Childcare Workers Protest Trump Funding Cuts in National Strike

Mother’s Day is a time to celebrate and appreciate mom, but on Monday, childcare workers reminded the country that their labor matters, too.

Childcare workers nationwide went on strike Monday to demand universal childcare, closing their home- and center-based daycares for the day to raise awareness of the importance of their work.

Called the Day Without Child Care, childcare workers across 28 states, including New York, are fighting for full federal funding, as well as a call to action against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention and deportation of children and childcare workers. In one notable instance in November, immigration enforcement agents detained a daycare worker during a Chicago raid. 

Participating childcare centers, such as daycares, are planning to close their doors and rally outside governmental buildings and public spaces for the one-day action.  

Organizers estimate that more than 3,000 childcare providers and parent supporters will participate in over 75 actions across the country, with the hopes of beating last year’s record of 1,395 as the largest one-day work stoppage of child care workers. Dozens of advocates rallied Monday afternoon in the park outside City Hall in Manhattan.

Beginning in 2022, the Day Without Child Care was founded by Community Change Action, a national organization that advocates for low-income communities of color, as a direct response to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a spending bill that left out universal pre-kindergarten, paid family leave, and an expanded child tax credit. 

The conditions they’re rallying against have only gotten worse under the Trump administration, with further funding cuts for childcare services. In January, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) moved to reduce funding for the federal Child Care and Development Fund , which subsidizes childcare for more than 1.4 million children from 870,000 low-income families each month. That same month, the Trump administration froze nearly $2.4 billion in childcare funding for five states, including New York. New York State Attorney General Letitia James was able to successfully sue the administration, receiving a court order to restore the funding in February.  

HHS’s proposed rule change would also reverse a previous rule that capped childcare family copayments for low-income families at 7% of household income. The new change could have detrimental effects on low-income families, advocates say, making childcare a luxury they could not afford. 

According to Meredith Loomis Quinlan, economic justice campaign manager with Community Change Action, the cuts to the Child Care and Development Fund disproportionately affect communities of color and are indicative of the need for a fully funded universal pre-kindergarten program. 

“Black and Brown providers have been shouldering the burden and putting together piecemeal solutions to keep the childcare industry and our entire economy afloat for decades,” she said in a statement to Documented. “When we started organizing this day of action with Childcare Changemakers and our partners around the country, we knew it was time to change the conversation to demand the childcare system providers deserve, families need, and our economy relies on.”

Janna Rodriguez, 36, who runs a home daycare on Long Island, told Documented that she is participating in the one-day strike because she wants to defend not only her livelihood but also working families. The center she owns, the Innovative Daycare Corp. in Freeport, New York, was closed for the day to honor the strike.

“This is a country founded on a democratic system that enabled us to feel like we are included in this process, because we are important, and unfortunately, in today’s political climate, everyone’s importance and worth is being questioned,” Rodriguez said. “Childcare is at the forefront of that, because we are currently under attack with this current administration, where we are being viewed as fraudulent small business owners who aren’t really doing the work that we say that we’re doing.”

Rodriguez, who immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic when she was two months old, said that she has sacrificed her own personal life to devote herself to the profession she loves. 

“I think that it takes special people to do this work,” she said. “You have to be super, super special and loving because it’s hard work. It’s long days, you know, you don’t have a break.”

The fight for universal childcare has already achieved some victories in New York. Following Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promise for universal childcare, Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged $1.2 billion to fund early childhood care and education in New York City. Quinlan, the Community Change Action campaign manager, hopes the Day Without Child Care sparks a conversation that will inspire nationwide change.

“What started out five years ago as a few hundred providers determined to put childcare front and center on the national agenda has grown into a national movement of thousands of providers and parents striking together for universal childcare,” Quinlan said. “This is about more than one day; we are taking bold, sustained actions until we get the universal system we deserve.”