Like so many Americans, Jenny Escolastico has watched wearily as the cost of living has risen, straining her household budget. But as a mother of two children under 5, she faces added pressure that could shape how she votes in November: childcare costs.

Escolastico’s household outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, is relying solely on her husband’s income. She’s staying home with her children, at least in part because she simply can’t afford to work.

“What I would be spending on childcare would be more than what I would be making if I were working full time,” said Escolastico, an Air Force veteran who later worked in human resources. “Childcare is another rent, another car note.” Even though her son now attends state-funded prekindergarten, returning to work would still mean finding him after-school care, plus full-time childcare for her daughter.

Those costs are top of mind as Escolastico, who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, weighs whether to vote Democratic next month.

She lives in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested 7th Congressional District, one of a handful that will determine which party controls Congress next year. The midterm elections have been dominated by anxiety over rising prices for gas, groceries and housing, a liability for Trump and his Republican Party. For millions of parents of young children, childcare is one of the largest strains on the family budget.

Both parties are talking about childcare

Childcare costs have rose faster than inflation from 2020 to 2024, with the U.S. average for full-time childcare topping $13,000 in 2025, according to Child Care Aware of America. About three-quarters of U.S. adults saw the expense of childcare as a “major problem” in the U.S., and 64% supported the federal government providing free- or low-cost childcare for children too young for public school, according to an AP-NORC poll from June 2025.

In the 7th District north of Philadelphia, both candidates are making childcare part of their pitch to voters. Like Escolastico, about 16% of the district’s voters were undecided as of September, according to a poll from Franklin and Marshall College.

Democratic nominee Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter, has campaigned on establishing universal prekindergarten, expanding full-day kindergarten, increasing funding for Head Start and making more working families eligible for federal childcare assistance. He’s cited his own experience pitching in on childcare for his two granddaughters.

“The cost of caring for the people you love keeps climbing, and nobody in Washington seems to notice,” Brooks said in a news release.

The incumbent, freshman Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, himself a father of two kids under age 3, has embraced more modest approaches that rely on tax breaks to lower costs.

He cosponsored a bill to expand the federal tax credit for childcare expenses. The proposal, ultimately folded into Trump’s sweeping bill of tax breaks and cuts to social programs, also increased tax incentives for private employers who subsidize or provide childcare for their workers.

“I will continue to work together with both sides to ensure that working families get the resources, representation, and support that they deserve,” Mackenzie said in a statement.

Trump himself had campaigned on cutting childcare costs by using tariff revenue, a plan that has yet to materialize. More recently, he expressed skepticism of federal money for childcare.

“We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare,” Trump told an Easter luncheon.

Childcare has become an increasingly urgent priority

The urgency over early childhood policy was accelerated by the pandemic. Daycare closures and weekslong quarantines laid bare the necessity and financial precarity of the childcare industry. To keep providers open, the federal government spent more than $50 billion on the industry, funding staff training, higher wages, protective gear and childcare assistance for more families.

In 2021, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, proposed offering subsidies to most American families so they would never pay more than 7% of their household income on childcare. It was narrowly defeated in Congress.

Three years later, the last of the pandemic aid expired. Waitlists for childcare assistance exploded, forcing low-income households to sideline a parent from the workforce or forgo necessities to foot a childcare bill.

Since then, more candidates have campaigned on childcare solutions. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, pledged to make childcare free for all residents. The Democratic governors of New Jersey and Virginia elected last year both campaigned on plans to increase childcare funding. The Democratic nominee for mayor in Washington, D.C., won the primary in June after proposing to cap childcare expenses at 7% of a household’s income.

With childcare prices rising, Lerin Hagenbuch of Allentown says she wonders why the country hasn’t moved toward universal childcare. She recalled when she and her husband, a quality assurance manager, anxiously searched for childcare so she could return to her job as a special education teacher, only to find that some of their options would require her to take a second job.

Her son is now in kindergarten, but childcare costs remain one of her top issues. She’s a registered Republican, but hasn’t decided how to vote next month.

“There are staff shortages everywhere,” Hagenbuch said. “If these moms or dads who are staying at home were able to even work part time, what a shift that would be.”

$60 million in election spending boosts childcare issues

The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, which advocates for greater government support for paid leave, child care and elder care, hopes voters like Hagenbuch will side with Democrats, who have historically favored bigger-ticket childcare investments.

The political action committee said it has spent $60 million this year backing Democrats in statehouse, congressional and governor’s races, targeting voters in a dozen states with canvassing, ads and mailers. The campaign pursues voters from both parties who feel the cost of caring for a child or an aging parent is growing untenable.

“This is something that every family is touched by,” said Phoebe Kilgour, the campaign’s deputy executive director. “And so when you talk to people about what candidates are gonna do to … lower the cost of care, it can be super persuasive.”

A longtime preschool teacher, Becky Fisher of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, earns less than $20 an hour. Much of her paycheck goes to pay for before- and after-school care for her two sons at the childcare center where she works.

Fisher was raised in a conservative Christian household and registered as a Republican when she graduated from high school, voting for President George W. Bush’s reelection. She switched parties and in 2024 voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats’ unsuccessful nominee for president.

This year, she’s still deciding how to vote, but says she wants to back a congressional candidate who will do more than pay lip service to supporting families and teachers. Childcare and early education are among the lowest-paid professions in the nation. And many of the field’s workers are parents like her.

“Every parent is exhausted,” Fisher said.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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