Congress debates childhood by budget lines. Children don’t live that way. 

Direct investments in children are among the most effective and highest-return policies the government runs. Yet America already spends less on children than many wealthy peer nations and less per child than per senior. And now Congress is weighing another round of choices that would further reshape the systems supporting children through school, healthcare, nutrition, childcare and housing.

Some of those choices are already law. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the 2025 reconciliation law will reduce federal spending on SNAP benefits by over $250 billion over the 2025-2034 period.

Others remain as proposals. The House Appropriations Committee-approved fiscal 2027 transportation and housing bill carries a total discretionary allocation that’s 10.4 percent below the fiscal 2026 enacted level. President Trump’s budget requests a reduction of $10.7 billion or 13 percent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The House committee’s labor and health bill proposes increases of just $10 million each for Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant.

The federal spending debate usually begins with cost: What can the country afford, what should families provide themselves and what role should the government play? Our recent study in Nature Communications points to a prior question: Do lawmakers know where public support already narrows inequality and where families are largely on their own?

We combined public spending, family expenditures and caregivers’ time to estimate what America invests in children from birth through age 18 across education, healthcare, nutrition, housing, childcare, transportation and........

© The Hill