President Donald Trump introduced his budget for fiscal 2027 earlier this month, and on youth and family services, it largely follows the plan laid out in last year’s proposal, the first of his second term.
Below is our annual chart marking both Trump’s requests as well as the actual appropriations for two recent fiscal years (2026 and 2024, since 2025 did not include an actual Congressional spending deal, only continuing resolutions). A few quick notes on what the administration has in mind on child welfare and youth justice spending:
Both Trump budgets have called for consolidating funds at the Departments of Education and Labor, taking dedicated programs for at-risk youth and turning them into optional uses for block grants. This includes programs funding apprenticeships, school support for homeless or foster youth, youth workforce training, after-school programs and more.
Trump plussed up his envisioned Make America Skilled Again block grant ($3.4 billion) at the Department of Labor, increasing his 2026 ask by almost half a billion dollars. His Make Education Great Again consolidation remains at a $2 billion proposal.
At the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Trump budget increases the ask for mental and behavioral health to $6.8 billion dollars, a 20% increase from his 2026 request but still $500 million less than Congress actually appropriated this year. He reduced the request for spending on policy and research at the agency by $240 million.
In Youth Services Insider’s opinion, the proposed cut most likely to get buy-in from Congress is Trump’s call to ratchet down spending on unaccompanied minors, youth who arrive at the border from non-contiguous countries in search of asylum or other protective statuses. These youth are shifted into the custody of HHS’ Unaccompanied Alien Children program, and placed in residential shelter care pending a vetted sponsor in the United States being cleared to take them in.
The number of unaccompanied minors entering the country, and thus entering this program, has plummeted since Trump’s second term began (it had already begun to decline late in Biden’s term as well). Trump proposes cutting more than $800 million to the program for 2027. He sought an even larger cut to the program last fiscal year, which Congress followed him on.
