Where it’s most affordable to be a stay-at-home parent: Data

(NEXSTAR) – The Trump administration may soon roll out a proposal that would pay a married couple subsidies if one parent stayed at home, according to a report.

The New York Times was the first to report on the proposal , with people familiar with the matter telling the outlet that a Health and Human Services Department fund established in the 1990s could be used for the program. The fund is meant to help lower-income parents afford child care, and typically offers roughly $9,000 per child annually.

Specific details about the proposed program have not been released by the Trump administration, but a new analysis has explored where it costs the most to have a single working parent for a family.

SmartAsset considered data from MIT’s Living Wage Calculator to determine how much that working parent would need to earn across the U.S. to support their partner and one child.

In only two states, Hawaii and California, would a working parent need to earn more than $100,000 to support their family of three. Hawaii edged out California by about $5,000, SmartAsset determined.

Alternatively, Arkansas is the only state in which that same parent could earn less than $70,000 annually – $68,869, to be specific – and still support a family of three.

If both parents are working, the salary they would need to earn would be less, but they would face another expense: childcare.

In that situation, a family of three would require a greater household salary.

Massachusetts, which was found to have high child care costs, would be most expensive to a pair of working parents. They would, as a unit, have to earn more than $131,000 to afford childcare and other costs, SmartAsset found.

A household income of more than $100,000 is necessary across 18 states in total, if both parents are working and have to pay for childcare for one child.

Mississippi is the only state in which a household income of less than $80,000 would be enough to support the same family, per SmartAsset’s analysis.

You can view SmartAsset’s rankings below:

It’s unclear if or when the Trump administration could formally announce such a proposal.

Meanwhile, an analysis by The Associated Press found that hundreds of thousands of eligible children are still waiting for childcare assistance .

The children were sitting on childcare assistance waitlists in 23 states and the District of Columbia as of this spring, the outlet found. In three more states, many eligible families who applied were simply turned away. Many of the waitlists first started after $28 billion in pandemic aid expired in the fall of 2024.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.