Of the issues Mayor Zohan Mamdani promised to address to help New Yorkers afford everyday basics – rent, groceries, health care and new homes – one rises above all, and there is universal agreement that something must be done.
Child care is the Mount Everest of economic policy challenges. It’s a financial burden that cuts across all races, neighborhoods and income brackets. Day care is unaffordable for nearly everyone. It is without doubt the most worthy of Mamdani’s attention in the early days of his administration.
Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul deserve credit for announcing an initiative to provide free child care for 2-year-olds in New York City, and strengthen early childhood education. It is the first step, they said, toward universal free child care statewide for children ages six weeks to five years old. They want to join New Mexico, which was the first state to offer all families free universal childcare.
Mamdani has made child care a cornerstone of his affordability push. Several of his appointees and top campaign aides worked in early childhood education or helped secure funding for former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s universal prekindergarten program. They know universal child care will take time and have no illusions about the challenges ahead.
Governor Hochul deserves credit for committing to work with the new mayor on such a difficult issue ahead of what may be a tough reelection run next year. She has already launched a multi-year effort to rebuild the state’s child-care infrastructure decimated by the COVID pandemic. Universal child care could cost as much as $15 billion, which requires the solid backing of the governor as well as the state legislature.
Let’s acknowledge the obvious: This will not be easy. The program Mamdani envisions faces significant financial hurdles. How to pay for it remains an open question. In New York City alone, universal child care could cost as much as $6 billion. Then there are logistical issues, like seats for students with disabilities and a mismatch between child care supply and demand across neighborhoods.
Finding a solution for New York, however difficult, is worth the risk. The average child-care expense for families in the city is around $26,000 for infants and toddlers, according to the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York. That’s fourfold the seven percent of household income that the federal government deems affordable. Unfortunately, child-care costs continue to rise faster than overall inflation in most U.S. states.
In New York and 40 other states, the average annual price of center-based infant care costs more than in-state, four-year university tuition. In New York City, clearly, those prices mean child care is out of reach for low-income families, immigrants and essential workers.
We need government to support the care and education of young children, for the good of families and all the societal advantages that flow from stable homes and supportive environments for children and working parents. It improves the parents’ ability to find meaningful work and benefits care providers, who overwhelmingly tend to be Black women. The absence of child care also undercuts hard-fought gains for women in the workplace.
The strategies embraced nationally to address the child-care crisis include federal tax credits to offset costs, boosting wages to attract and retain child-care workers, encouraging businesses to provide on-site day care, and grants that help licensed providers cover rent, utilities and operating costs to keep their doors open. Still others call for new federal child-care and education savings accounts.
President Donald Trump calls affordability “a fake word.” But economic data and public polls show that Americans are struggling: Income is barely keeping up with persistent inflation, as day-to-day basics are getting more expensive. Food, transportation and housing are increasing, and child-care and elder-care costs have skyrocketed.
The affordability crisis turned into a political calamity for former Mayor Eric Adams, after he cut funding from the city’s popular preschool program. In his final year in office, Adams was forced to reallocate $167 million to permanent early childhood funding and $10 million for a universal child care pilot program after pushback from city lawmakers and parents. Mamdani should extend the $10 million pilot, which offers free child care to parents in high-need areas with children up to age two.
Taking on child care in such a conspicuous way says a lot about the type of mayor Mamdani intends to become. Elected leaders repeatedly come face-to-face again and again with the same choice: do the right thing or do the expedient thing for the right reasons.
The mayor’s campaign promises inspired many, and he appears to not be cynically retreating from his child care ambitions in the face of unfavorable budget math. To do otherwise so early in his term would be hollow and damaging.
Now is the right time for serious political consideration of new funding and delivery models for child care.
David R. Jones, Esq., is President and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), the leading voice on behalf of low-income New Yorkers for more than 175 years. The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer. The Urban Agenda is available on CSS’s website: www.cssny.org.