States reinstated childcare subsidy waitlists after pandemic funding expired, with 31,000 children waiting in Indiana and 14,000 in Virginia

When the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) childcare stabilization funds expired — $24 billion on September 30, 2023, with remaining funds expiring September 30, 2024 — states that had eliminated subsidy waitlists during the pandemic were forced to reinstate them. Indiana reimplemented waitlists in December 2024 for new CCDF and On My Way Pre-K voucher applicants, and now has roughly 31,000 children waiting. Virginia's waitlist jumped from approximately 3,000 children in August 2024 to over 14,000 by October 2025. Arizona reinstated its subsidy waitlist on August 1, 2024 — the first time since 2019 — resulting in an average of 5,200 fewer children served each month. A waitlist for a childcare subsidy is not like a waitlist for a restaurant. When a family is placed on a subsidy waitlist, they do not simply wait and then get care. They face months or years with no financial assistance while still needing to work, which means they either pay full market rate (which they cannot afford, because they qualified for subsidies based on income), find informal unregulated care, or leave the workforce. The economic damage compounds: parents lose earnings, employers lose workers, and the state loses tax revenue. The Century Foundation estimated that the expiration of ARPA funding would cause parents to lose $9 billion in annual earnings and states to lose $10.6 billion in economic activity per year. This problem persists because federal childcare funding is structured as temporary emergency relief rather than permanent entitlement spending. ARPA was always time-limited. When it expired, there was no replacement, and state budgets could not absorb the difference. The political dynamic is toxic: Congress passed emergency funding during COVID because 'childcare is infrastructure,' but when the emergency label expired, so did the political will to fund it permanently. States are now citing 'federal uncertainty' as the reason for rolling back services, creating a doom loop where federal inaction causes state cuts, which causes provider closures, which reduces the system's capacity to absorb future funding even if it arrives.