Opinion: The next step toward Universal Child Care is free 2-Care for All

As parents of a 2-year-old, my wife and I know firsthand the challenges with finding and paying for child care. Thankfully, we have jobs with paid leave and a strong network of family and friends that allowed us to care for our daughter in the earliest months. But in the back of our minds was a nagging anxiety over how we would afford child care once we returned to work. 

With two incomes and good benefits, we know we're luckier than many families struggling to afford this city. But the reality for most families during those early, beautiful months with a newborn is a nagging sense of financial anxiety. Every parent deserves peace of mind and to know this city has their back. And while New York City ultimately needs to establish free, universal child care starting at birth, the first step should be free 2-Care for every 2-year-old.

For hundreds of years, New York City has been a beacon for young people from across the country and the globe – a place to find opportunity, build a life and start a family. But in recent decades, the cost of starting a family has become prohibitively expensive. Here in New York City, the average family spends over $20,000 per year on child care, and 80% of families can’t comfortably afford child care for even one child. Yet they still dole out thousands of dollars for child care that could instead be saved for college or to help make ends meet.

This is supposed to be an affordable city, one where working people can raise families. Instead, parents are dropping out of the workforce because they can’t afford child care. Some families are choosing to have fewer kids or none at all. And too many are packing up and leaving the city altogether – taking their energy, talent and tax dollars with them. It should come as no surprise that one of the many reasons for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory was his commitment to universal child care, which impacts families of all backgrounds. 

Parents aren’t the only ones who are impacted by the sky-high cost of child care. When parents leave the workforce, our economy loses workers, businesses lose employees and the city loses tax revenue. New York City alone lost $23 billion in economic activity in 2022 because parents dropped out of the workforce or cut back working hours due to child care. 

Families clearly can’t afford to pay more for child care, and child care providers can’t run their businesses on what parents can afford to pay; supply and demand simply don’t match up. As elected officials, our job is to step in and use the power of government to make lives easier, especially when there’s clearly no affordable private market fix.

Thankfully, New Yorkers United for Child Care and United Neighborhood Houses are fighting for universal, free child care across New York starting with 2-Care for All in New York City. The City Council is proud to stand with them, adding funding for a pilot program for 2-Care in this year’s budget. 2-Care for All would provide universal, free, full-day care (that means 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., to actually accommodate working parents). The application process would be the same as public school, requiring just your kid’s name, date of birth and proof of address. Across the city, 2-Care for All would serve around 55,000 2-year-olds annually, giving tens of thousands of parents across the city much-needed financial breathing room one year before they are eligible for free 3-K.

We’ve already seen proof that universal child care works and makes economic sense for our city. After Québec introduced low-cost child care, tens of thousands of mothers entered or returned to the workforce, family incomes rose and the program more than paid for itself through increased tax revenue and economic growth. And beyond the numbers, it gave parents peace of mind. Knowing your child is cared for and your bank account isn’t quickly draining should be the foundation that lets families, and our city, flourish.

If we want this to be an affordable city that families can come to, grow in and stay in, we need to create universal, free child care. That means starting with free 2-Care for every 2-year-old, a real step toward a city that puts families first. Because when parents can afford to raise their kids and go to work, when kids are learning and playing together from their very first days and when every family knows this city has their back – that’s the kind of New York we should be building toward.