New York City children as young as 2 years old could get access to free child care under a proposal Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled Thursday.
The launch of “2-Care” will start in “high-need areas,” officials said, building on the city’s existing pre-K and 3-K programs. The expansion is one part of a multipronged plan to increase state support for child care, which the Democratic governor said is needed to control rising costs of living and keep people in the workforce.
“Families have been crying out for help,” Hochul said at the Flatbush YMCA. “If we can take this stress point off the plate of all the other struggles they have, my friends, then we are making New York state and New York City the best places in the nation to live, to raise a family, to grow a business and to prosper.”
Hochul said Thursday that the state would fully fund the first two years of the city’s 2-Care program. She also announced funding to extend pre-kindergarten programs around the state, expand pre-K and 3-K in New York City, and increase the amount of funding for the state’s existing child care subsidy program.
The plan represents one of the first major moves Hochul and Mamdani are making together to address the city's affordability crisis. It comes in the first few days of the Mamdani administration and as Hochul seeks re-election. Mamdani campaigned for mayor on delivering free child care for kids between 6 weeks and 5 years old, which he has estimated would cost about $6 billion a year.
“This is a day that so many believed would never come, but it is a day that working people across our city have delivered through the sheer power of their hard work and their unwavering belief,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani said he expects the first 2-Care programs will launch in the fall with 2,000 slots and initially cost $75 million. A city official said the new slots would be through an expansion of the city’s current practice of contracting with home-based providers and day care centers. Mamdani promised to make the program universal, serving all families who want a slot for their 2-year-olds, by the end of his administration. Advocates have said a truly universal 2-Care program would have to serve 60,000 children.
Rebecca Bailin, executive director of the organization New Yorkers United for Child Care, called it “a historic moment for New York families.”
“By bringing together the governor and mayor around a shared commitment to child care, tens of thousands of families could finally get the relief they desperately need,” she said in a statement Thursday.
Significant questions remain.
The expansion was announced days after the Trump administration froze about $3.6 billion in federal child care subsidies for the state. The state is also grappling with federal cuts to health care funding.
“The state really needs to be concerned not only about affordability, and that is a major issue, but also our competitiveness and our outmigration,” said Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a fiscal watchdog. He warned against raising taxes and suggested the state should redirect spending from other areas.
Hochul’s office said the total cost of the new child care pre-kindergarten investments is $1.7 billion, which would be funded with “pre-existing resources.” Democrats including Mamdani have called on the state to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for the program.
Hochul said state receipts were up, and that she would include more details in a budget presentation scheduled for Jan. 20.
“We have managed our finances quite well,” she said. “We have been smart about setting aside money to be able to fund some of my ambitious plans, but within our means.”
