Lawmaker toolkit · Families
No. 02 · October 2026

Universal Child Care: the toolkit

The bill's commitments, a resolution your council or legislature can pass, and answers to every objection.

For candidates, legislators and their staff · Pair with the policy brief · Figures sourced in the notes

01The bill

The Child Care for Working Families Act is H.R. 4418 in the House (Rep. Bobby Scott, with Reps. Katherine Clark and Summer Lee) and S. 2295 in the Senate (Sen. Patty Murray, with Sens. Tim Kaine, Mazie Hirono and Andy Kim). These are its core commitments, in its sponsors' words.^11,12

The cost capH.R. 4418 · S. 2295

no eligible family will pay more than 7 percent of their income on child care.

Free care for most familiesH.R. 4418 · S. 2295

Families earning below 85 percent of state median income will pay nothing at all for child care.

Educators paid like teachersH.R. 4418 · S. 2295

Child care workers would be paid a living wage and achieve parity with elementary school teachers who have similar credentials and experience.

Universal preschoolH.R. 4418 · S. 2295

States would receive funding to establish and expand a mixed-delivery system of high-quality preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds.

Building supplyH.R. 4418 · S. 2295

Grants to open new providers in underserved communities, cover start-up and licensing costs, and expand care during nontraditional hours; funding for full-day, full-year Head Start.

Quotes are from the sponsors' July 15, 2025 summary. Read the full text in note 12.

02Model resolution

City councils, county boards and state legislatures can go on record for universal child care. Fill in your body, then copy the text. Add your area's price of care and desert figures to make it stronger.

Model text from The Constituent Institute. Free to adapt; no credit needed. Figures from notes 1 to 6. Built in your browser; nothing you type is saved or sent.

03Answering objections

Five objections you will hear, and the answer to each. Lead with the line, back it with one number, then stop.

They say"Parents should raise their own kids, not the government."

This is about parents' choices. Right now most families have no real choice, because care costs too much or doesn't exist. The bill pays for the care parents pick, including home-based providers.

46% of children under 6 live in a child care desert.³
The bill funds a mixed-delivery system, not only centers.¹¹

They say"We can't afford it."

We are already paying for it, in lost jobs and lost tax revenue. Done right, child care pays for itself.

The crisis costs $122 billion a year in lost earnings, productivity and revenue.⁶
In Québec, taxes paid by parents who went back to work returned more than the program cost.¹⁰
Comprehensive early care returns about 13% a year.¹⁴

They say"It will put small providers out of business."

It does the opposite. The bill pays providers what care actually costs and gives grants to open new ones.

Sponsors say subsidies would cover the cost of providing high-quality care, with start-up and licensing grants for new providers.¹¹

They say"Quality will drop if the government runs it."

Quality depends on the people doing the work, and right now we pay them so little they leave. Paying educators like teachers is how quality goes up.

Child care workers earn a median $32,050 a year; kindergarten teachers earn $61,430.^4,5
The bill requires pay parity with elementary school teachers.¹¹

They say"This is a blue-state idea."

Voters in both parties want it, and families in every district pay the price.

69% of Republican voters, 84% of independents and 94% of Democrats say federal funding will help lower child care costs.¹⁵
80% of voters call finding and affording care a crisis or a major problem.¹⁵

04Lines that land

Short enough for a debate answer, a mailer or a post. Each one is sourced in this toolkit.

Child care costs more than rent in much of the country. That's not a family failure. It's a policy failure.
No family should pay more than 7% of its income for child care.
The people who raise our kids deserve to be paid like the people who teach them.
Every dollar we put into early childhood comes back, in jobs, earnings and taxes.
New Mexico made child care free for every family. The rest of the country can, too.

05The proof

New Mexico. Since November 1, 2025, child care has been free for every family regardless of income, with eligibility limits dropped and copays waived. The state estimates families save about $12,000 per child each year.¹³

Québec. Universal low-fee child care raised mothers' labor force participation from 66% to 79% between 1998 and 2014 and lifted the province's economy by an estimated 1.7%.¹⁰

Notes

The Constituent Institute · constituentinstitute.org/universal-child-care-toolkit Funded by people, not corporations. Free to copy and share.