Child Care
Every little New Yorker should be supported by an affordable, safe, and culturally responsive universal child care system. Yet parents are consistently unable to access care, which can force them out of the workplace, and child care workers are still among the lowest-paid workers.
Through our polling and research, we provide information and recommendations on how state and local leaders can address the child care crisis in New York and create an equitable system based on a universal, transparent quality rating and improvement system and a justly compensated workforce.
The True Cost of Child Care
Recent efforts at the community, state, and federal levels have examined and addressed some of the fiscal issues related to the prenatal-to-five system, and New York has made some of the fundamental first steps to improving access to child care for all families.
A new cost model tool, developed by Prenatal to Five Fiscal Strategies (P5FS) in partnership with The Education Trust–New York and the Raising NY coalition, is an opportunity to build on these efforts. The tool projects how much it would cost New York State to provide access to high-quality child care for all children under five by looking at various scenarios.
Poll: Parents’ challenges in accessing high-quality child care
*Source: October 2022 Raising NY poll
Our October 2022 poll finds that New York State parents of young children found that across all racial groups, parents of young children have encountered challenges accessing child care. Among other key findings, the poll also found that while parents overall are satisfied with their child care program, their experiences with some areas of the system can vary widely across racial lines.
Report: Living in a child care desert
Report: New York’s Capacity Crisis
There is a major child care capacity problem in New York State — seven out of 10 child care centers and half of family child care providers are at maximum capacity for infants, and most have a waitlist. And many providers are running on a deficit and have difficulty offering competitive wages and benefits.
Report: New York’s Infant and Toddler Workforce
Latest Posts
Raising NY: 2024 Policy Priorities
The Raising NY coalition highlights the following 2024 policy priorities and collectively request policymakers to address them in their one-house bills while responding to the Executive Budget proposal.
Testimony on Child Care to the NYC City Council Committee on Women & Gender Equity
In order to address long-standing racial and economic inequities in the child care system, efforts to expand access and capacity must go hand in hand with expansion of a culturally-responsive, quality rating and improvement system that provides the workforce and families with the tools to identify and cultivate programs that meet specific needs and priorities of families.
Testimony: Promise NYC and Access to Child Care
We strongly urge the City to commit $20 million in FY24 to fully fund Promise NYC.