waitlist for childcare assistance since birth, one of 9,000 children in her state awaiting aid as of this spring. Gresham, who works as an in-home health aide and takes a full load of classes at a chiropractic school, had some help with the baby from her mother. But often, she was forced to take her daughter with her to class and to her clients’ homes. It took a toll — Gresham failed several classes juggling school and caring for a baby.

This fall, she lucked out, getting a childcare grant for parenting students, allowing her to put the little girl in full-time care.

“Parents are in desperate need,” Gresham said. “We need that break. We need to be able to go to school, go to work and know that our kids are in good hands.”

It’s not just their work or college classes that parents worry about. Research has shown that high-quality childcare can boost a child's social-emotional and academic development.

Carmen Perez, who lives north of San Francisco, has applied for childcare help for all four of her children. Her eldest son never received it before aging out of the program. He struggled academically in ways that his sisters, who attended subsidized preschool, did not.

Now her 2-year-old son is one of 380 kids on a waitlist for assistance in Marin County, California. She fears he will face the same challenges as his older brother. “It makes me sick.”

On a rainy May day in Indianapolis, Cox bundled up her foster son and delivered him to a social worker. She packed up her own car with the boy’s things — clothes, diapers and a small changing table. The boy’s biological mother still had not gotten childcare assistance, but Cox had negotiated a deal with a childcare provider to offer a massive discount. When even that was out of the mother’s reach, Cox agreed to pay half.

She arrived at the boy’s new home to watch him reunite with his mother. She felt a mix of grief over parting with him and elation over seeing his delight with his mother.

Three weeks later, the mother got notice: He had finally been approved for a voucher.

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