{"id":185602,"date":"2026-04-04T18:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/185602\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T18:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:00:09","slug":"if-universal-child-care-helps-rich-people-should-we-have-it-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/185602\/","title":{"rendered":"If Universal Child Care Helps Rich People, Should We Have It At All?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo<\/a> An oldie but a goodie.<\/p>\n

Better watch out for pigs flying around, because the New York Times has discovered class consciousness, or at least is pretending to, as long as it can also snipe at New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani is already delivering on one of his central campaign promises: Bring down the high cost of child care by expanding the city\u2019s universal pre-Kindergarten programs to serve younger children. He plans to make universal daycare available to all the city\u2019s two- and three-year olds<\/a> by the end of his first term.<\/p>\n

But wait, asked the <\/a>Times<\/a> this week<\/a> (gift link): If \u201cuniversal\u201d really means universal, and free child care will be available not only to minimum wage workers but also to people in well-off neighborhoods like Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side, doesn\u2019t that mean that rich people will benefit, too? And if everyone benefits, how can that be democratic socialism, huh? <\/p>\n

Maybe the Times should have asked upper-middle-class people in Denmark how much they pay out of pocket for the same social services other Danes do. It\u2019s possible that the Times simply can\u2019t reckon with the difficult concept of a \u201cuniversal\u201d benefit that\u2019s provided to everyone, but also paid for by progressive taxation, so the rich pay more into the system up front. <\/p>\n

When the story first went up Tuesday, the headline was plenty bad enough:<\/a> \u201cShould Rich New Yorkers Get Free Stuff Too? Mamdani Says Yes.\u201d At some point after that, some editor must have decided that a specific \u201crich people thing\u201d should stand in for all the grotesque excesses of the rich, so the headline was revised to \u201cThey Pay $34 for Burgers. Should Their Child Care Be Free?\u201d That\u2019s some spicy class-war synecdoche, New York Times!<\/p>\n

Again and again, the story tries to make readers worry that it\u2019s somehow a bad thing that city services for everyone actually reach everyone, because if you\u2019re really a socialist, Mr. Mamdani, aren\u2019t you supposed to make everyone drive a Trabant?<\/a> Hey, let\u2019s talk about your wife\u2019s nice boots<\/a> again, too! <\/p>\n

Again and again, the story reminds us, the Upper East Side is one of the city\u2019s \u201cwealthiest ZIP codes,\u201d a place where people buy and enjoy expensive things! But it\u2019s also where a new child care center will be opening this fall, with an initial enrollment of 130 three- and four-year-olds, some of whom may even be from families that are well off enough to afford pricey private daycare, and how is that fair to poorer families who will also qualify for the service, but might not be able to access it when it first opens? <\/p>\n

You need to read all the way to the 11th paragraph to learn that while the Upper East Side has a lot of rich people, it\u2019s also \u201cmore socioeconomically diverse than its stereotype. It is home to many renters and city workers, and it contains the gradations of wealth that make the city\u2019s current affordability crisis so complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that really is the point of Mamdani\u2019s plan for universal daycare: Make it available to anyone, and it will be broadly supported. It\u2019s the very same logic as any social program that\u2019s designed to be universal. Available to all, and paid for by taxation, so even if rich folks aren\u2019t paying tuition for their kids, they are paying their fair share. <\/p>\n

But the Times just can\u2019t help suggesting we should resent that, noting that it\u2019s pretty darn funny that the new socialist mayor of New York \u201cwould end up being the mayor to answer the Upper East Side\u2019s pleas for more child care.\u201d In fact, we\u2019re supposed to be astonished to learn a supposedly uncomfortable fact: <\/p>\n

If he is able to deliver on his promise to make New York City more affordable for struggling New Yorkers by adding a slew of new, free services available to all, he may end up making it easier for the wealthy to live here<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not exactly the stuff of populist campaign slogans.<\/p>\n

Heaven forbid: Making life better for everyone? Is that even legal? <\/p>\n

Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec tries to explain the idea of \u201cpublic\u201d to the Times with an analogy, but we aren\u2019t sure she made any impression. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe already treat essential services as public goods: The F.D.N.Y. answers emergencies, the city collects trash and every child has access to a safe, rigorous education. Child care should be no different,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Hold on, you say the rich, who could probably afford to subscribe to concierge fire suppression services, can look forward to FDNY rescuing them from a fire at their ornate mansions, just like the humblest drinker of domestic beer in Staten Island? Maybe we should rethink that, too! And hey, why aren\u2019t we charging middle- and upper-class people to use the library, too? <\/p>\n

You\u2019ll need to read fairly far into the story to reach this paragraph, which explains why new public services are most successful when, like Social Security or Medicare, they really do have support from nearly everyone. Yes, plutocrats like David Brooks can afford $34 burgers (plus multiple double Scotches), but the whole point is that they can also afford to pay higher taxes that will spread the benefits farther: <\/p>\n

For Mr. Mamdani, the ideal scenario would create a kind of feedback loop: He hopes that broadening the child care services available to all New Yorkers will help him generate support and momentum for his proposed tax hike on those making more than $1 million a year. Those tax dollars would then help to pay for a citywide child care expansion.<\/p>\n

Why yes, it\u2019s the same reason that Joe Biden\u2019s expanded Child Tax Credit <\/a>was available to nearly all parents: Sharply reducing child poverty is a good thing, and if the credits help the middle class \u2014 especially if they had lasted beyond the initial few months before the Biden version expired \u2014 the benefits will build a constituency that will sustain them politically. Give EVERYBODY eat! <\/p>\n

The Times pretends that all sounds terribly suspicious, and notes that some places that are aiming for universal childcare, like California, have made it free for low-income people while letting middle-class folks access it on a discounted basis. In other words, means-testing, which is the surest way to limit a universal service, reduce its constituency, and make it ripe for cutting, since now it\u2019s welfare, a benefit that\u2019s wasted on \u201cthose\u201d people. And, of course, means testing requires a level of bureaucracy that will use funds that could better be used to provide the service to more people. <\/p>\n

So hell yes, let the people who eat expensive hamburgers have free child care, because they\u2019ll keep the system funded for all the parents who need Hamburger Helper. While we\u2019re at it, let\u2019s also make sure the latter parents have options to get fresh veggies, too!<\/p>\n

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\"ChildChild Tax Credits Are Here! Hooray!<\/a>\"WeWe Regret To Inform You Zohran Mamdani’s Wife Wore Nice Boots.<\/a><\/p>\n

[NYT <\/a>(gift link) \/ America Prospect<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or Share The Wealth by making a one-time (or recurring) donation with this here button. <\/p>\n

Give EVERYBODY A Nap And A Cookie!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An oldie but a goodie. Better watch out for pigs flying around, because the New York Times has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-185602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185602","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=185602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}