Across the country, low-income parents are waiting more than a year for child care subsidies meant to help them keep working. Single mothers report losing income, missed promotions, and even their jobs while stuck on waitlists that stretch on for months with no end in sight. About 80 percent of the families who receive this assistance are single parents, according to federal data.

Rather than shortening these waitlists, the federal government may pull resources away from the families who rely on them most. Vice President JD Vance is pushing to redirect part of the $12 billion Child Care and Development Block Grant toward stay-at-home parents, but only in married households where one spouse works at least 35 hours a week. Single parents, who make up the vast majority of current recipients, would be left with even less support.

Vance has said universal child care is "a massive subsidy to the lifestyle preferences of the affluent," according to a post on X. But the people actually enduring these waitlists are working parents trying to hold onto their jobs, not looking for handouts. Even some conservatives oppose this shift: 40 Republicans in Congress have called for stronger funding of the existing program, and the group Advancing American Freedom has warned that this plan would "punish work."

Congress should strengthen child care assistance for working families instead of diverting it away from the parents who need it most. Sign the petition to demand Congress protect and expand child care subsidies for low-income working parents, before more families lose their jobs waiting for help that never comes.