{"id":127166,"date":"2026-02-08T23:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/127166\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T23:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:56:08","slug":"new-yorks-child-care-industry-second-worst-in-us-for-cost-overregulation-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/127166\/","title":{"rendered":"New York’s child care industry second worst in US for cost, overregulation: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York state\u2019s was ranked second-worst in the US for its costly, stringent rules on child care centers<\/a>, a new analysis claimed.<\/p>\n

The right-leaning think tank the Archbridge Institute said the Empire State should be looking to cut down bureaucratic red tape and \u201cend regulatory\u201d burdens to drive costs down \u2014 instead of plans favored by Democrats Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to funnel taxpayer money to expand coverage for youngsters.<\/p>\n

New York state ranked second-worst nationally for its costly, strict child care center rules. The Archbridge Institute<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than pursuing costly taxpayer-funded subsidies and state-sponsored programs<\/a>, we recommend reducing regulatory burdens on childcare providers that ultimately harm parents by increasing barriers to entry and raising the cost of childcare,\u201d the group said in its \u201cchild care freedom\u201d analysis \u2014 which ranked Vermont at No. 50.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the issue of childcare, a more affordable America means a less regulated America\u2014from one state to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study rates state policies and regulations for center-based child care facilities, including child-to-staff ratio requirements by age; maximum group sizes by age; required annual training hours for staff; and minimum educational requirements for center directors and lead teachers.<\/p>\n

States with higher education requirements<\/a> to obtain a license to become child care directors and teachers received a lower grade.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s 1.87 score ranked significantly lower than the other most populous states \u2014 Florida ranked fifth, Texas ninth and California No. 13.<\/p>\n

The Empire State ranked poorly for having low child-to-staff ratios \u2014 8-to-1 for 4-year-olds and 9-to-1 for 5-year-olds.<\/p>\n

California, by comparison, had no maximum group size except for toddlers under 27 months.<\/p>\n

Archbridge Institute urges cutting red tape over taxpayer-funded subsidies favored by Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. shangarey \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Florida offers a higher child-to-staff ratio for 3-year-olds (15:1), 4-year-olds (20:1), and 5-year-olds (25:1).<\/p>\n

Edward Timmons, the Archridge Institute\u2019s vice president of policy, said New York should find other solutions to bringing down costs instead of using taxpayer dollars to provide free care.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of fiscally reckless proposals to provide free child care, Gov. Hochul should work with legislators to loosen overly restrictive regulations in New York to increase choice and improve competition,\u201d Timmons said Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncreasing the number of children permitted to be supervised by staff and increasing maximum group size will give parents more choice in the market,\u201d he went on. \u201cResearch shows that these regulations do not improve quality of care or child safety, but we do know that they are associated with higher costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

One state lawmaker said rules are put in place for a reason, especially when dealing with the youngest children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a smart thing to look at regulations. But we want our children to be safe and we want to educate them,\u201d said Bronx Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, chairs the education committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fine line,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

According to Archbridge\u2019s 2026 index, the five least-regulated states for child care are Idaho \u2014 which ranked first \u2014 followed by South Carolina, Arizona, Alabama and Florida.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania, Maryland and Massachusetts followed Vermont and New York rounded out the bottom five of the list.<\/p>\n

Child care costs many of the city\u2019s families more than $20,000 per year, among the most expensive in the nation.<\/p>\n

Federal law, specifically the 2014 Child Care and Development Block Grant, triggered many state regulations. Memed \u00c3ZASLAN \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

In New York, Hochul rolled out a $4.5 billion, multi-year plan to phase in universal child care.<\/p>\n

Her proposed \u201c2-Care\u201d program for all 2-year-olds in the Big Apple, along with a buildup of existing pre-K and early childcare in the rest of New York, will ultimately provide care for 100,000 more children across the state. <\/p>\n

It has the backing of Mamdani, who made a campaign pledge to eventually provide free child care <\/a>for all kids in the city starting at six weeks, and proposing tax hikes on the rich and corporations to pay for it.<\/p>\n

The report noted that federal law has triggered more state regulations of child care.<\/p>\n

The 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant required all states receiving federal funding to set group size and child-to-staff ratio restrictions, in addition to other new licensure requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York state\u2019s was ranked second-worst in the US for its costly, stringent rules on child care centers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3208,68,426,57,9,24,55,54,56,47350,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-127166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-childcare","9":"tag-exclusive","10":"tag-kathy-hochul","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-city-news","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-pre-kindergarten","18":"tag-us-news","19":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}