I live in the small city of Rolla, Missouri, where half the child care centers have closed in the past six years. In the past year, my state has lost 1,771 child care slots due to closures.

This problem isn’t isolated to Rolla – child care providers are closing in other rural areas. Some of the challenges these centers face are widespread. U.S. child care workers typically earn little money, yet child care costs are high for many families.

Approximately 1.4 million children whose families are low-income benefit from child care subsidies, which means the federal and state government partially cover the cost of child care. States typically receive federal funding that they match and then give to subsidize individual children’s care at child care centers.

In early January 2026, the Trump administration announced that it had temporarily frozen federal child care subsidy payments to all states because of fraud concerns in Minnesota.

A group of states – Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois and Colorado – then sued the Trump administration. A federal judge ruled on Jan. 26 that the administration must deliver nearly US$10 billion in federal child care subsidies to these states.

The new policy also creates new verification rules – like stricter proof of parents’ employment – that are making it more time-consuming and complicated to receive subsidies.

Despite the lawsuit, these other new subsidy rules remain in place – meaning that, among other things, child care providers have to do more paperwork and receive reimbursement from the federal government later than they typically do.

An already tough situation

Already, many child care providers are struggling to keep their doors open.

I am a professor and the chair of the education department at Missouri University of Science and Technology. I help prepare my students........

© The Conversation