As the Mamdani administration surpasses its first 100 days in office, New Yorkers are taking stock of what has been prioritized and what has not.
The Mayor deserves high marks for prioritizing everyday quality-of-life issues, the kind of “pothole socialism” that treats governing as customer service. It’s a model that delivers, and it works. But it leads me to wonder: when does the underlying plumbing get its turn? Behind every pothole is a capital budget. Behind every delayed 311 response is a workforce. And behind every New Yorker struggling to make rent, find childcare, and pay for groceries is a stagnant economy — one that the previous administration consistently oversold as a recovery.
The post-COVID rebound was never as strong as it was presented. Now growth has stalled, population is declining, and the business closures accelerating across Manhattan’s commercial corridors suggest the trend is getting worse, not better. And the World Cup is not likely to pull us out of the slump.
With a $5 billion budget gap that worsens in the outyears, what is the theory of the case for how covered trash bins and dedicated bus lanes will meaningfully stabilize the City in the short term? I’ll assume, having never served in city government, that there’s no extra money hidden under the seat cushions. State support can buy breathing room, but it’s not a strategy.
And that’s the point: stabilization doesn’t come from surface-level fixes alone. It comes from how the city generates opportunity and income at scale.
A reliance on economic justice and corporate responsibility in New York City—while important and marked by real, meaningful wins for New Yorkers—remains incomplete without addressing how people access work and what that work actually pays. Gains in wages, protections, and accountability matter, but they don’t, on their own, build a functioning pathway into stable employment at scale.
At what point does that responsibility shift back to the City itself?
As the largest employer in New York, City government is not just a regulator of the labor market; it is a central actor within it. Yet it remains understaffed and stretched, with persistent vacancies that limit its ability to deliver services, implement policy, and model the kind of workforce system the broader economy needs. At the same time, the City’s contracting practices—how it pays nonprofit providers and workforce partners—continue to strain the organizations responsible for delivering these outcomes, with delayed payments, insufficient rates, and a failure to consistently cover the true cost of delivering services.
Because at the end of the day, affordability, racial equity, corporate responsibility, and education outcomes all rise or fall on access to quality jobs—this is fundamentally about work, wages, and pathways into the sectors that sustain this city, whether we name it that way or not.
I’m intentionally not using the term “workforce development” in line with this administration’s shift away from it in its most senior roles. Instead, I’m focusing on skill acquisition, talent development, career advancement, upskilling and reskilling, and a 360-degree approach to retention and advancement.
None of that photographs well. But it’s the work that actually moves the needle on affordability, mobility, and who this city is for.
The City’s own workforce data infrastructure does not track wages. It does not allow the public—or policymakers—to understand whether training programs are leading to jobs that can sustain a life in New York. And while demographic data may be collected, it is rarely connected to outcomes in a way that shows whether opportunity is truly being distributed equitably.
That stands in tension with the City’s own commitments. The recently released Preliminary Racial Equity Plan calls for disaggregated data, pay equity, and clearer indicators to track progress across systems—but without linking wages, employment outcomes, and demographic data, those commitments remain incomplete.
In other words, we are talking about equity without fully measuring it. That’s a structural problem. Because if you don’t measure wages, you can’t measure mobility. And if you can’t measure mobility, you cannot claim success.
Others in this space are already doing this work. Through initiatives like the Workforce Benchmarking Network, organizations across New York City are embedding wage and demographic data into their operations—tracking not just who they serve, but whether participants secure quality jobs, experience wage growth, and advance over time. The City isn’t.
The City’s data portal is a good start—it tracks who is served and what programs are completed. But without wage data, job quality indicators, and meaningful equity measures, it falls short of what’s needed. It cannot tell us whether people are earning enough to live in New York, whether jobs lead to advancement, or whether outcomes are improving across communities.
Without that, it undercuts any serious conversation about the true cost of living. It limits our ability to assess whether public investments are actually driving economic mobility—or simply cycling people through programs. A system that measures activity but not outcomes cannot guide policy, inform investment, or build public trust.
The contradiction is hard to ignore. City officials are actively engaged in debates about raising wages to $30 an hour — a legitimate and necessary conversation. But the overwhelming majority of publicly funded job training and workforce programs are not placing people into jobs anywhere near that wage level. We are subsidizing a system that, by its own outcomes, falls well short of the standard we’re simultaneously demanding of employers.
So when does the City commit to closing that gap—within the next hundred days, or the hundred after that? That’s another 12 weeks lost that could be spent on the highest quality and most promising training models that earn credits and credentials, activating social networks to support job seekers with and without degrees to make the connections to jobs that pay.
When do the problem, policy, and political streams finally align? And when does economic justice start showing up in actual earnings for actual New Yorkers?
The urgency of this moment is only increasing. New Yorkers are about to face a wave of new pressures—from federal work requirements tied to SNAP to broader shifts in healthcare coverage that will require thousands more people to engage with the labor market.
The City is not yet prepared for what’s coming next. But it’s also the opportunity to align the New York City Office of Talent and Workforce Development, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the Workforce Development Board, and partners like NYCETC around a clear, forward-looking strategy for where jobs are created and how industries grow.
That alignment must fully leverage SUNY and CUNY as core engines of talent development, pair education with earning through tools like Workforce Pell, and engage unions—still the most reliable pathway into the middle class—as central partners in building and sustaining that pipeline. And it has to be built as a business solution, because if businesses aren’t expanding, we’re further undercutting the impact of these investments before they even begin.
Everything this administration is advancing depends on people to do the work. If the goal is to manufacture bins to get garbage off the street, build and maintain housing, expand child care, support community mental health, and keep the city running—from mom-and-pop shops and neighborhood grocery stores to life sciences labs and tech hubs—then the question isn’t just about policy design. It’s about the workforce.
Where are the workers coming from? How are they being trained, supported, and retained?
If you want a legacy like LaGuardia’s—who built the infrastructure for where New Yorkers live—this is the moment to build the infrastructure for how New Yorkers work, creating real, scalable pathways into jobs that shape the city for generations.
Testimony submitted by Gregory J. Morris, Chief Executive Officer of New York City Employment & Training Coalition on April 15, 2026.
My name is Gregory J Morris. I serve as CEO of the New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCETC) – the country’s largest city-based workforce development association. NYCETC works to expand access to good jobs and better wages by helping build a stronger, more effective workforce system in NYC.
I appreciate the focus of today’s hearing because it highlights a fundamental misdiagnosis of the child care crisis.
This is not, at its core, a supply problem.
It is a workforce system failure—one that is constraining access, driving up costs, and undermining quality across the early childhood sector.
Let us ground that in the data.
New York City currently serves fewer than half of children under five in formal early care and education settings. At the same time, providers report persistent vacancy rates and staffing instability. Research from the New York Early Childhood Professional Development Institute finds that early childhood educators in New York City earn substantially less than their K–12 counterparts, despite comparable credential expectations. The consequence is predictable: turnover rates that often exceed 20 to 25 percent annually, disrupting continuity of care and increasing system costs.
Simultaneously, the city continues to experience labor-market dislocation—particularly among low-wage workers and those seeking entry into stable career pathways.
In economic terms, we observe a classic coordination failure: unmet labor demand coexisting with underutilized labor supply, mediated by fragmented institutions and weakly aligned incentives.
The legislation before the Council is therefore equally timely and necessary.
A structured pathway into the early childhood workforce—combining financial support, training, and a service commitment—reflects what the evidence base tells us about effective workforce interventions. However, its success will depend not only on program design, but also on the extent to which it is embedded within a coherent, citywide workforce strategy.
I would offer three areas for consideration.
1. The City must move from programmatic interventions to system-level workforce pathways.
At present, entry into the early childhood workforce is diffuse, uncoordinated, and often disconnected from formal education and training systems. This proposal creates an opportunity to formalize that pipeline—but only if it is intentionally aligned with institutions such as the City University of New York, labor partners, and community-based training providers.
Critically, the City already operates a large-scale workforce entry mechanism through the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, most notably the Summer Youth Employment Program, which serves approximately 100,000 young people annually.
However, SYEP largely functions as a short-term employment intervention rather than a structured career pathway.
The opportunity here is to convert SYEP from a point-in-time experience into a sequenced pipeline placing participants in early childhood settings, connecting them to postsecondary credential programs, and supporting their progression into permanent roles. Evidence from sector-based training models suggests that when training is aligned with employer demand and includes work-based learning, placement rates can exceed 70 percent, with measurable gains in earnings over time.
This is the distinction between access and mobility.
2. Workforce stabilization must be treated as a precondition for system performance.
Much of the current policy conversation focuses on recruitment. The evidence suggests this is insufficient.
Retention is the binding constraint.
Early childhood educators in New York City face wage structures that aren’t competitive with adjacent sectors, including K–12 education and even entry-level service occupations. The result is persistent churn that imposes costs not only on providers but also on children and families, disrupting care environments.
Addressing this requires a combination of wage supports, credentialing pathways, and advancement opportunities—particularly for incumbent workers, many of whom are already performing core functions without formal recognition or compensation aligned to their responsibilities.
It also needs targeted investment in bilingual and culturally competent educators, who are essential in a city as diverse as New York.
Philanthropy has played an important, though necessarily limited, role in piloting and scaling elements of this work. Institutions such as the Robin Hood Foundation have demonstrated the impact of investments in coaching, wraparound supports, and sectoral strategies. However, these models achieve scale only when integrated into public systems and supported by sustained public funding.
From a policy perspective, staff retention should be understood not as a downstream outcome, but as a leading indicator of system quality.
3. Administrative and operational systems must be aligned to support workforce participation.
Even well-designed workforce pathways will underperform if the wider system remains unstable. Providers consistently report challenges related to delayed payments, fragmented contracting processes, and variable enrollment. These factors directly affect their ability to hire, retain, and invest in staff.
From an institutional standpoint, these are failures of system design rather than implementation. If reimbursement timelines are unpredictable, providers cannot offer stable wages. If enrollment systems are misaligned, staffing becomes responsive rather than strategic.
The legislation’s inclusion of child care supports for participants is important. But a complete approach requires modernizing contracting, improving payment systems, and greater coordination across administering agencies.
In short, workforce policy cannot be separated from administrative reform.
Stepping back, the early childhood workforce should be understood within the wider context of New York City’s labor market and economic development strategy.
Across sectors—including health care, infrastructure, and public service—we observe similar patterns: persistent vacancies, fragmented training systems, and underutilized talent.
This is why NYCETC has consistently advanced the position that workforce development constitutes core economic infrastructure.
It is the mechanism through which public investments translate into employment, wages, and mobility outcomes. It is also central to the City’s affordability agenda. Without access to stable, well-compensated employment, cost-of-living interventions alone are insufficient.
The significance of this moment lies in the degree of institutional alignment.
The Council, the Administration, higher education systems, providers, labor, and philanthropic actors are increasingly converging around a common understanding: that early childhood is essential infrastructure.
The question is whether we will build the workforce system required to sustain it.
The way forward is clear:
- Integrate SYEP and other entry points into structured career pathways.
- Align education, labor, and training systems around credentials and outcomes.
- Invest in wage growth and advancement to stabilize the workforce.
- And modernize administrative systems to support providers and workers alike.
If we do so, the returns are significant and measurable: increased labor force participation among parents, improved child outcomes, reduced turnover costs, and stronger long-term earnings trajectories for workers.
In that sense, this is not simply a sectoral intervention.
It amounts to a strategic investment in the City’s economic capacity.
Workforce development is not adjacent to child care policy—it is the enabling condition that makes universal child care feasible. Thank you.
Watch the hearing
Watch Gregory J. Morris, Chief Executive Officer, NYCETC testify at the hearing on early childhood educator workforce development (starting at 2 hours and 57 minutes). Additionally, read our joint statement with the Day Care Council of New York.
New York City has been a national leader in public child care since World War II, when the LaGuardia administration became the first in the country to use municipal funds to subsidize child care, and one of only a handful of cities that kept those programs running after the war ended. That foundation became the largest publicly-funded child care system in the country. Mayor Mamdani, who has made no secret of his reverence for LaGuardia and his ambition to govern in that tradition, now has the opportunity to extend that legacy in a way his predecessor never fully could: not just by expanding access to care, but by building the workforce system that makes access real.
“At a moment when the city is trying to rebuild its workforce, we have to be clear about where the biggest constraints are,” said Gregory J. Morris, CEO of NYCETC. “In early childhood, the issue isn’t demand; it’s that we haven’t built a pipeline that can consistently bring people into these roles and support them once they’re there. That gap has ripple effects far beyond the sector itself. It determines whether families can work, whether employers can hire, and whether the city can deliver on its broader economic goals.”
The consequences don’t stay contained to the sector. They spread. Providers can’t find or keep staff. Classrooms go unopened or shut down entirely. Parents are left scrambling, and when care isn’t available, it doesn’t matter what jobs exist — people are forced out of the workforce before they ever get a chance to fill them. Unmet need and untapped talent sit right next to each other, and what’s missing is the connective tissue between them.
The sector has been absorbing those ripple effects largely on its own, and it’s reached its limit. “The childcare sector is being asked to solve a supply challenge without the workforce system to support it,” said Tara N. Gardner, Executive Director of the Day Care Council of New York. “Right now, there isn’t a coordinated pipeline that brings people into early childhood roles, helps them get credentialed, and keeps them in the field. Providers are left to fill that gap on their own, and it’s simply not sustainable. The result is fewer available seats for children and fewer parents able to participate in the workforce. If we want a childcare system that works, we have to start by building a workforce system that works.”
Ahead of today’s hearing, NYCETC and the Day Care Council of New York are calling for two clear commitments: first, direct DYCD and DOE—alongside unions and higher ed—to build a coordinated early childhood workforce pipeline that connects training, earn-and-learn pathways, and critical supports, while using SYEP as an on-ramp into ECE careers, especially for older participants ages 18 – 24; and second, invest in reskilling and upskilling the current workforce by creating supported pathways from entry-level roles to lead teacher and director positions. Both should be tracked with transparent data on credentials, wages, and retention.
New York hasn’t built this system yet, but the innovation, partners, and urgency are all there. Early childhood workforce development is core infrastructure, and getting it right is essential to the City’s economic future.
Further Reading
Read the submitted testimony for the April 15 joint hearing with the Committee on Workforce Development, Committee on Higher Education, and Subcommittee on Early Childhood Education:
Testimony submitted by Gregory J. Morris, Chief Executive Officer of New York City Employment & Training Coalition on April 14, 2026.
Good morning, Chair Aldebol. I’m Gregory Morris, CEO of the New York City Employment and Training Coalition — NYCETC — the city’s largest network of workforce development providers, serving New Yorkers across all five boroughs.
I’m here today because the data is unmistakable — and so is the opportunity in front of this Council. As of this past fall, New York City had more than 13,000 unfilled government positions — a citywide vacancy rate that remains more than double the pre-pandemic level, according to the NYC Comptroller’s Staffing Dashboard.
These aren’t administrative abstractions.
At the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, a 27 percent vacancy rate in the mental health division means clinical and social worker roles are sitting empty while New Yorkers in crisis wait for help.
The Department of Social Services — the agency responsible for delivering benefits to the lowest-income New Yorkers at the center of this administration’s affordability agenda — is carrying a 12 percent vacancy rate, or more than 1,500 open positions.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which must drive this Mayor’s 200,000-unit affordable housing commitment, is at 13 percent — and experts say those vacancies have already slowed project reviews and raised the cost of building.
And in perhaps the sharpest irony: DCAS, the very agency that administers and scores civil service exams, is nearly 17 percent vacant itself.
The cost of inaction is real and measurable.
According to the NYC Independent Budget Office, the City is on track to exceed its budgeted overtime spending by more than $840 million this fiscal year — largely because short-staffed agencies are paying existing workers overtime rather than filling roles that would relieve that pressure. Treating vacancies as savings is not fiscal responsibility. It is a deferred and compounding cost.
And the workforce to fill these roles is ready and waiting.
When Mayor Mamdani opened his transition portal in November, more than 70,000 New Yorkers submitted resumes within days. The problem is not demand. The problem is a system — one where navigating civil service exams, misaligned credential requirements, and an exam-to-hire timeline that can stretch beyond 18 months functions as a barrier, not a bridge, to public service careers.
NYCETC and our member organizations are ready to help build that bridge right now — in partnership with CUNY Community Colleges and the city’s labor and trade partners.
We are proposing a targeted investment to launch a coordinated, equity-centered pipeline into the sectors with the deepest vacancies: healthcare, early childhood education, and parks and sanitation.
NYCETC’s share would fund credentialed training, civil service exam preparation, fee support, and wraparound services that make completion possible for working adults—particularly immigrants, low-income residents, and workers aged 25 to 54, who are the backbone of this city but have been systematically left out of the public sector pipeline.
The remaining resources would flow to union and labor partners, anchoring the effort in real hiring outcomes rather than just training completions.
In year one alone, this investment will directly serve at least 300 New Yorkers: 50 credential completions, 100 exam preparation participants, 25 placements into full-time city jobs, and 125 incumbent municipal workers who gain the upskilling and advancement opportunities they have long deserved.
The demand is there. The infrastructure is there. The vacancies are there. An investment to connect those three things is not a budget line item — it is a commitment to a government that delivers. Thank you.
Watch the hearing
Watch Gregory J. Morris testify at yesterday’s oversight hearing on rebuilding the municipal workforce (starting at 1 hour and 11 minutes).
Our sector—and our city—are grieving. Fred didn’t just advocate for solutions; he built them, leading Urban Pathways to deliver hundreds of units of supportive housing across New York City and shaping the broader field through decades of leadership, from HELP USA to Homeless Services United (HSU).
He pushed the field forward—not just on housing, but on equity—championing efforts like #JustPay to ensure the human services workforce is valued and sustained. The last time our CEO, Gregory J Morris, MPA, saw Fred, he spoke about his transition and told Greg he’d always be around. Greg believed him then, and believes it now. His work, his clarity, and his conviction will continue to guide us… just from way, way up above.
“I think the biggest challenge is getting people to understand that we know what works. That we’ve known for a number of years that there are real solutions that are cost-effective. That we can move someone who has lived on the streets for a significant number of years into an apartment and eventually into a level of self-functioning that maximizes their potential. That is doable. I think it’s getting that message out that we don’t have to live in an environment—in a society—where people are relegated to living on our streets. If you invest the resources, we can really turn it around.” — Frederick “Fred” Shack, Urban Pathways
Must watch: Fred Shack and Gary P. Jenkins of Urban Pathways joined “In Focus” on NY1 on July 13, 2025.