Why does raising a child in New York cost so much?

Summary

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Podcast: City Journal Audio

Host: Manhattan Institute
Episode: Why does raising a child in New York cost so much?
Date: October 24, 2025
Guests: Nicole Jelinas (A), Liana Zagarri (B)

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Overview

This episode of the Bigger Apple podcast, hosted by Nicole Jelinas and joined by Liana Zagarri, delves into the high costs and logistical hurdles of raising children—especially in terms of child care—in New York City. The discussion weaves through policy context, parent experiences, economic pressures, regulatory barriers, and emerging political plans from mayoral candidates. The hosts ground the conversation in the realities families face, exploring why NYC has become less hospitable for those raising young kids, and what solutions are—or aren’t—on the table.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Population Shifts and Demographic Challenges [00:34–02:19]

• Declining Young Family Population: NYC lost nearly 50,000 children under five between 2010 and 2020—a sign that families are leaving or not choosing NYC to raise kids.
• Possible Reasons: High costs and lack of affordable child care are major contributors.
• Nicole sets the stage:

  “People starting young families or people who recently started young families are not finding the city to be a hospitable place to have and raise children.” [01:13, A]

2. Child Care in NYC: Lay of the Land [02:19–05:24]

• When Do Parents Start Planning?

  “Usually you start thinking about childcare before the child is even born. The first consideration... is who’s going to take care of the child, given how short parental leave is, if there is parental leave at all.” [02:19, B]

• Types of Care & Costs:
  • Center-based infant care: ~$26,000/year
  • Family care: ~$18,000/year
  • Informal/familial care (e.g., grandma): approaches zero—if possible.
• Housing Costs Intersect: Grandparent care only works if extended family can afford to live nearby. Housing costs are a fundamental barrier.

3. The Affordability Crisis [06:26–07:49]

• Child Care as a Prohibitive Expense:
  • Comptroller’s threshold: household needs $634,000 income to spend less than 7% on child care, but median household income is ~$80,000.
  • "If we had all the money, we would not be talking about this." [03:19, B]
• Why the Issue Matters Politically: The math no longer adds up for ordinary families—costs have outpaced incomes, bringing child care to the forefront of city politics.

4. Skyrocketing Costs: What’s Driving Increases? [07:49–09:41]

• Factors:
  • Pandemic: Providers closed, supply shrank, increased health/safety requirements.
  • Child care costs for infants rose 79% since the pandemic.
  • Labor market increases, rent, regulation.
• Regulatory Environment: Licensure and safety requirements are essential, but some might be unnecessarily restrictive.

5. Barriers in Regulation & Infrastructure [09:26–12:03]

• Necessary but Rigid Regulations:
  • High caregiver-to-child ratios are justified, akin to nursing home care for vulnerable populations.
  • Some rules, like mandatory ground-floor locations for centers, block potential expansions in space-limited NYC.

    “Children live in multi story buildings and there’s no reason necessarily that you could not safely evacuate them if they were located, say on the second floor." [10:32, B]

• Transit-Oriented Solutions: New proposals encourage locating child care near transit hubs—a boon for working parents.

6. Mayoral Candidates’ Plans & Universal Programs [12:03–18:24]

• Cuomo’s Plan: Focus on co-locating early childhood care in public schools, taking advantage of declining school enrollment and excess space.
• Assemblyman Mamdani’s Proposal: Extreme universal model—child care for all children age 6 weeks to 18 years, with no timeline, and immediate, full coverage implied.
• Practical Considerations:
  • Universal pre-K’s rollout was massive and incremental—a model for why phasing-in is necessary.
  • Demand is lower for very young children; parental preferences vary.

7. Complications of Flexibility & Workforce Realities [18:24–22:07]

• Scheduling Needs vs. Program Rigidity:
  • Public systems tend toward standardization, but parents (e.g., shift workers) need flexibility—a current mismatch.
  • Solutions may require employer partnerships for on-site or flexible care.

    “You could see in a setting like a hospital or some... provider where you could provide care that fits the wishes of their employees.” [19:02, B]

8. The Question of Wages & Labor [20:07–22:51]

• Wages for Providers:
  • Mamdani proposes pay parity for child care workers with public school teachers (~$100,000+), versus current $40,000 average.
  • Labor market is tight; higher wages would draw workers but explode costs.

    “If you are essentially paid the same to work at a McDonald’s as you are to look after somebody’s children, you have options in a labor market that’s tight.” [21:51, B]

  • Raising pay increases supply and cost, further stress-testing family affordability.

9. Cost, Pilots, and Who Should Pay [23:22–24:35]

• Fiscal Implications:
  • Full universal expansion: $6B+ annually, atop existing $1B for pre-K.
  • Should the city embark on full-scale change or test pilot programs first? Both hosts favor incremental expansion and piloting.

10. Private Sector Partnerships and Additional Solutions [24:35–26:24]

• Employers as Stakeholders:
  • Companies and hospitals need young employees—childcare is a workforce retention and economic development issue.
  • Employers face heavy regulatory burdens in creating on-site child care.

11. Everyday Challenges for NYC Parents [27:01–29:15]

• Time Scarcity: All life logistics—housing, jobs, commutes, shopping—are more complicated (and costly) with kids.
• Infrastructure Gaps: Subways rarely accommodate strollers; few apartments have washer/dryers.

12. Big Policy Questions: Universalism, Funding, Equity [29:15–34:36]

• Policy Concerns: Are expansive entitlements sustainable without dedicated funding?

  “What worries me is providing entitlements that we don’t have dedicated funding for.” [31:47, B]

• Tax implications: Universal programs, once established, would be almost impossible to roll back (“everyone’s gotten used to sending their babies to childcare”). [32:58, A]
• Targeted Aid: Credits and vouchers help at the poorest margin, but middle-class families are stuck.

13. Personal Tradeoffs & Parental Work [34:15–35:52]

• Opportunity Cost:
  • “As someone who ended up staying home because it made no sense for me to go to work... taking care of children is certainly work.” [34:15, B]
  • Welfare and work: is society valuing parenthood or pushing all toward paid labor outside the home?

14. Exodus and Suburban Shift [36:05–37:27]

• Family Exit from NYC:
  • Families often leave for suburbs or farther when space and affordability crunches hit.
  • Pandemic exacerbated the pressure as apartments emerged as “unlivable” with whole families at home.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Who Gets Help:
  “If you ask your grandma, that [cost] drops to a lot closer to zero... unless you need to factor in the fact that she needs to be able to live next to you or within reasonable commuting distance of where you’re living.” [03:19, B]

• Regulations in Context:
  “This isn't really one of those places where you can say, let's just get rid of the regulations... You have to have background checks on workers and you have to have the places inspected.” [08:54, A]

• Parenting in NYC:
  “Having young children in the city is incredibly difficult for all the reasons that we’ve discussed, the transportation, down to the fact that... so many buildings don’t have washer dryers in them.” [30:30, B]

• Why Families Leave:
  “You cannot expect people to live and work from home in New York City with their children. That’s just unreasonable expectations.” [37:15, B]

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Key Timestamps

• [00:34–02:19]: Introduction to NYC’s shrinking young-family demographic.
• [02:19–05:24]: How parents plan for child care, costs, and the impact of housing.
• [07:49–09:41]: Breakdown of skyrocketing costs post-pandemic.
• [10:32–11:06]: Critique of ground-floor-only regulations.
• [12:03–14:13]: Candidate plans—school co-location, class sizes, and policy priorities.
• [17:07–18:24]: Feasibility of universal cradle-to-18 programs.
• [21:51–22:07]: Realities of attracting and paying child care workers.
• [24:35–25:58]: Employer role in child care.
• [27:01–28:38]: Parenting logistics and infrastructure woes.
• [31:47–32:58]: Fiscal concerns about new entitlements.
• [34:15–35:52]: The value (and economic rationale) of stay-at-home parenting.

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Tone & Takeaway

Throughout, Nicole and Liana maintain a thoughtful, policy-savvy, yet pragmatic tone. Liana’s experience as a NYC parent grounds theoretical debate in lived reality. Cost, regulatory environment, politics, and everyday struggles intertwine—they stress that urban parenting is a logistical and economic balancing act shaped by policy decisions, infrastructure, and limited resources.

Bottom line: Raising children in NYC is challenging and costly, not just because of high rents and child care bills, but due to an interplay of regulations, workforce needs, shifting political priorities, and the real-life geometry of city living. The podcast calls for nuanced, incremental solutions informed by both public and private sector innovation—always keeping families’ diverse needs at the center.

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Transcript

[A]

Good afternoon or good morning or good evening. I'm Nicole Jelinas.

[B]

And I'm Liana Zagarri.

[A]

And welcome to the second episode of the Bigger Apple podcast. Today we will be discussing child care in New York City and the cost of child care in New York City and some of the logistical challenges that go along with institutionalizing childcare and talk about some of the mayoral candidates plans on this rental.

[B]

Oh, I cannot wait to talk about this, Nicole. It's been my life for the last 22 years.

[A]

So just to give everyone some background on childcare, New York city has about 475,000 children under 5 years old, or at least it did as of the 2020 census, which I'm sure has changed since then. But between 2010 and 2020, New York actually lost a lot of children under 5 years old. We've lost close to 50,000 young children. So obviously they're just getting older. But we are not replacing people as they age out. So that's an indication that people starting young families or people who recently started young families are not finding the city to be a hospitable place to have and raise children. So we're here to talk about why. And before I start asking Leanna some questions, because she's the real expert in this area, just throw out some numbers. New York City has a universal pre kindergarten program for four year olds. This, this has existed since the early years of the de Blasio administration. 12 years ago. I guess this was what Mayor de Blasio ran and won on. And as he told Deanna and me and our colleagues at the New York editorial board a few weeks ago, he was surprised that so many upper income and upper middle class people really appreciated and embraced the pre kindergarten program and actually used it for their own kids. So, Liana, you've raised three children in New York City in Brooklyn, New York. When do parents start thinking about childcare and how do they go about thinking about it?

[B]

Well, usually you start thinking about childcare before the child is even born. The first consideration that you have is who's going to take care of the child, given how short parental leave is, if there is parental leave at all. And I know my friends in the Department of Education would pile up all their sick days and vacation days and, you know, try to schedule children to coincide with holidays. People do whatever they can in order to minimize the uncertainty of whether they're going to have childcare. And then also the cost, obviously, which is, you know, the main reason that we're talking about affordability. And child care in the first place.

[A]

Right. And what about extended family child care where grandparents, other relatives might take care of the kids informally? I mean, how many people go with that option? What are the hurdles to that option? Right.

[B]

So a lot of, well, almost. I think the number is about half of New York City's children do get care that isn't center based care. And when we talk about these big numbers that, you know, infant care costs $26,000 a year. That's center based care. If you do it in a family setting, that number drops to 18,000. You know, if you ask your grandma, that number drops to a lot closer to zero. Unless you need to factor in the fact that she needs to be able to live next to you or within reasonable commuting distance of where you're living. Affordability in terms of housing affects everybody. The basic issue with affordability is lack of money. Right. Like if we had all the money, we would not be talking about this. So it's, it's a matter of income and the main items of expense, which is in this city, rent. And for families with children, childcare is the next biggest expense.

[A]

Right. And rent obviously impacts childcare and that you don't have rent impacts childcare.

[B]

With the childcare centers need to pay rent as well. Yes. You can think of grandma as a childcare center in that setting.

[A]

Right. And if you don't have an extra bedroom where maybe you just had a baby and your parent might come stay with you, but you can't do that if you don't have an extra bedroom. If the grandparents are still working themselves, they perform a child care role. So it kind of all goes together. And that, that certainly makes sense. And what are people looking for? I mean, say you've cobbled together close to $30,000 a year to pay for infant or child care. What are people looking for in a provider in terms of hours close to the house, you know, good quality, safe care? I mean, how do you navigate this?

[B]

The simple answ, all of the above and then some. Because a lot of New York City. Well, the care is provided usually the regular hours, 8 o' clock to, you know, at most 6 o'. Clock. That would be extended day hours for the city's pre K and 3K. It actually aligns with just the school day. So.

[A]

Right. So two, three o'. Clock.

[B]

Yeah, you're not talking about full time childcare. But the kind of care that you need needs to factor in the hours of parental work, which in this city with artists and other shift workers is not the usual nine to six.

[A]

Right.

[B]

When that exists, you know, you need hours late at night, you need overnight care, you really need to have flexibility. The children get sick, that's another consideration. Even if you have access to a publicly funded situation, you're still going to need emergency care. And that is still coming out of your pocket as a top up on whatever else you're spending on the public care or the private care.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So in terms of income that you need to, you know, according to the comptroller, to afford an infant in this city and not spend more than 7% of your income in dollars to be exact.

[A]

$634,000. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, that's a number that very few in the city make as a household where the median household income is about $80,000.

[A]

So 330,000 dol. I mean, that's really getting up there, you know, flirting with your top one and a half percent of earners. Even in New York City, if you.

[B]

Take the nurse and the cop scenario, you're looking at maybe $180,000 income.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Of which you have to pay 30% in taxes. So you're really looking at a lot less when you look at disposable.

[A]

And why do you think this has become a bigger political issue over the past decade or so? I mean, nobody really talked much about childcare. You know, 20, 30 years ago in a New York City political context. Even liberal and progressive candidates didn't really run on this until de Blasio came along with his pre K program for 4 year olds. I mean, why, why has it become more important? I mean, people have always had kids. In fact, they used to have more kids than they have today.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's the fact that the numbers really don't add up anymore. And you know, we've seen the pandemic did a big number, but so did the fact that we haven't built enough housing over the last two decades to keep up with the demand. And with the resulting, you know, supply demand issue and prices going up as a result. Inflation since the pandemic on food, for example, is 25%. Rental prices in the market have also gone up about 20%. Center based childcare went up 79% for infants. 7979.

[A]

And why is that? Is it just because of the labor costs?

[B]

It's a mix. Some of that was because the number of providers dropped.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And it was the pandemic, so there were higher requirements as well. And lots of businesses closed during the pandemic. So there was a drop in supply. Okay. And this is, it's not easy to open a childcare center in New York City. It, it takes a lot of dedication and there are a lot of rules that you have. Right?

[A]

Yeah. And this isn't really one of those places where you can say, let's just get rid of the regulations. I mean, there's, you know, especially for children under the age where they can't talk or they, they can't communicate and say to the parents, you know, this place is a total disaster. I mean, you have to have background checks on workers and you have to have the places expected once in a while and so forth. So this isn't kind of like a cut the red tape place or do you think there are places where they could cut the red tape and not compromise safety?

[B]

I think one of the reasons it's so expensive is because you need that high provider to child ratio. You're essentially replacing a parent, especially at that very young end where a child really cannot talk.

[A]

Right. It's like a nursing home.

[B]

It is probably even. Well, it's, it's more than a nursing home. It's. The child really cannot talk.

[A]

Right. And plus like a nursing home kind of. They're not running around and you know, maybe they are, but it's, it's, you know, it's. So when the child is not mobile, you know, for the first few months of his or her life, that's one thing. But when they are being very intensely active, you need a high adult to child ratio. You can't just watch like 25, 3 year olds.

[B]

Right. As you said, you do want to have the person to be checked against the registry that they're safe to be with children. That said, there are rules and regulations that make it unnecessarily difficult to operate these centers.

[A]

Like what?

[B]

Like you have to locate the childcare center on the ground floor. Why that is, some of that is fire department regulation for evacuation purposes. And it just seems something that in the modern age you could overcome the children. Children live in multi story buildings and there's no reason necessarily that you could not safely evacuate them if they were located, say on the second floor, which would open up many more opportunities for locations in the city. Because the ground floor. Expensive.

[A]

Yeah. And I mean, you could see something where you have to certify that you can evacuate everybody within two minutes or something like that and have like an annual inspection on that point. That there would be other ways of dealing with that. And this was not proposed as part of the city of. Yes. To Bring this to higher floors or that can't be checked. That. I mean, it may just be they didn't want to do things.

[B]

They're encouraging property owners to provide space for childcare centers, especially near transit, which is, you know, very, very good because as when you're commuting as a parent, you're trying to maximize the time you spend between leaving the house, getting to work and getting it back, and picking up the children and dropping off the children along the way and, you know, running your errands. So having everything kind of concentrated around a transit stop is. Is a really great. By Abdulin.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that, I guess that kind of brings us to the MERYL proposals. And I'll start with Cuomo because something you just said is in. Is in his plan where he's saying he wants to explore more collocation of early childhood care within public schools, which I think makes some sense because if you have an older kid, maybe the child could go to care along with the older kids, so you could drop the two kids off together. But also with school enrollment down, you know, 70 to 100,000 people, depending on what source you believe there is extra space in some of these public schools. And some of that could be early childcare. I mean, do you think that makes some sense or I'm missing something there?

[B]

I think it does make sense. I think that the schools will need to rethink how they utilize the space as the enrollment changes happen. The recent class size laws affect how much free space actually they will be.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Regardless of that mitigates the number that is going to be offset by the need for the classroom space.

[A]

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Because if you, obviously you need more classes for smaller classes, so that's going to take up. Do you think if we had limited resources, it would be better to spend them on childcare rather than try to meet the class size mandate?

[B]

And by childcare, you mean universally provided, publicly provided care?

[A]

Yeah, we can get to the issues with Universal in a second. Just expanding child care. I mean, starting with universal 3k and going down to 2k. I mean, so by three years, grade school will have to be capped at 20 students and then above the fourth grade, 23 to 25 students. Would it be better to have 22 kids in second grade and have more money for childcare? Or you think the smaller class sizes are important too?

[B]

I am not an education expert.

[A]

Yeah, we'll have our education people on.

[B]

But I have, you know, I had three kids go through public schools and their class sizes in the elementary ages were about 30 kids in the classroom. And you know, when they were kindergarten, first grade, it did seem like a large number. But you know, I'm not entirely sure it was a question of space necessarily, as opposed to having the teacher, having an assistant teacher in the classroom that could help with instruction. Right. So yeah, I'm not, I don't have a very strong, well thought out opinion on this. I do think that how the city approaches childcare is, you know, does the city, how much does the city want to keep families in the city? And that is ultimately a political decision. Right. If you want to keep families, you need to make the city attractive place to be, which is a place where you can afford to have children and where you want to raise them, which means you provide good schools, safe streets and, and, and you know, the kind of amenities that make city living worthwhile, like, you know, the parks and museums and culture and all the things that, you know, the parents actually have to have the time for in order to enjoy with their children. Because if you don't have that, what is the point of paying more in rent and in childcare, which is what you will be doing because you're living in a big city where everything' a premium if you don't get to enjoy any of it.

[A]

Another feature of Cuomo's plan, which is of contrast to Assemblyman Zoran Mamdani's plan, is Cuomo's plan is not universal. So he would guarantee a full day 3k for 3 year olds. So basically go down a year from the four year olds, make this universal because Adams has been doing a three year old free kindergarten. But there's been a lot of issues including the open seats not being where the children are. Many people don't seem to want to send their children to 3k, which may become an issue for the 2 year olds and 1 year olds as well. You know, there's less demand because people do prefer these other options if they have some hope of making these other options work. Whereas mom Donnie says every kid 6 weeks old to 18 years old is going to be in universal education setting and has no timeframe on this. Sort of implying that he would do it immediately. At least that's what people voting for him may think. Does it make sense to just sort of do this immediately, universal infant, you know, cradle on up childcare, or does it make sense to phase it in more slowly, going down in age as Cuomo proposes?

[B]

You would have to phase it in. And I think that is a fairly universally acknowledged understanding. The Universal Pre K was a massive undertaking that required intense coordination across a vast multitude of departments and agencies and rules and regulations. And it was, it was a serious challenge and undertaking to get it off the ground. The younger you go, the more rules and regulations there are.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And, but there's also less demand, as you pointed out. So when we talk about the expansion and the universal provision, it's more that this kind of care would be available, not necessarily that everyone, you know now is expected.

[A]

And I think that's an interesting word because available. Also, maybe that the parent doesn't need to send them five days a week, but maybe they need to send them two days a week or they would want to drop their kid off at 10 and pick the kid up at 2 or something like that. I mean, would that be something that's feasible or it just doesn't work. It's like trying to fly a plane with only half the passengers. It's just not economical. Even less economical than it already is.

[B]

Well, the, the trick there is that you have to fund, you have to fund the provider.

[A]

And it's kind of like a power plant. You know, there's peak hours and non peak hours. Like you could say, say a mot works at a retail store and two of her days are on the weekend, but three are on the weekday. And so maybe she still has to rely on a grandparent or neighbor to watch the kid on Saturday and Sunday, but she would want to drop the kid off at childcare, you know, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I mean, that seems to me to be something that people would want, but it's not really being discussed into how something like that would work. Right.

[B]

You want flexibility in a system that is publicly provided. And the only way I think that you can provide public systems is by being very cookie cutter. Like these are the hours, right? Yeah. You know, this is what is paid for. And whether or not you use it is then a question of utilization and attendance. And you know, if, if only, you know, half the children that are enrolled are attending at any given time, there's a, you know, that's a waste of public resources in many ways. But when you talk about that kind of, you know, if it was actually related to shift work and you know, you do need extra care on three days of the week and you don't need anything else on the other ones, that is where I think partnerships with employers come in. Where, you know, you could see in a setting like, like a hospital or some, some other such big institutional provider where you could provide care that's closer or on the premises or that that fits the wishes of their employees.

[A]

Right, yeah, that makes sense. And the issue of pay, which goes directly to the issue of cost. Mamdani says in his plan that he wants childcare providers to be paid at parity with public school teachers. And he uses the word teacher. He doesn't say teacher's aide or classroom assistant or Department of education employee or anything like that. So if you go and look at the actuary report, the average teacher is paid pretty much exactly $100,000. That's not including benefits. So when you get into the benefits, it's going to be more like 150,000 a year for pensions and health care and supplementary welfare benefits and all that stuff. Whereas the average child care provider in New York state has paid about 40,000. Probably a little more in the city, but Certainly nothing like $100,000 or more. Is that an issue with Mamdani's plan? I mean, as you get into watching 5 weeks olds versus teaching 16 year olds, is it reasonable to expect pay parody here?

[B]

Well, what is reasonable is, is maybe.

[A]

Not reasonable to me. I mean, maybe if you spend your life watching five weeks old, you think you should be paid. But this is also like the issue of things that used to be informal coming in to the formal economy. And does that increase the cost? I mean, obviously, if you are watching someone's kids for $15 an hour and you are authorized to work in the United States and you get the opportunity to be paid much more, you're going to do that.

[B]

The childcare workers are incredibly price sensitive. So if you are essentially paid the same to work at a McDonald's as you are to look after somebody's children, you have options in a labor market that's tight. There's no reason that you shouldn't go for a higher paying job.

[A]

Yeah. And you could be a nanny.

[B]

So it is, you know, the supply of childcare workers is a real problem because, you know, with the, the fundamental issue here is that parents can only afford so much given all of their other expenses. And the childcare providers can only offer so much because they have similar sets of expenses in terms of, you know, rent and, and wages. And there is a lot of demand, but there isn't enough supply because you cannot match the two. They, it just doesn't add up.

[A]

Right. So obviously raising the pay would increase. It would increase supply and make it.

[B]

Less affordable for parents too.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, if, yeah.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

If you, if you still need that person to work on a more informal basis. They now have an opportunity for much higher pay, an additional opportunity because there's already, you know, if you've got good qualifications, you don't have criminal record, everything else you can go apply to a nanny agency. I mean, there are higher paid jobs in this area already as well.

[B]

Yes, yeah.

[A]

And the overall price tag, I mean, Cuomo doesn't really put a cost on his plan, but one can surmise that a more incremental plan that is phased in would cost less than an immediate universal plan. Whereas Mamdani's universal childcare through PK would cost at least $6 billion a year, in addition to the 1 billion or so that we currently spend on pre K. I mean, looking at a $40 billion plus education budget, is it reasonable to ask for another $6 billion a year or should we be trying other things first and you know, like pilots and see what works or what doesn't, or just go ahead and spend it and see what happens?

[B]

I believe Eric Adams has actually done quite a bit on expanding and testing and piloting different programs that would help with childcare. I know that they're private, piloting a program for two year olds just to see how that works in, you know, figuring out where people need it and how much people need it and where there is the demand. And it's not an easy undertaking.

[A]

You went to a five borough conference. Anything there that you learned that people should know.

[B]

That childcare summit, that citizens union, Right. The other week was done with the focus on partnerships with the private sector, which was very interesting. Childcare came up not as an education issue, but as a workforce retainment and development issue, which is another lens of looking at it. If the employers would like to retain people of prime working age, and they cannot because of childcare and housing and all the other affordability pressures, there's a very good incentive for them to try to help and do something about it. And right. That is where, you know, Etsy raised the issue of just the rules and regulations in order for them to open a childcare center on the premises. And how complicated that was. And where one of the New York hospitals was also talking about the issues about shift work. They had representatives of Industries where, for example, parental leave. New York has 12 weeks of parental leave. And not everybody gets it. You only get it if you are a, an employee. If you're self employed, you're out of luck or if you're a contractor, you're out of luck. Unless you think ahead and make your payments.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Which oftentimes is not something one has necessarily thought about before you find out you're pregnant. So, so that angle was, was an interesting one to see in terms of how much support there was from the private sector to do something about child care and providing and partnering with the state on child care at a more individual level.

[A]

Yep. In different ways of providing this that may be more convenient for both the employer and the worker, but that may not involve an entirely government run or government contracted child care.

[B]

But that is where it is just so tricky because children are small and they need constant attention. And they need constant attention all the hours when they're not awake. So they go to sleep and you know, they get sick and they cannot be left alone.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's just there is so little room when you are a parent for.

[A]

And when they're sick, you don't want to drop them off at daycare either. I mean, it's both not fair to the sick child, but also not fair to the other kids. Exactly.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

I mean, I guess it's the contagion thing may be sort of a red herring because all kids get sick. You know, you're, you're probably, it's every bug is going to go around. You're probably not going to prevent much contagion by keeping your kid home if he has a cold. But certainly you'd rather your kid be able to stay home and rest than have to wake him up and take him on the subway to a daycare.

[B]

The one thing that parents don't have much of is time. Right. When you're making decisions of where you're going to be living, you're juggling every single possible issue that comes up. You know, you're trying to figure out, all right, I've got this job. This is, this is the subway line that I need to be on. This is how long it's going to take me. This is where I can, you know, find a spot for my child to, you know. But this is, this is how big an apartment I can afford. Is that remotely where I can commute from?

[A]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

Is there childcare along the way that is not going an hour in the wrong direction, which you don't have because you've got everything tightly scheduled. And then, you know, in the city, like when you think about how many times you go shopping. Shopping is not something that is easy when you have children in tow. Right. Especially when you're doing it on nearly daily basis. You know, it's just everything needs to, to be running like a well oiled clock in order for life to Be doable.

[A]

Yeah. And even, I mean, like, bringing an older child on subway is easier than bringing a child in a stroller. I mean, like you said, the cost of housing has to do with all of this, but so do things like accessible subway stations. I mean, that might matter if you have two children under five. I mean, can I bring them up the subway station or one child under five?

[B]

I mean, like any child that sitting in a stroller you've seen how many times depend on the kindness of strangers to carry that thing up, you know, much less if you have more than one child, that complicates things astronomically.

[A]

Right. And I'm not ignoring Curtis Sliwa, our third mayoral candidate. He doesn't seem to have a formal childcare plan. I mean, in the debates when he's asked about it, he's generally in favor of it, but he hasn't put anything specific out below pre kindergarten. So as we go into the last days of the mayoral race, what do you think about these plans? I mean, are these. Are you glad they're talking about it? Do you wish something in addition was being discussed that neither candidate has brought up?

[B]

I'm certainly glad that people are talking about it. I think the cities without children are not going to be cities that are going to be growing and. Right. Be stable and prosperous.

[A]

And as a kid, I mean, I think it's. It would be a great. I mean, you're. You do your kid. Are they. Are your kids glad they grew up here? I mean, maybe they don't know.

[B]

I'm very glad they grew up here, and I am, I am glad I got to raise them. But I will say that it got a lot easier once they started school. Right. It is definitely much easier now that they can, you know, go explore and not depend on a parent driving them somewhere, as it is in the rest of America.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So that there is, there's a lot of freedom in that in terms of, like, what you can do. Having young children in the city is incredibly difficult for all the reasons that we've discussed, the transportation, I mean, down to the fact that, like, so many buildings in the city don't have washer dryers in them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It seems like such a little thing, but the amount of clothing you go through when you have a small child is not insignificant. Sure.

[A]

And you can't leave the baby alone and, you know, go to the laundromat 10 blocks away or whatever. There's actually fewer laundromats, too. I mean, that's been an issue because the property Owners could, could get a higher rent from somebody else. I mean, we've lost some of our neighborhood laundromats where I live.

[B]

I've certainly put my children into one of those carts to, you know, and I've done that to go shopping too, because, you know, when you have two kids under five, it is, it is complicated to go places. Right. So I do think that any kind of support that the city can provide is helpful. What worries me is providing entitlements that we don't have dedicated funding for that.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Adds more to the uncertainty.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. That's the fiscal implications of the $6 billion. It's not just the $6 billion where, you know, Mamlani has said he wants the state to increase taxes on businesses and rich people. But he's also said if the governor won't do that, he will just take the money from her however she wants to give it to him and he'd be fine with that. But that's very clever on his part because once he's got the money, say because Wall street continues to do well, next year we have an unexpected state budget surplus. And so the governor can say, okay, here's $6 billion. You know, start your child care plan the next year or the year after. Once you have a budget crisis, you cannot take that away from people. Everyone's gotten used to sending their babies to childcare, so that is when they will have to raise taxes to fund it. So he will just get his tax increase delayed when he's built up this constituency that's protesting outside. You know, you're not going to take away my kids childcare. So everything maybe come out of existing revenues now, but eventually every new program is going to be a tax increase.

[B]

Right. I mean, PK isn't fully funded yet either.

[A]

Right. And Adams has, has committed to do it for the upcoming year, but it is not yet. Like, I mean, we don't go every year and say, are we going to fund the second grade this. So it's nothing like that yet.

[B]

One of the things that Hoku did was expand the Empire State Child Credit. I think that is something that is helpful in terms of, you know, giving money back to people that they can spend as they wish.

[A]

Right. Including having it helps if one parent wants to stay home for longer. I mean, it's extra money. The same with the increase in the earned income tax credit that Adams did.

[B]

Right. I mean, it's, it's not a lot of money, but it is, there's some help at the poorer end. You've got the vouchers, which are meaningfully helpful, but they don't, you know, everybody.

[A]

Right. And I think the issue with the vouchers is at some point for lower income workers, it becomes more economical for them just to stay home. But then we get right back into the welfare reform issue where it was not considered a good idea for people to stay home with no job indefinitely and watch their kids so.

[B]

Well, I, I, I, I, as someone who ended up staying home because it made no sense for me to go to work.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because it would be, the math just didn't work out for me to work and pay somebody else all the wages I made to watch my children. I, I would argue that, you know, taking care of children is certainly work.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a hard argument to say. Like if you're a single parent.

[A]

Yeah. It's kind of weird because like the whole welfare reform issue, staying just you be paid to take care of other people's children so that other people can be paid to take care of your children. You see what I'm saying? Like when it's at the age where it's a one on one ratio, you're getting into issues that were sort of litigated 30 years ago.

[B]

Yeah. That's also where things like parental leave do make a lot of sense because. Yes. And a lot. I mean, for the parental leave that we have now, it's sliding scale. As the time goes on, employers generally top it up to a hundred percent of the wages because it only covers a certain percentage for the duration and oftentimes extended. So there is, you know, it is a certain benefit that companies can offer to attract and keep people of prime working age that want to have children. It is meaningful. And you know, you don't have children because you don't want to spend time with them. You have children because you.

[A]

Oh yeah, absolutely.

[B]

And we shouldn't be discouraging people spend the time to, you know, invest in their own children themselves.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And you know, discouraging people who've invested something here in time and energy for 10 years and then having to move out of the city once they realize they just can't make it work.

[B]

Yeah. I'm curious how many people move out to have children then come back to New York. Everyone talks about how, you know, the under five population dropped by 20% almost since 2020. And, and it's totally understandable when, when the pandemic hit, all of a sudden you realize that the small apartment that you were living in worked when you were at work and the kids were at daycare. Right. Really did not work when everybody was home and you have children, you need more space. And with work from home, you really can't do it if you need that space. And people have left the city for the suburbs forever, and people will leave looking for more space. And ultimately, you know, if you think about it, whether somebody leaves from Manhattan to Sheepshead Bay or they go to New Jersey, the distance is about the same, you know, like.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You're just looking for more space that's within the commuting distance that you can manage. So I think, you know, it's. It's a big number. It's a big drop in the number of children.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But it's. It's not a surprising drop that happened. And, and, you know, we'll see. You cannot expect people to live and work from home in New York City with their children. That's just unreasonable expectations.

[A]

You've been listening to the Bigger Apple podcast on New York City child care going into and beyond the New York City mayoral election. I'm Nicole Jolinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

[B]

And I'm Liana Zagari, editor of the Bigger Apple.

[A]

Thank you, and please feel free to comment, question, agree, disagree, and we will take a look at the comments and respond and interact with them over the next week.