Media Matters / Andrea Austria
Research/Study
Traditional conservatism or “traditional” families: Right-wing media are divided over the White House plan to give stay-at-home parents $9,000
Some right-wing figures derided the plan as “socialist” while others touted its potential to incentivize marriage and large families
Written by Gideon Taaffe & Helena Hind
Published
Right-wing media are split over the Trump administration’s new proposal that would use money from an existing childcare program for working parents and redirect it to stay-at-home parents to receive up to $9,000 per child. Some right-wing figures labeled the plan as “socialist,” saying it is akin to “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and will incentivize “more U.S. citizen children of illegals.” Others supported the plan, saying it will “incentivize people raising their own kids” and can “change the culture in this country regarding marriage.”
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The Trump administration is reportedly working on a plan to pay stay-at-home parents, potentially pitting them against working parents
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- The Trump administration is reportedly drafting a new proposal that would take money from an already existing childcare program to pay up to $9,000 per child for stay-at-home parents. On September 5, The New York Times reported, “The policy change would effectively create a government incentive for parents to stay home with their children, an idea embraced as part of a broader conservative effort to advance policies that promote more mothers staying at home,” adding that the proposal is “a top policy priority” for the Trump White House that is being “championed by Vice President JD Vance.” While the proposal is not finalized, Newsweek summarized the initial requirements: “Be a married couple. Have one spouse working at least 35 hours per week. Have the other spouse stay home to care for the child. Meet state income eligibility requirements.” The funds would come from the Child Care and Development Fund, which currently helps “eligible low- and moderate-income families afford childcare.” [The New York Times, 9/5/26; Newsweek, 9/8/26]
- A version of the policy was outlined in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for the second Trump administration. The New York Times reported: “‘Instead of providing universal day care, funding should go to parents either to offset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial, in-home child care,’ it says, although it does not specify how or which fund to use. ‘You don’t need statutes to do it, and with existing programs we can end discrimination against stay-at-home parents,’ said Roger Severino, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation who wrote the Project 2025 section on child care policy.” A separate Heritage Foundation report published in January similarly highlighted the need for policies to incentivize marriage and large families. [The New York Times, 9/5/26; The Heritage Foundation, 1/8/26]
- Critics of the plan have highlighted it would potentially harm working parents who already get childcare subsidies. The New York Times reported, “About 80 percent of the 870,000 families who currently get the child care subsidies have single working parents, most of them mothers, according to Health Department data.” Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO of MomsRising, criticized the proposal, writing, “Put plainly, this plan would make child care even more expensive and harder to find for families across the country, with disproportionate harm to single parents in the workforce.” [The New York Times, 9/5/26; MomsRising, 9/6/26]
- Child and family policy expert Elliot Haspel noted the proposal likely would be struck down by the courts due to executive overreach, adding, “Which means what’s going on here seems to be less about actually enacting the proposal and more about stirring up a culture war hornet’s nest.” He continued, “If you’re a Republican candidate heading into the post-Labor Day sprint to the midterms and your party is badly down in the polls, what would you rather be talking about? The relentlessly high cost of gas and groceries and healthcare amid an unpopular war of choice, or culture-war claims that Democrats don’t want to support ‘traditional’ married families?” [Substack, The Family Frontier, 9/6/26]
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Some in right-wing media criticized the plan as “socialist,” saying it is akin to “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and will incentivize “more U.S. citizen children of illegals”
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- The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro suggested this plan sounds like “we are trying to solve a problem with a tool it is not designed to do. We're trying to fix a broken light bulb with a flyswatter.” Shapiro added: “Usually, the government only has two tools to teach: It has a money hose and it has a gun. Those are the two tools that it has to teach. The money hose is not going to teach you good values. It just doesn't. The gun is going to teach you not to commit a crime, but unless you are going to force people to have more kids at point of gun, that ain't going to work either. What you actually need to do is rebuild a social fabric, and that starts at the local level. This is where conservatives should be putting their efforts at the local level in rebuilding all of this, not at the federal — the government is not the solution, in other words.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 9/8/26]
- Right-wing commenter and former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino expressed concern that the policy would lead to universal basic income, saying, “Paying people to not work steals away everything God gave them.” Bongino said: “On its face, if it is an existing pot of money that may go to others, I get how this would appeal to some people. … My concern about this is that the Democrats are looking for an opening right now and looking to basically get Republicans to go along with what's called the UBI, a universal basic income. And my fear is that this could become a vehicle for that.” He concluded, “Paying people to not work steals away everything God gave them.” [Rumble, The Dan Bongino Show, 9/8/26]
- National Review argued against the proposal, calling it a “brand new federal entitlement” and accused Vance of expanding the government to “privilege traditional ways of life.” John Puri wrote: “The vice president and his allies are doing a motte-and-bailey routine. Among themselves, they openly discuss using state power and taxpayer money to privilege traditional ways of life. Then, when scrutinized by conservatives, they say they are just shifting current spending around. But no, this is a Republican administration seeking to expand the entitlement state so it can influence social outcomes.” [National Review, 9/8/26]
- Right-wing commentator and former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis criticized the plan, saying it will incentivize “more U.S. citizen children of illegals” and “the virtuous moms the administration is thinking of likely won’t benefit from this program.” Ellis claimed that “$9,000 isn't going to make a woman quit her job to become a stay at home mom who wouldn't otherwise choose staying home anyway. It's going to go to U.S. citizen children of illegal alien moms, and anchor babies do qualify, unfortunately, under this program. So now you have the administration incentivizing more U.S. citizen children of illegals. So perhaps the virtuous moms the administration is thinking of likely won’t benefit from this program. ” [American Family Radio, Jenna Ellis in the Morning, 9/8/26]
- The Washington Examiner criticized the proposal for “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and argued for the government “to invest in egalitarian solutions, like the child tax credit.” Patrick Brown wrote: “The way to a pro-family agenda is not to take benefits away from poor families to benefit middle-class ones. It’s to invest in egalitarian solutions, like the child tax credit, which support families regardless of their work-life choice.” He continued, “This proposal will be accused of robbing Peter to pay Paul — taking childcare assistance away from low-income single parents to give a small, lucky segment of two-income parents a windfall. A real pro-family political vision needs to be more comprehensive than that.” [The Washington Examiner, 9/8/26]
- OutKick’s Tomi Lahren warned the proposal could cause a “giant fraud boondoggle.” Right-wing radio host and former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch called the proposal an example of the “new socialist right.” [Newsweek, 9/8/26]
- Fox host Mark Levin criticized the proposal on his radio show, citing the national debt and saying, “I don't care what great cause is out there, because there are always great causes for more government, for more borrowing, for more debt, for more spending, and more taxing.” Levin continued: “But you have to be Helen Keller not to see and not to hear that we just hit $40 trillion, and the estimate is in four to five years we're going to hit $50 trillion — 50. And we can't grow our way out of $50 trillion.” [Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, 9/9/26]
- The Washington Examiner published an op-ed titled “Vance just invited a socialist idea into the Republican tent” that argued the plan “deserves serious criticism.” The author wrote plainly, “Supporting stay-at-home parents is conservative. Paying them through an expanding federal welfare program is not.” [Washington Examiner, 9/10/26]
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Others in right-wing media praised the plan, saying it will “incentivize people raising their own kids” and heralding it as a way to “change the culture in this country regarding marriage”
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- Appearing with right-wing media personality John Solomon, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts praised the plan and said it “addresses a core part of the conservative base which is going to focus more on social and cultural institutions starting with the family.” He cited “a landmark public policy paper in February” that contained a similar proposal, adding, “At Heritage, we're fully supportive of this proposal. In fact, we would even go beyond that. … We on the right have to be having this conversation, number one, because the future of our society depends on it, but also number two, the politics are really good.” [Real America's Voice, Just the News No Noise, 9/9/26]
- MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson said conservatives are “freaking out and calling it socialism. No, it is not socialism. It is by definition what the government should be doing,” claiming that “federal dollars should be used to support family units.” Johnson condemned right-wing criticism of the proposal, saying, “How dare the Trump administration and JD Vance say that maybe we should start signaling that federal dollars should be used to support family units and present parents for their children instead of absentee parents or corporatism or fatherlessness. How dare we. And ‘Conservative Inc.’ is freaking out and calling it socialism. No, it is not socialism. It is by definition what the government should be doing.” [YouTube, The Benny Show, 9/9/26]
- The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles claimed the policy is “great, great stuff” as Trump is using an already existing “welfare program” to “incentivize marriage” and “people raising their own kids.” Knowles said, “This welfare program, as it currently exists, is basically just a subsidy for corporate America and it incentivizes single parenthood. So what the Trump administration is doing is saying we're not going to get rid of this welfare program. We're not going to enlarge this welfare program. We're just going to use it in ways that incentivize marriage, that incentivize people raising their own kids, especially when they want to, which is the case for the majority of working women.” [The Daily Wire, The Michael Knowles Show, 9/7/26]
- Streamer Tim Pool said he supports incentives for parents to stay home with their children, adding, “Normally, the money was given to moms who got jobs. Now it's money going to the women who don't get jobs. Good.” Pool said, “I look at this and I say hey, not bad. Not bad. There's a mom out there who says I want to stay at home and raise the kids, but it's hard because we can't afford it. Trump says OK. We're going to redirect this. We're going to change things up. Normally, the money was given to moms who got jobs. Now it's money going to the women who don't get jobs. Good.” [YouTube, Timcast, 9/8/26]
- On John Solomon’s Just the News No Noise, co-host Amanda Head said the proposal “is ultimately going to change the culture in this country regarding marriage.” While interviewing Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), Head said: “Since LBJ, there has effectively been an incentive to break out parents, to break up marriages and keep moms at home, not working, raising their kids by themselves. The Trump administration with JD Vance at the helm [is] likely going to announce the hard launch of this Thursday at the RNC, allowing for married parents — for one of them to stay home and get up to $9,000 per child. This has got to be something that is ultimately going to change the culture in this country regarding marriage.” [Real America's Voice, Just the News No Noise, 9/8/26]
- The Federalist argued for the proposal in an article titled “If you think ending discrimination against stay-at-home moms is ‘welfare,’ you’re not conservative.” The piece stated, “The welfare state is a scourge, but it’s not going away anytime soon. Which is exactly why we have to harness it or risk losing it yet another very important cultural battlefield to the left. In the wild world of welfare, financially compensating married stay-at-home moms is the lesser of tax-funded evils. In fact, despite what the nasties online suggest, it’s not an evil at all.” [The Federalist, 9/9/26]
- A separate Federalist article by Evita Duffy-Alfonso also argued for the proposal, framing the debate as “GDP first vs. America first.” Duffy-Alfonso, daughter of Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy, wrote, “It’s frankly bizarre that the old right had no problem spending billions to separate mothers from their babies, but is now outraged at the thought of moms using that same money to stay home and raise their own children.” [The Federalist, 9/9/26]
- Fox’s Rachel Campos-Duffy praised the proposal as “so smart” and claimed many women “don’t get married because they’re afraid they will lose this benefit.” She continued, “Conservatives have been talking about this forever and nobody's ever done it, nobody's had the courage to do it. President Trump and JD Vance should be absolutely commended for this.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 9/6/26]