January 15, 2025
When every person can work, live, and raise their family with dignity, a more equitable society is possible for everyone.
As a united community, we hold California policymakers accountable for their commitments to California’s children, families, and child care providers. We look to the state budget to make sure our leaders are keeping their promise of a just society where child care providers are paid fairly and families have the child care they need.
On January 10th, 2025, Governor Newsom released his proposed state budget for the upcoming fiscal year which begins on July 1, 2025.
Here are the top three child care takeaways:
1. Fair Pay for Child Care Providers
Governor Newsom includes no funding in his proposal to pay child care providers fairly, based on the actual cost of care.
In 2023, the state agreed to pay child care providers, who are predominantly women of color, a fair wage based on the full cost of providing enriching care. This transformative shift of paying providers a just wage is an anti-racist policy that is essential and long overdue. Read more here.
The Governor proposes funding to maintain current child care providers’ wages. But the state’s current poverty-level payments are forcing providers to close their programs and discouraging people from entering the workforce at a time when over 2 million children are eligible for publicly-funded child care. This is unacceptable.
The Governor’s proposal only references the state’s next step of negotiations with Child Care Providers United – the state union representing family child care providers and family, friend, and neighbor providers.
It is extremely disappointing that he does not propose to fund this anti-racist policy and cover providers’ full costs. Funding this policy is necessary to ensure it is carried out as soon as possible.
2. Affordable Child Care for Families
The Governor proposes no funding for increasing publicly-funded child care spaces for families with low incomes.
Last year’s state budget committed to funding 206,800 additional child care spaces by 2028-2029, but included a pause on any new spaces from being issued this year. Thus far, approximately 118,000 new spaces have been added since 2021 and about 88,000 remain to be funded. Read more about it in our 2024-25 Budget Analysis, here.
Governor Newsom follows through on this pause and maintains funding for the number of families currently receiving publicly-funded child care. However, only 14% of California’s children eligible for publicly-funded child care are actually enrolled.1 Over 1.8 million children are waiting for policymakers to prioritize their learning and growth.2
Underfunding child care spaces impacts families and children of color the most, making this policy choice an urgent racial justice issue.
3. Funding Child Care Programs
Governor Newsom makes no proposed cuts to child care spending. The Governor’s proposal includes $7.1 billion ($4.6 billion in General Funds) to sustain current funding levels for child care and development programs. However, increased and ongoing funding for child care is essential to meet the urgent needs of families and the women of color who care for and educate our youngest children.
Governor Newsom’s January state budget proposal fails to strengthen child care in California. But this is just the beginning of the state budget process. We are committed to working with the Governor and Legislature to fund these child care commitments and right the historical wrongs of racist child care policies.
What’s next?
The state Legislature will review and discuss Governor Newsom’s proposed budget at Senate and Assembly budget committee hearings over the next few months. After state taxes are collected in April, the Governor will make revisions and publish a new proposed state budget in May for the Legislature to consider.
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- The California Budget and Policy Center plans to publish these figures later this quarter. This estimate is based on the number of children 0-12 enrolled in California Department of Social Services child care programs (not including “Handicapped and Community College Stage 2” program enrollment) in October 2023. ↩︎
- The California Budget and Policy Center plans to publish these figures later this quarter.
This estimate is for California Department of Social Services child care programs and is based on 2023 American Community Survey data. ↩︎
