Last year, Connecticut took a major step toward addressing the state’s child care crisis.
Gov. Ned Lamont proposed —and the General Assembly passed— legislation to establish an Early Childhood Endowment, funded initially with a $300 million investment from the state surplus. Over time, this endowment will grow to make Early Start programs affordable (free for families earning below $100,000), raise wages for early childhood educators, and expand capacity to serve more children.
The major reforms to the Early Start program are scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2027. However, for families with young children, the crisis is worsening today. Rising costs for rent, food, utilities, and child care have outpaced inflation, squeezing more families out of the child care marketplace. An increasing number of households are falling below the United Way’s ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) survival budget threshold.
Without access to affordable market-rate care, parents face difficult choices: delaying return to work, working part-time or non-traditional hours to juggle care within families, or relying on informal care from relatives, friends, and neighbors. According to Bank of America Institute data , the number of American families paying for child care actually decreased in 2025. This trend is reflected in Connecticut, where calls to the 211 helpline seeking child care assistance dropped by 988 .
Meanwhile, Connecticut’s largest child care subsidy program, Care4Kids —which serves families earning below 65% of the state median income— saw a 9% increase in applications in 2025 . As of early February 2026, the program is at capacity with 3,844 children on a waiting list. Families now wait seven to nine months for subsidies , a delay that is particularly disruptive for low-income working families.
Families with young children typically have their lowest net worth in the five years after their first child’s birth, with minimal savings to cushion financial emergencies. When parents cannot secure child-care subsidies to return to work, they lose earnings, potentially triggering a financial cascade. Families with children under age three face the highest risk of eviction, and calls to Connecticut’s homeless response system increased by 45% in 2025.
These long waits also destabilize child-care programs themselves. Many providers now have vacant spaces they cannot fill. With fewer families able to afford private care and growing waitlists for Care4Kids subsidies, many programs have been unable to replace children who aged into kindergarten last fall. Without tuition revenue, programs are losing money, forcing long-time providers —particularly in low-income communities—to consider closing. These potential closures would create additional disruptions for enrolled families and reduce overall child care capacity just as the state aims to expand it.
The families most affected by the Care4Kids waitlist are those with children under age three—over 1,900 infants and toddlers were waiting for assistance as of early February 2026.
It is indeed ironic that at a time when Connecticut is investing more in child care than ever before —with major Early Start improvements scheduled in just 17 months— the state faces the very real possibility of program closures. These closures would reduce child care capacity exactly when expansion is needed most, hitting hardest in the poorest communities where families and providers depend most heavily on the Care4Kids subsidy system.
The solution requires two immediate actions: an infusion of funds into the Care4Kids program for Fiscal Year 2027 to clear the waitlist, which will sustain providers until Early Start reforms take effect, and an additional $300 million deposit into the Early Childhood Endowment to ensure resources exist to implement those planned improvements.
Merrill Gay is Executive Director of the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance.