New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul said there will be free child care on Thursday morning. <\/p>\n
The two met in Brooklyn to announce that there will be a program for 2-year-olds in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The existing 3K program will also be strengthened to achieve universal care for all families. 3K is the city’s free, full-day early childhood education program for 3-year-old children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There’s one thing that every family in New York can agree on, the cost of childcare is simply too high,” Hochul said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The new mayor won the November 2025 election with a campaign promising to make the city more affordable for working-class residents. Part of his plans includes creating universal child care.<\/a><\/p>\n He wants the city to establish free, high-quality child care for children 6 weeks to 5 years old. A local law to create this was introduced to the New York City Council<\/a> in 2023, but it didn’t pass.<\/p>\n Mamdani and Hochul previously discussed child care at a meeting in November. A representative said in a statement that they have a “shared desire to make significant additional investments that put New York on a path to universal child care.” <\/p>\n How much will universal child care cost NYC?<\/p>\n Hochul will fully fund the new program for the first two years.<\/p>\n Mamdani previously hadn’t said how much the program would cost, but has proposed paying for it by raising taxes on corporations and people earning more than $1 million. Those taxes must be approved by Hochul and the state Legislature.<\/p>\n He said the lack of child care has cost the city more than $20 billion in the last four years because of mothers leaving the workforce and families leaving the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n Child care too expensive for most NYC families, study says<\/p>\n