How much New York City parents could save with universal childcare

• Universal childcare in New York City could save parents up to $26,000 per year.
• Current universal programs like 3-K and Pre-K serve 103,000 children but have long waitlists.
• Advocates and officials support expanding access to affordable childcare and raising worker wages.

Across the five boroughs, affordable childcare is a hard bargain to find.

Working parents are excited about the prospect of universal childcare, championed by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul. Childcare can cost as much as $26,000 a year for an infant in a care center.

Mamdani's campaign proposed universal childcare for kids 6 weeks to 5 years old. He is also planning to raise the wage for childcare workers to parity with public school teachers, whose starting salary is $68,902 with a bachelor's degree and no teaching experience.

That would build on the city's existing universal 3-K and Pre-K programs for children aged 3 and 4, respectively. About 103,000 children utilized the programs during the 2023-2024 school year.

3-K waitlists in some neighborhoods are long, and seats fill up quickly.

Expanding childcare for all kids under 5 years old will be a challenge. Mamdani hopes to tackle it with the help of the state. Universal childcare advocacy groups are excited about the newfound support for a universal system and are hopeful for the future.

On the steps of New York City Hall, the Empire State Campaign for Child Care (ESCCC), a statewide advocacy group for universal childcare, unveiled its recommended plan for achieving universal childcare for the state.

ESCCC hosted several speakers at its Thursday event, including Elizabeth Kennedy, a working parent of two and the deputy public advocate for Education & Opportunity at the Office of the New York City Public Advocate.

"We cannot do our jobs without the village," she said in reference to the group's plan to raise childcare workers' wages, a workforce whose majority is immigrant workers and women of color.

"There's never been so much momentum behind childcare," said State Sen. Jabari Brisport. "There was a big push a few years ago, but even now it's just completely night and day, and I'm feeling very confident about winning something big. If not, everything next year, something big."

Brisport, the chair of the Children and Families committee in the New York State Senate, has been a longtime advocate and supporter of universal childcare and said he is looking to raise wages for childcare workers as soon as possible.

Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft, a consultant and community organizer, said she pays nearly $40,000 a year in childcare costs.

Hambrick Ashcraft and her family live in Manhattan, raising four kids, all 11 years old and younger.

Day care for her youngest son, who just turned 3 years old, costs them over $30,000 a year, she said. She said they were able to secure a slot in New York City Public Schools' 3-K program, which offers free full-day educational and early childhood care.

Hambrick Ashcraft said their family relied on an after-school nanny, summer camps, and her being available on Mondays and Fridays to manage their childcare needs in the past. She said the most expensive childcare costs now that three of her kids are in school are after schools let out in the summer.

"The biggest cost now is summer camps and full-time care for four in the summer is absolutely outrageous. And so those can be a thousand bucks a kid per week," Hambrick Ashcraft.

Having young children tends to push parents away from the city, generally. The Fiscal Policy Institute found that households with young kids are twice as likely to move out of New York City as those without children.

Are you a parent navigating through the economy? Contact this reporter at bdelk@insider.com.