Opinion: Universal child care is big business for small businesses

Recently, New York City reached a major milestone. The Business Express Service Team (NYC

BEST) at the Department of Small Business Services, or SBS, has now helped more than 8,500 small businesses save a combined $60 million in fines, fees and startup costs since we launched it in 2022. During that same time, our Commercial Lease Assistance program has helped nearly 2,600 small business owners negotiate or renegotiate leases.

Programs like these are crucial for business owners like Deborah Leiva, founder of Little Sprouts Childcare in Inwood, Manhattan. Earlier this year, I had a chance to meet Deborah, and she told me how much it meant to have the trust and support of SBS. We were able to help secure a new lease, including six months of reduced rent and a three-year rent freeze, as her business recovered from the pandemic.

She also told me how important her childcare business is for her community. For many of her clients in Washington Heights and Inwood, Little Sprouts is their only choice for trusted, affordable child care. Citywide, two-thirds of children under five come from families where both parents are in the workforce, and child care is the second biggest cost for working families after rent. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, families with young children are twice as likely to leave New York City as households without children. That’s why everyone in the New York City business community should embrace efforts for the city to provide free, universal child care, for all New Yorkers, regardless of borough or income.

It just makes economic sense: Providing free child care is not only a social benefit, but also a strategic investment that will deliver immediate opportunities and economic benefits for New York City’s small businesses. And it will be a gamechanger for working families struggling to raise their children in New York City, freeing up household income previously spent on child care

costs and creating local demand for the goods and services provided by other small businesses.

For employers, free child care will drive improved employee retention and reduce turnover. It will also increase the available talent pool by allowing parents who previously had to choose between their careers and their families to fully participate in the workforce. This will be particularly impactful to the bottom line of New York City's 183,000 small businesses, who employ nearly half of all private sector workers in the city, where the costs of recruiting, hiring and training employees are disproportionately burdensome.

With current capacity in the licensed child care sector serving less than half of the five-and-under population, and many childcare providers operating small independent businesses, scaling to a universal model presents a transformational business opportunity for these mostly minority- and women-owned businesses – and one that SBS is ready, willing and able to assist in making a reality. In addition to programs like NYC BEST and Commercial Lease Assistance, rapidly scaling capacity could be readily accomplished through an expansion of career pathway programs such as the Childcare Business Pathways, a 15-week business program for NYCHA entrepreneurs who want to start home-based child care businesses. To meet increased workforce demand, our 18 Workforce1 Career Centers can recruit, screen and match talent to child care jobs and organize industry-specific hiring halls. Our team also provides business-specific training grants to help onboard new hires and upskill incumbent workers, leading to wage growth.

Ultimately, universal child care is a strategic economic investment poised to recapture more than $23 billion in the negative economic impact of parents leaving the workforce or downshifting careers, and in the long term return a projected eight dollars for every one dollar invested. Making New York City affordable for working families will strengthen our labor force and our small business ecosystem, and increase the stability of neighborhoods in every corner of every borough.

New York City is the greatest city in the world, a place where entrepreneurs and the organizations that support them are unafraid to try new and ambitious things. Providing free, universal child care embodies both this ambition and the spirit of New York City. It will support working families and catalyze small business growth. As a parent and SBS commissioner, I fully embrace this goal. I encourage the entire small business ecosystem to do the same.