Opinion: The path to universal child care for New Yorkers' youngest can start here

Talk to any parent in New York City, and you'll hear the same thing: it feels like the cost of living is pushing them out, but they want to stay and raise their kids here. 

From the challenge of securing housing that is affordable to the crushing cost of child care and the rising prices of groceries, families are fighting to make life sustainable while being pushed to the edge. 

As working mothers, we know how difficult it can be to juggle the costs and responsibilities of raising children in our city, while staying employed.

A Fiscal Policy Institute report found that families with young children are twice as likely to make the hard choice of leaving the city. One of us is a mother of two who began reaching out to child care providers during pregnancy – and still couldn’t get a seat for nearly the first year of her child’s life, instead needing to patch together care from friends and family and later travel to Jersey City daily for child care. Protecting the future of New York means we have to make it possible for families to stay here, and affordable childcare is foundational to these efforts.

After falling short in his preliminary budget, Mayor Eric Adams’ executive budget restored $197 million for early childhood education  programs, including $142 million for 3-K and $55 million for preschool special education seats. This is the direct result of continued advocacy by elected officials, parents, service providers and advocates who refused to let the needs of families and our youngest New Yorkers be ignored.

Child care in New York City, however, is more than just a singular program. It is an interconnected system that includes care for infants and toddlers, the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) vouchers, 3-K and Pre-K programs and after-school programs like the Comprehensive After School System of NYC and School’s Out New York City. 

Disrupting a single part can destabilize the entire system, undermining access for families. Yet, CCAP is now the latest program facing a funding threat that jeopardizes affordable childcare access for thousands of city families. 

CCAP currently serves nearly 80,000 children citywide, most of whom are under five years old. Many more families could need vouchers this year, due to work requirements for Temporary Assistance recipients being reinstated, which would dramatically increase the number of families receiving public assistance in need of child care. 

To maintain current service levels and account for the additional required vouchers, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature helped close part of the funding gap by allocating $350 million for CCAP in the recently enacted state budget. This moved New York City halfway towards the necessary funding, with a requirement that the city contribute at least $328 million to match these state funds for the remainder. 

The mayoral administration testified at the City Council’s Executive Budget hearings that it plans to contribute this funding match to maintain voucher access for most families currently receiving it. At the same time, the administration has also created a waitlist that would prevent access to child care for eligible families.

Addressing the funding gap should have been among the top priorities in Albany this year for the Adams administration. Instead, the mayor neglected to even raise it in his state budget testimony, and his administration failed to inform the City Council and public of the challenge that CCAP faces. 

Caught on its back foot, the Adams administration is moving forward with plans that will mostly preserve the status quo, while denying some eligible families child care.

This is the wrong approach, and we can do more for our city’s families and youngest New Yorkers. The City Council has proposed creating 3,500 free, universally accessible child care seats for children under 3 years old. This would make New York City the biggest U.S. city to take steps towards offering universal child care beginning in infancy and save working families tens of thousands of dollars annually. And it’s not just the right thing to do – it’s popular. Nearly 80% of New Yorkers support expanding free childcare to 2-year-olds, including 63% of Republicans and 77% of independents.

Mayor Adams cannot claim “the best budget ever” or being committed to making New York City “the best place to raise a family” if he fails to prioritize maintaining and expanding child care access for working families in need.

We must shift from budget preservation to expansion for programs like child care that working families rely on and make greater investments for affordability to be within reach.

New York City needs leadership that is fully committed to supporting families by fulfilling a vision for increasingly greater child care access that is affordable to all New Yorkers.