{"id":1913,"date":"2026-09-10T06:10:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=1913"},"modified":"2026-09-10T06:10:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:10:59","slug":"a-convoluted-scheme-to-pay-parents-to-stay-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=1913","title":{"rendered":"A Convoluted Scheme to Pay Parents to Stay at Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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V<\/span>ice President JD Vance wants to pay married parents to stay home with their children, and he wants to do it with money Congress appropriated to help low-income families afford day care. Whatever one thinks of the goal, which may prove popular, the proposal fails every test we should apply to government subsidies.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s because the proposal corrects no market failure. It pays people for choices they\u2019re already making. It adds a new claimant class to a budget that cannot carry the ones already promised something. And it does all of this without a workable plan to pay for it.<\/p>\n

Under a draft rule now circulating at the Department of Health and Human Services, married couples in which one spouse works at least 35 hours a week and the other stays home would become eligible for the federal child care subsidy \u2014 about $9,000 per child, per year \u2014 as payment for \u201cparent-based childcare.\u201d The money would come from the Child Care and Development Fund, a $12 billion block grant created in the 1990s to help low-income parents pay for care while working or finishing school.<\/p>\n

The CCDF currently covers about 1.3 million children and 870,000 families. Four in five recipient families are headed by a single working parent, usually a mother. The new rule would add no new money to the fund, exclude unmarried couples and send checks to households rather than day care providers.<\/p>\n

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Why should the federal government subsidize families at all, or put its thumb on the scale about how they do it?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Vance aims to end what he sees as discrimination against stay-at-home parents, offsetting the income they give up to care for children and making single-earner married families easier to sustain. These, too, are goals that we can debate, but none will be furthered by this proposal.<\/p>\n

Start with the threshold question: Why should the federal government subsidize families at all, or put its thumb on the scale about how they do it? Raising children is humanity\u2019s oldest private activity. The state shouldn\u2019t interfere.<\/p>\n

If there is a rationale for intervention, the standard one is market failure: The market produces too little of something society wants \u2014 in this case, allegedly, stay-at-home parents. Each family has their own financial circumstances, but no market failure prevents a married couple from deciding that one spouse stays home.<\/p>\n

Instead, we\u2019re told that the problem is federal policies, including the CCDF, that subsidize going to work and lead to fewer parents staying home with their kids than would otherwise. The claim is that giving parents similar money to stay home would allow a parent to quit their jobs without losing subsidies.<\/p>\n

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But for the majority of single moms benefiting from the existing child care subsidy, not working isn\u2019t an option, and that $9,000 won\u2019t make up for the loss of a paycheck. That means that the only ones who would benefit are stay-at-home moms who already made their choice before the government intervention, and those whose families can afford for one parent to stop working.<\/p>\n

Cash-for-care programs in Norway and Finland, as well as the extension of France\u2019s parental education allowance to second children in the 1990s, reduced maternal employment more significantly for educated women. In Norway and France, the mothers\u2019 earnings losses persisted for several years after the end of eligibility.<\/p>\n

If Vance\u2019s goal is more children rather than fewer working mothers, the record is worse. Hungary, Poland, Japan and South Korea have spent enormous sums on pronatalist payments. They have almost nothing to show for it except for changes in the timing of fertility.<\/p>\n

There are also fiscal questions. First, is it sound to disincentivize work when the two biggest spending programs and drivers of our debt \u2014 Social Security and Medicare \u2014 are funded by working Americans? If you don\u2019t want to reform entitlements, don\u2019t pay workers to stay home.<\/p>\n

Second, there already aren\u2019t enough CCDF funds to serve all the parents who want them for day care. And as mentioned above, those single parents currently benefiting from the program won\u2019t be able to quit their jobs. That means that expanding eligibility to married couples with one stay-at-home spouse will stress the program further. That\u2019s unless Congress expands the funding. With the entitlement crisis and a deficit now running near 6 percent of GDP, how will we cover this new federal program?<\/p>\n

The claim that child care subsidies like the CCDF discriminate against married couples is also weak. Our tax-and-transfer system is riddled with asymmetries. Stay-at-home spouses collect half their partner\u2019s Social Security benefit, and all of it as survivors, without paying payroll taxes on their own earnings. Homeowners deduct mortgage interest; renters don\u2019t. The answer to a program you object to is to shrink or end it, not to create a parallel program for whoever feels left out.<\/p>\n

If the administration wants to help families, it should remove the barriers that make raising children expensive for all parents independent of their work status.<\/p>\n

READ MORE from Veronique de Rugy:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Truths and Omissions As US Hits $40 Trillion in Debt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your Next Senator Will Finally Face the Social Security Decision Point<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Transportation Bill That Proves Washington Can\u2019t Quit Clientelism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. To find out more about Veronique de Rugy and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at<\/em> www.creators.com.<\/strong>
\nCOPYRIGHT 2026\u00a0CREATORS.COM<\/p>\n

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