Families need accessible, affordable child care and early education to work and ensure their children can thrive. For years, the District of Columbia has responded to its title of the highest child care costs in the country by offsetting the high costs for many families while also strengthening the quality of care. Mayor Bowser’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget ends that progress.
This budget cuts child care subsidies to 6,000 families, down from the current 7,300, and eliminates pay parity for teachers working in early education settings outside DC’s school system. These cuts will leave thousands of working families and single parents without affordable child care and could result in higher tuition costs or early childhood workers taking their talents elsewhere.
Child care keeps parents working, keeps providers employing, and keeps the local economy moving. Local economic growth is driven by people who want to live and work somewhere, and can afford to stay and build a life. Working parents need child care to work. They also need affordable housing, quality jobs, and access to reliable transportation. These are the load-bearing walls. Remove one and the structure weakens. Remove more than one and it collapses.
That’s exactly what this budget does. The Child Care Subsidy Program helps thousands of families with low and moderate incomes pay for care. Without it, parents — overwhelmingly mothers — cut hours, turn down opportunities, or leave the workforce entirely. The Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund ensures educators are paid on par with DCPS teachers; without it, workers leave the field, quality drops, and families are left scrambling. Beyond child care, the budget compounds the damage. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), cash assistance many parents use to pay rent, faces elimination for long-term recipients starting in FY 2028, affecting 15,000 children. For the second year in a row, the budget fails to fund new housing vouchers for any tenant, slashes emergency rental assistance, and closes Rapid ReHousing to new participants, cutting off a critical pathway out of homelessness. For the many families and children getting hit on many fronts, each cut compounds the last.
This is a plan for a weaker, not stronger DC. The mayor’s growth strategy concentrates resources at the top — more tax abatements for developers and funding for unproven business attraction schemes — while working parents and small child care providers are left to make do with less. Real economic growth is from the bottom up and the middle out: a parent who can afford care gets to work or go back to school; a worker who stays housed stays employed; an educator who earns a competitive wage stays in the classroom.
DC voters know this, strongly supporting public investments in child care. New polling from DC Action shows that 72% support fully funding the Child Care Subsidy Program and 69% support fully funding the Pay Equity Fund. More than 82% say lowering costs should be a priority, and among parents of children under 13, that number climbs to 90%. And 74% support ensuring no resident pays more than 7% of their income for child care.
DC voters have also endorsed specific solutions for funding these investments. More than three-quarters support taxing wealth held by the top 5% of earners, and 73% support taxing passive income from assets such as stocks, bonds, and hedge funds. Corporate profits and non-wage income like capital gains are driving the District’s revenue gains, suggesting that corporations and wealthy residents continue to benefit the most from the District’s economic growth, as other residents are struggling to put food on the table and/or afford trips to the doctor.
Another solution is a Business Activity Tax which would close loopholes that exempt some businesses—particularly large consulting or law firms whose owners live outside of DC—from paying their fair share to DC. By complementing existing franchise taxes, rather than adding to them or replacing them, it would affect only businesses that now pay little or no tax. When voters learn how the tax works, support increases to 74%.
Every child deserves a strong start and a high-quality education, beginning at birth, and their educators deserve equitable salaries. To fulfill its duty to children and families, and to a stronger District in the long run, the DC Council will need to secure funding or raise revenue to adequately finance the foundations that make it possible. The tools exist. The support is there. The economic case is proven.
Kimberly Perry is the Executive Director of DC Action and an Executive Committee Member of Under 3 DC. Erica Williams is the Executive Director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.
