Universal Childcare Is Free. The Workers Aren’t.

Six months after taking office, Mayor Mamdani and his administration have not backed down from the promise that helped power his unlikely path to City Hall: taking action to make New York City more affordable for working families.

Perhaps the most compelling item on the mayor’s agenda is free universal childcare—an issue where the administration won crucial early support from Governor Hochul to cover the costs of care for thousands of two-year olds in the five boroughs. City leaders continue to plan aggressive expansion of both childcare and afterschool capacity.  

The administration’s hopes rest in large measure on the quantity and quality of the city’s “care economy” workforce: the New Yorkers who work out of childcare centers, neighborhood organizations, home-based family care, and school-run programs. The overwhelming majority of care economy workers are women of color, and many if not most work part-time and/or hold multiple jobs. 

These workers face low pay—in 2023, childcare workers in NYC had median annual income of just $25,000—and adverse conditions. Benefits are rare, as are opportunities to advance within the field, and the emotional demands can be severe. Not surprisingly, turnover is high: by one estimate, the city needs to recruit at least 5,000 new childcare workers each year just to maintain level capacity. 

The consequences of this system are visible well beyond childcare centers and classrooms. For some New Yorkers, full-time work is still not enough to stay housed when the combined cost of housing and care outpaces what their paychecks can reasonably support. Any serious affordability agenda has to recognize childcare as part of that equation.

The care economy is vital economic development infrastructure, even if we don’t reward its workers accordingly. Expanding childcare and after-school programming has clear positive impact on parents’ labor force participation, not to mention tax receipts: a Census Bureau analysis estimates that NYC’s implementation of universal pre-K translated into approximately $93 million in additional annual tax revenue. 

A photo of Gregory J. Morris at the podium with early childhood educators in the audience at Gracie Mansion.
Gregory J. Morris, Chief Executive Officer at NYCETC provides remarks at a childcare educator appreciation dinner at Gracie Mansion on May 13, 2026. Photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office.

At the same time, the cost of not having affordable, high-quality care continues to rise. The NYC Economic Development Corporation estimates that 375,000 parents left their jobs or reduced their working hours because of a lack of access to childcare during fiscal year 2022, leading to losses of $23 billion in economic output. 

As frustrations around childcare mount, many families are opting to leave the city altogether. A recent Comptroller study notes that between 2020 and 2023, NYC saw an 8.7 percent decrease in the number of households with children, with the biggest drop among families with children ages 4 and under.  

Over the last several months, a series of New York City Council hearings on the administration’s plans for early childcare and afterschool expansion has surfaced some key unresolved questions. For one, it is unclear just how many New Yorkers work in the care economy: the most common estimate is between 33,000 and 40,000 in early childhood education. Given projections that NYC will need to double its current workforce to achieve universal childcare, getting an accurate count of that current workforce seems important—as does having a plan to scale it. 

Just as importantly, the City’s planning should reflect the full continuum of care that working families rely on every day. Childcare does not end when a child starts kindergarten. It also includes the workers and programs that care for school-age children after school, during the summer, and over school breaks, supports that are essential to keeping parents in the workforce.

Investments in the care economy—to expand its reach, raise its quality, and fairly compensate those who work in it—pay off both in terms of economic return and in alignment to community values. Over the long term, New York should consider proposals to create a statewide right to childcare similar to that of children to attend public schools. For now, however, the City should take two steps to sustain its early momentum. 

1. Make a plan to scale NYC’s care economy workforce. To begin, researchers should fully quantify how many New Yorkers hold care economy jobs now, and who they are in terms of demographics, previous experience, economic circumstances, enrollment on public benefits such as Medicaid and SNAP, and time on the job. This will help inform what steps the government and employers can take to improve retention. With that information in hand, the City should map out exactly how it will recruit and retain the tens of thousands of additional care workers needed to reach universal service. This plan should include a thorough review of permitting and regulation, as well as steps to guard against unintended consequences of expansion such as squeezing out small community providers. 

    2. Ensure a living wage for most care economy workers by 2033. Considering the robust return on investments in the care economy, taking care of those who sustain it should not be a difficult call. Models to consider include Washington, D.C.’s Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, which delivers subsidies for providers that bring their compensation to parity with public school teachers. Members of the New York State Senate have proposed a Child Care Workforce Pay Equity Fund, which would enable New York to deliver an annual wage subsidy of $12,500 to every provider—a strong down payment toward a fairer system.  

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