HR7498-119

In Committee

After Hours Child Care Act

119th Congress Introduced Feb 11, 2026

Summary

What This Bill Does

This bill adds section 658U to the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act to support child care for parents working nontraditional hours. Within 90 days of enactment, the Secretary of Health and Human Services must create a competitive pilot grant program for eligible child-care providers or partnerships. Grants run for 5 years, cannot be renewed, must be between $25,000 and $500,000, and may pay for capacity expansion, enrollment-based contracts, needs assessments, onsite workplace child care, facility improvements, staffing, curriculum, licensure, quality improvement, equipment, and safe-sleep training. Recipients must provide a 25 percent non-federal match, and HHS must report to Congress at least every 2 years.

Who Benefits and How

Parents who work before 9 a.m., after 5 p.m., weekends, or on short-notice schedules benefit because providers can expand care when standard daytime child care is unavailable. Eligible child-care providers, staffed family child-care networks, resource and referral organizations, community development financial institutions, businesses, and lead agencies benefit from grants and partnership roles.

Who Bears the Burden and How

HHS must establish the pilot within 90 days, award and monitor grants, collect outcome information, submit biennial reports, and may reserve up to one-quarter of 1 percent of CCDBG funds for administration. Grant applicants must describe activities, objectives, current service quantity or quality, and populations served, and recipients must cover 25 percent of costs with non-federal funds.

Key Provisions

  • Creates a Child Care and Development Innovation Fund pilot inside the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act.
  • Directs HHS to award competitive 5-year grants of $25,000 to $500,000 for child care serving parents with nontraditional work hours.
  • Allows funds for provider capacity, enrollment contracts, needs assessments, onsite workplace child care, staffing, facilities, curriculum, licensure, quality improvement, equipment, and safe-sleep training.
  • Requires eligible providers or partnerships to submit applications describing activities, objectives, baseline quantity or quality, and the population served.
  • Requires a 25 percent non-federal match and biennial congressional reports on children served, parent employment status, and child-care availability impacts.

Evidence Chain:

This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.

At a Glance

What This Bill Does

Creates a Child Care and Development Innovation Fund pilot grant program for child-care capacity serving parents who work evenings, nights, weekends, or schedules announced within 7 days.

Key Policy Areas

Child Care, Labor, Social Services

Primary Purpose

Creates a Child Care and Development Innovation Fund pilot grant program for child-care capacity serving parents who work evenings, nights, weekends, or schedules announced within 7 days.

Policy Domains

Child Care Labor Social Services

Substantive provisions

Identified Gains
  • Parents working nontraditional hours
  • Eligible child care providers
  • Family child care providers
  • Child care resource and referral organizations
  • Businesses establishing onsite child care
Model: codex-gpt-5 | Version: bill_summary_v2 | Source: ih
Family child care providers: ,
Eligible child care providers: ,
Parents working nontraditional hours: ,
Businesses establishing onsite child care: ,
Child care resource and referral organizations: ,
Identified Costs
  • Department of Health and Human Services
  • Grant recipient child care providers
  • Lead agencies administering child care funds
Model: codex-gpt-5 | Version: bill_summary_v2 | Source: ih
Grant recipient child care providers: ,
Department of Health and Human Services: ,
Lead agencies administering child care funds: ,

Legislative Progress

In Committee
Introduced Committee Passed
Feb 11, 2026

Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

Feb 11, 2026

Introduced in House

Feb 11, 2026

Mrs. Hinson (for herself, Ms. Bonamici, Mr. Mackenzie, Mr. Pappas, …

Stakeholder Effects

cui bono?

How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.

Social Services
5 mentions across 2 clauses
+5 positive

Child care resource and referral organizations, Eligible child care providers, Family child care providers

Labor
2 mentions across 2 clauses
+2 positive

Parents working nontraditional hours, Parents working weekend shifts

Financial Services
1 mention across 1 clause
+1 positive

Community development financial institutions

Small Business
1 mention across 1 clause
+1 positive

Businesses establishing onsite child care

Government
1 mention across 1 clause
+1 positive

Department of Health and Human Services

2/3
sections analyzed
Full impact breakdown

Bill Structure & Actor Mappings

Who is "The Secretary" in each section?

Domains
Child Care Labor Social Services
Actor Mappings
"secretary"
→ Secretary of Health and Human Services
"eligible_entity"
→ Eligible child-care provider or partnership involving a provider and a lead agency, business, child-care intermediary, community development financial institution, staffed family child-care network, or similar entity

Key Definitions

Terms defined in this bill

1 term
"nontraditional work hours" §658U(b)(2)

Work hours at least 25 percent of which occur before 9 a.m., after 5 p.m., on a weekend, or within 7 days of required attendance.

We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.

Learn more about our methodology