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MAMDANI’S CHILD CARE PLAN IS AUDACIOUS. HERE’S HOW IT COULD WORK.
 
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Rachel Cohen Booth
December 11, 2025
The New York Times
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_ If Mamdani learns from the mistakes that have derailed past
efforts, he could pull off something that could change the lives of
hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers with young children. More than
that, he could set a powerful national example. _

"Children's Blocks" , by lobo235 (CC BY 2.0)

 

No major American city has ever built a universal child care system.
That means that nearly three-quarters
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looking for a way to take care of their children are struggling to
find it. At the same time, costs have exploded: Day care now runs more
than twice [[link removed]] what it did just
before the pandemic.

Most politicians don’t even try to enact universal systems — the
cost and complexity are daunting, and child care has long been seen as
a private family problem, not a public responsibility. But Zohran
Mamdani ran on
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such a plan — and New Yorkers made him their next mayor.

Many parts of Mr. Mamdani’s agenda have been dismissed as
unrealistic, and his child care program often tops that list. He has
promised free care for every child from 6 weeks to 5 years old and
pledged to offer child care workers wages “at parity,” in the
campaign’s words, with public school teachers
[[link removed]]. Critics say it will cost too
much and prove impossible to build at scale. A poll from this fall
captured the skepticism: 71 percent of likely New York City voters
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supported his pitch for universal child care, but only about 50
percent of those surveyed thought he could actually deliver it.

Having reported on child care policy around the country over the past
10 years, I think many people are looking at Mr. Mamdani’s plan all
wrong. It will not be easy to implement, but if he learns from the
mistakes that have derailed past efforts, he could pull off something
remarkable. He has the opportunity to change the lives of hundreds of
thousands of New Yorkers with young children, many of whom pay over
$20,000
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a year to send them to day care and preschool. More than that, he
could offer a powerful example to leaders all over the country.

Universal child care need not be a pipe dream in America — something
we envy the Danes and the Swedes for but never imagine having for
ourselves. It can and should be as fundamental to a city’s
infrastructure as transit or housing, as essential for attracting
workers and residents
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as any investment a mayor can make. After all, for most parents of
young children, child care isn’t optional — it’s what makes
holding down a job possible.

Mr. Mamdani’s child care bid comes at a moment of unusual political
openness to the idea. When the pandemic shut down child care options
for millions of Americans, it stranded parents and employers alike. In
the years since, a growing coalition of economists
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business leaders
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has come to see child care as an integral part of economic growth —
not a handout, but a way to keep workers in the labor force
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and families in cities
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That openness crosses party lines. Polling this year
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found that a majority of Republicans now say the federal government
spends too little on programs that benefit children — a notable
change for a party long skeptical of new social spending. Candidates
for governor in Georgia
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and Wisconsin [[link removed]] are running on
universal child care plans, and affording child care is now a question
that presidential candidates from both parties
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get asked about [[link removed]] in
debates.

The first thing Mr. Mamdani will need to get right: Any new system has
to include the full range of child care options families rely on. That
means not just day care centers and public school classrooms but also
home-based businesses — small day care operations run out of private
residences — and more informal arrangements with family and
neighbors.

When people imagine universal child care, they often picture massive
new facilities going up across a city. That’s not sufficient.
“Child care infrastructure exists, and it exists in the
neighborhoods that need it most,” said Jessica Sager, the co-founder
of All Our Kin [[link removed]], a nonprofit that supports
home-based child care providers. Most New York City home-based
providers don’t receive city subsidies or support, she said — and
bringing them into the system could unlock thousands of slots for
families who need them.

New York has learned the importance of such investments the hard way.
When Mayor Bill de Blasio started rolling out universal pre-K for
4-year-olds in 2014, his administration funneled nearly all the new
money to child care centers
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The result was that home-based providers, who relied on revenue from
preschool-age children to stay afloat, lost a critical part of their
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enrollment. Many child care businesses collapsed, and providers quit
the field
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The United Federation of Teachers chapter that represents home-based
providers shrank from 28,000 providers in 2007 to just 12,000 today.

Connecticut offers a better model. Its Early Start program
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includes infants and toddlers and guarantees home-based providers both
a minimum amount of funding
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even a voice in how the program is run.
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It’s a hopeful sign that Mr. Mamdani’s pick for first deputy mayor
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was the budget director under Mr. de Blasio, who helped secure funding
for universal pre-K, and that one of his transition co-chairs
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critical role in expanding that program; they should know what worked
and what didn’t. Mr. Mamdani seems keen on a mixed-delivery system,
having said during his campaign that he envisions subsidizing
“families who prefer to have a trusted neighbor or relative take
care of their child.”

Getting the design of such a program right is only half the battle. To
deliver on all this, Mr. Mamdani will have to move boldly — but not
too_ _fast. In 1997, Quebec tried to implement universal child care in
three years. The rush led the province to cut corners on quality
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and the fallout has given skeptics ammunition ever since. Vice
President JD Vance has cited Quebec’s rocky rollout as evidence
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that universal child care isn’t worth pursuing. Just last month, The
Economist cited Quebec in a misleading
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piece
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on the “harm” of universal care. Early stumbles cast a long
shadow.

There’s a danger in the other direction, too. In the few states that
have made real investments in child care, leaders have been too quick
to claim “mission accomplished”
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when plenty of families still don’t have good care options for their
kids. In a country like the United States, where caregiving has long
been devalued, no child care system can survive without sustained
attention and investment, year after year.

You can see this problem play out in wages for child care workers.
Child care is one of the country’s lowest-paid jobs
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though Washington, D.C., has tried to change that locally. A few years
ago, the city established what it called a pay equity fund
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to bring child care workers’ salaries closer to those of public
school teachers, supplementing their wages via a new tax on the
city’s highest earners. By many measures, D.C.’s program has been
a success: Child care workers saw significant pay increases
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funded by the city, that enabled day care centers to hire more staff
members and care for more children
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But when budget pressures hit, the supposed dedicated funding became a
political football
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The funding has not kept up with the program, which has created
uncertainty about its future. For workers who had finally started to
feel fairly compensated, the whiplash has been demoralizing and
destabilizing.

New Mexico is perhaps the most instructive example of a premature
victory lap. The state has
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earned
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glowing
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national praise
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for its governor’s commitment
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to make all families eligible for state child care subsidies. But
eligibility is not care. Even in 2023, before this latest expansion,
only a quarter of eligible
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children under 6 were receiving aid — and while enrollment had
surged among middle-income families, it had fallen among families
below the poverty line. Moreover, this spring, legislators quietly
diverted some child care money
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behavioral health program,  illustrating the competing budget
pressures politicians face.

In New York, much media
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coverage
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has focused
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on how Mr. Mamdani will pay for his child care plan. And it’s an
important question, since the plan will cost an estimated $6 billion
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or more, and federal Medicaid cuts
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are threatening to blow a hole in the state budget.

But there are reasons for cautious optimism. Mr. Mamdani can’t fund
a program this size without Albany, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has signaled
strong interest [[link removed]] in
expanding child care across New York. Mr. Mamdani has shown a
willingness to negotiate with her in return
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— even if she’s not willing to raise taxes on the wealthy, as
he’d prefer
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And they’ve found common ground elsewhere: They both seem open to
loosening certain regulations
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on child care providers [[link removed]].

For decades, the United States has told families that child care is
their burden to navigate. Mr. Mamdani made a bet that New Yorkers were
ready for a different answer. If he can deliver, he’ll give the rest
of the country a much-needed blueprint to follow, too.

_Rachel Cohen Booth is a senior policy correspondent for Vox. She is
working on a book, forthcoming from Harmony, about individual agency
and social change._

_Get __the best of the New York Times_
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