During the pandemic, federal subsidies kept many childcare facilities afloat. But that aid will start to disappear at the end of this month. Plus, federal spending on kids fell 16% between the government’s fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to a report out Friday from the advocacy group First Focus on Children.

Lauren Hipp of Seattle, 38, is afraid her kids’ daycare center won’t survive without the federal pandemic aid. It’s “that continued sense of panic and fear,” she said.

Hipp, a mother of three, follows childcare issues closely for her job with the advocacy group, MomsRising.

While she can work from home, “there is no way that I could keep up a full-time job and have — even just my toddler at home,” she said. “It would be extremely difficult.”

According to a report from the Century Foundation, more than 70,000 child care programs will likely close after they lose their federal pandemic aid. That could cost families around $9 billion a year in lost income, noted Century Foundation Senior Fellow Julie Kashen.

“And that’s a combination of parents having to reduce their work hours or leave their jobs altogether,” she said.

At the same time, there’s less federal aid for those parents. Without that pandemic aid like expanded child tax credits, more kids fell into poverty, according to Michelle Dallafior, a vice president at First Focus on Children.

“Child poverty more than doubled to over 12%,” she said.

And that was just in one year — from 2021 to 2022.

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