When the United States federal government needed women’s labor during World War II, it publicly funded childcare upon the assertion, “[y]ou cannot have a contented mother working . . . if she is worrying about her children.”[1] Currently, in 2025, when working parents need childcare,  the government slaps together half-measures. Modern federal government policy treats childcare as a private luxury, yet the economy depends on parents who cannot afford it.

The dissonance between the labor force and access to childcare is hardly new. During World War II, the federal government addressed the domestic labor shortage through social and fiscal policy. In 1941, Congress passed the National Defense Housing Act (“the Lanham Act”) and financed thousands of childcare centers under Title II of the Lanham Act. This “Defense Public Works” provision allowed funds for the building and upkeep of federal childcare centers so mothers could work at shipyards and munitions plants.[2] The Lanham Act childcare centers thus developed the practice and terminology of “day care” for children of welders and seamstresses, Rosie the Riveters and single mothers alike.[3]

Economists note that the Lanham centers led to a rise in women’s employment and that children likely benefited from stable care environments.[4] However, the program was never intended to become a fixture of American infrastructure. Even as a temporary wartime necessity, public childcare had strong opposition. The Lanham Act funds were appropriated strictly “for the duration [of the war] only” and when the war ended many childcare centers closed.[5] By 1945, the idea of childcare as a public good had lost its legal legitimacy.[6]

The immediate post-war retreat from the notion of public childcare mirrors the modern discourse that public childcare is acceptable only in emergencies. Outside of crises, federal legislation mostly treats childcare as a personal responsibility. Today’s working parents must finance what the government once recognized as essential public infrastructure.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s contention that childcare centers “were a real need” in 1945 holds true in 2025.[7] More than half of Americans now live in childcare deserts, predominantly in low-income urban and rural areas.[8] In the U.S., the average ‘true’ cost of child care exceeds $16,000 per year, higher than the national average for in-state college tuition.[9] Parents with one child earning near the federal poverty line would need to spend roughly 60% of their income to keep a child in licensed care.[10] For many families, this is an irreconcilable budgetary constraint. Parents cannot work without childcare yet cannot afford childcare without work.

Modern federal legislation acknowledges but does not address the childcare crisis. Tax credits and small-scale voucher programs presume families have upfront cash and flexible work schedules. When Congress debates investing in childcare (especially during negotiations for legislation like the Build Back Better Act and the Child Care for Working Families Act), opponents often dismiss the idea. These opponents sometimes raise expense concerns, asking (as Louisiana Senator John Kennedy did) “[h]ow are you gonna pay me back?”[11] Yet the economy cannot sustain itself on the labor of parents who are forced to choose between adequate wages and quality childcare.

In low-income communities the consequences of inconsistent or unaffordable childcare are immediate and generational. Mothers are less likely to participate in the workforce, potentially eroding their long-term income and retirement security.[12] Children lose access to early learning environments proven to encourage positive academic outcomes.[13] Childcare practitioners may close shop and move to more profitable areas when government subsidies lapse.[14] The economic instability of low-income areas grows as a lack of reliable childcare access undercuts families’ economic footholds.

Legislation has confronted and solved this problem before. The Lanham Act war nurseries demonstrated that public childcare is feasible, effective, and economically sound. Public childcare did not erode family life, it strengthened communities. It did not drain the economy but instead fueled the local and national labor force. In the 1940s, lawmakers curtailed public childcare in the U.S. on account of value-based fears for the nuclear family, not economic reality. Ironically, the average American family today suffers for a lack of legislation ensuring quality childcare.

The persistence of childcare scarcity is a legal and political choice. When Congress treated childcare as infrastructure under the Lanham Act, it did so pursuant to its constitutional power to “provide for the common Defence” and “general welfare.”[15] The same authority exists today. Reframing childcare as a public obligation enshrined in law could disrupt the current system that punishes working families for choosing to have children. Once, the Lanham Act temporarily bridged this gap with coordinated implementation. It is past time for the law to address this challenge again, not with half measures, but with an enduring public infrastructure. It is past time to invest in children again.

[1] Rhaina Cohen, Who Took Care of Rosie the Riveter’s Kids?, The Atlantic, (Nov. 18, 2015), https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/daycare-world-war-rosie-riveter/415650/ [https://perma.cc/9532-GX99].

[2] Claudia Goldin et al., Mobilizing the Manpower of Mothers: Childcare Under the Lanham Act During WWII, 3–4, 11–12, (Nat’l Bureau of Econ. Rsch., Working Paper No. 32755, 2024).

[3] Cohen, supra note 1.

[4] See Goldin et al., supra note 2, at 18.

[5] Sonya Michel, The History of Child Care in the U.S., VCU Librs. Soc. Welfare Hist. Project (Jan. 19, 2011), https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/child-care-the-american-history/ [https://perma.cc/7622-BTQS].

[6] Cohen, supra note 1.

[7] Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day, September 8, 1945, The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digit. Edition (2017), https://web.archive.org/web/20250711054510mp_/https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1945&_f=md000125 [https://perma.cc/J7YT-6H5V].

[8] Rasheed Malik et al., America’s Child Care Deserts in 2018, Center for American Progress, 3 (Dec. 2018) https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/AmericasChildCareDeserts20182.pdf [https://perma.cc/XV9N-GBH5].

[9] Simon Workman, The True Cost of High-Quality Child Care Across the United States, Ctr. for Am. Progress, 6 (Jun. 28, 2021), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/true-cost-high-quality-child-care-across-united-states/ [https://perma.cc/JBZ5-ESPY]; see also CollegeBoard, Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2024, 3 (2024), https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/Trends-in-College-Pricing-and-Student-Aid-2024-ADA.pdf [https://perma.cc/6QW4-Y5WR].

[10] See U.S. Dep’t of Health and Hum. Servs., 2025 Poverty Guidelines (2025), https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/dd73d4f00d8a819d10b2fdb70d254f7b/detailed-guidelines-2025.pdf [https://perma.cc/JRL7-UNA5] (100% of the federal poverty line for a three person household multiplied by 60% is $15,990).

[11] Chaebli Carrazana, Every member of Congress was asked about child care policy. Only 5 Republicans responded, Oregon Cap. Chron., (Nov. 15, 2023), https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2023/11/15/every-member-of-congress-was-asked-about-child-care-policy-only-5-republicans-responded/ [https://perma.cc/BV8M-9L7N].

[12] Malik, supra note 8, at 12–13, 19.

[13] Id. at 1.

[14] Id. at 2.

[15] U.S. Const. art. I, § 8.