Laura Valle-Gutierrez

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Americans Wanted a Cost of Living Warrior. Trump Is the Opposite Americans are increasingly concerned with cost of living issues. They voted for Donald Trump to help, but he's done the opposite.

This morning, we released an alarming new report detailing the depths of Americans’ financial distress, based on a June survey of 2,000 voters with Morning Consult.

TCF President Julie Margetta Morgan (@jmargetta.bsky.social) explains in a new op-ed in @rollingstone.com.

“Child care’s been rising for about 30 years faster than inflation.

The reality is the price of providing good child care is more than a lot of parents can pay. We've solved this in other sectors, like in education. That's what we need to be doing for child care, too.” – @kashenj.bsky.social

Raising a Family Is Increasingly Expensive. The Child Care for Working Families Act Would Help. Imagine families having reliable, stable child care options that met their needs—affordable, convenient, with no wait list—and ensured their children were

Child care is too expensive. It doesn’t have to be. The child care for working families act was introduced today. It lowers costs for families, ensures early educators are paid a living wage, and builds up the childcare sector.

Read @kashenj.bsky.social latest to lesrn more

tcf.org/content/comm...

HHS announced today they will consider Head Start a welfare program, not an education program, and will subject it to new citizenship requirements. This goes against decades of legal precedence that all children in America have a right to education. Announcement here. www.hhs.gov/press-room/p...

Being a mom has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, in part because I have had resources and support systems to manage the work. We can pass public policies to make motherhood a more affordable and enjoyable option for all women who want kids. We just have to decide to do it!

My annotation of the new distributional analysis from the Congressional Budget Office of the One Big Beautiful Bill.
www.cbo.gov/publication/...

BREAKING: CBO has released its final numbers on the plan House Republicans are pushing through Congress.

If this passes:
—$3.7 trillion in revenue LOST
—$2.4 trillion added to the debt
—10.9 million people will lose insurance by 2034

All to give tax breaks to the rich.

CBO is out with its final cost estimate of the tax-and-spending bill passed by the House.
- Revenue ⬇️ by $3.7 trillion over 10 years
- Spending ⬇️ by $1.3 trillion
- Debt ⬆️ by $2.4 trillion over 10 years
- Uninsured pop. ⬆️ by 10.9 million in 2034
Full analysis: www.cbo.gov/publication/...

What would help families have more babies? Here's what readers said PBS News asked readers to share their thoughts on having children and incentivizing childbirth — and more than 900 people responded. Here's what they said.

Families know what they need! PBS spoke to more than 1,000 readers about what would encourage them to have more babies. Readers want affordable child care, a lower cost of living, and access to reproductive health care. www.pbs.org/newshour/nat...

Women are out here doing $1 TRILLION in unpaid caregiving annually and Republicans are like....get to work. But also have babies. The cognitive dissonance is WILD. nationalpartnership.org/americans-un...

This is a very helpful chart 👇

Congressional Republicans are hellbent on taking away health care and food assistance from poor and desperate families in order to give tax cuts to their rich friends and donors who don't need it.

Tell Congress to put families over billionaires here: bit.ly/3MOBGyT

A testament to how horrible this bill was. A huge tax giveaway to billionaires paid for by cuts to health care and food assistance to kids and low-income families, that would also balloon the deficit.

New report from @childcareaware.bsky.social shows #childcare prices up by 29% since 2020.

Response from R's: Corporate tax breaks! Motherhood Medals!

What families really need:

👉reliable, stable child care options that meet their needs --convenient options, with no commute, no wait list.

None of these 17 million kids from low-income families will get a dime of the Republicans’ proposed increase in the #CTC as Kris Cox explains here ⬇️
bsky.app/profile/kris...

The New York Times recently reported on Trump admin efforts to boost the U.S. birth rate—from a $5,000 “baby bonus” to a “National Medal of Motherhood.”

In her latest piece, TCF Senior Fellow Gayle Goldin (@gaylegoldin.bsky.social) explains what we need instead: go.tcf.org/profamily

Babies, not billionaires! 🤝💖

Today is Day Without Childcare, and we're joining partners, providers and parents to highlight the true cost of care and demand funding for a 21st-century #childcare system that works for working families.

Join us and learn more www.DayWithoutChildcare.org

Opinion | Women are having fewer kids. It’s not a mystery why. Republicans are finally waking up to the motherhood crisis, but their policies won’t help.

Yes to all of this.

"Republicans have finally noticed that American motherhood is in crisis. But they still don’t understand — or don’t want to admit — that their policy choices have hurt moms." -- @whipkclark.bsky.social

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

The Top Five Trump Attacks Exacerbating the Child Care Crisis Every parent should have the freedom to go to work knowing their children are being cared for in safe environments by nurturing caregivers and early

My new piece with @kashenj.bsky.social: President Trump's cuts to child care departments, staff, and budgets will make it more challenging for parents to find and afford child care, make children less safe, and threaten providers’ ability to continue operating their programs. tcf.org/content/comm...

Mothers Want Pro-Family Policies, Not Coercive Incentives to Give Birth The New York Times recently reported on a range of policy suggestions from pronatalist and right-wing conservative groups interested in increasing the

As Mother's Day approaches, I’m thinking about the things that would truly celebrate moms: paid leave, higher minimum wage, child care for all. Grateful to @gaylegoldin.bsky.social at @tcfdotorg.bsky.social for laying this out in her piece.

America Narrowly Escapes a Terrible Trump Head Start Policy Idea (for Now) With the release of President Trump’s budget for FY 2026 on May 2, the president has put billionaires over families yet again—but America seems to have

New from Ruth Friedman: "A robustly funded and supported Head Start program benefits communities across the country. [Cutting Head Start] would setback families, spur job loss, make child care and pre-K less available, and strain state budgets." tcf.org/content/comm...

Mothers Want Pro-Family Policies, Not Coercive Incentives to Give Birth The New York Times recently reported on a range of policy suggestions from pronatalist and right-wing conservative groups interested in increasing the

“Instead of focusing federal policy on procreation, we should be focusing on family-sustaining policies that create meaningful change in people’s lives, no matter what that family looks like.”

TCF’s @gaylegoldin.bsky.social on why coercive pronatalist incentives fail women and families.

Trump wants us to have more kids — but it's more expensive than ever The president's misguided fertility push won’t help struggling families, experts say

I shared with @salonnewsroom.bsky.social “The fact that the [Trump] administration jumped straight to motherhood medals & not something like paid leave or child care solutions shows just how out of touch they are w/what parents in America are experiencing right now.”
www.salon.com/2025/05/04/w...

Trump sends a scorched-earth budget plan. GOP lawmakers hate it already. The request for obliterating many domestic programs sets up a clash with Congress ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

Trump's budget cuts programs that help student parents afford child care & help families pay heating bills, while funneling billions more to mass deportations that send people to gulags without due process. Trump doesn't care about improving the lives of US families www.politico.com/news/2025/05...

As federal dollars for Head Start slow, rural parents left without other options - The Hechinger Report In the rural Methow Valley in northeast Washington state, parents have few options for child care. There are only two licensed programs in the community — one of which is a Head Start center. About 40...

As federal dollars for Head Start slow, rural parents left without other options hechingerreport.org/as-federal-d...

Infographic that reads "100 Days of Chaos: Under Trump, consumer confidence has plummeted, falling by 30 % since December"

New indicators of a slowing economy with GDP contracting by 0.3 percent in Q1 according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is just the latest of many warning signs showing the damage that Trump has done to the U.S. economy in just 100 days
tcf.org/content/comm...

100 Days of Chaos: Rising Prices, Falling Markets, and Suffering Families President Trump came into office with a promise to boost the economy and lower prices for families, pledging that “A vote for Trump means your groceries

I just said government should prevent crises, not just respond to them. It sure as hell shouldn’t create them as this admin has done. From Laura Valle-Gutierrez @lfevalle.bsky.social & Andrew Stettner @aimstettner.bsky.social

States are leading the way on paid leave. My new commentary with @rwest817.bsky.social explores how Pennsylvanians can expand coverage to millions of workers this year by voting to invest in a public paid leave program (instead of the so-called “benefits savings accounts” tech companies love)

My new piece highlights 5 ways Trump has harmed the well-being and financial security of families in the past 100 days. Read it here: tcf.org/content/comm...

What “America First” Could Cost Us As the Trump Administration forces the U.S. to retreat from labor-protection programs abroad, American workers might end up suffering, too.

This story right here…the assault on the federal workforce impacts everyone. I’m grateful to current and former employees who are continuing to speak up about the trauma they are facing and the Administration’s callous disregard of longstanding policy.

www.newyorker.com/news/deep-st...