As a mom who works outside the home, I know all too well the struggles that working parents face here in Queens and throughout New York state. I, too, have struggled to find affordable child care in my community. Child care has always been 20-30 percent of take-home pay, making it one of my family’s biggest expenses. My story is not an anomaly: Across New York state, thousands of families struggle to find and pay for quality child care.
With budget negotiations still underway, our lawmakers and Gov. Hochul have an opportunity to stand up for working families and child care educators and ensure that the necessary funds are allocated in this year’s budget. Right now, we need to invest at least $500M into the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), which so many New York families rely on to access child care. If we do not, thousands could lose access to child care within a matter of weeks.
The consequences would be nothing short of devastating. When parents do not have child care and are not able to work, it crushes their ability to provide for their families. That pushes many into food and housing insecurity, which ultimately hurts our communities and our economy. This would also have devastating consequences on businesses that need workers.
Gov. Hochul has repeatedly stated that she wants to ensure that families stay in New York and make our state affordable. However, that isn’t possible unless we address the child care crisis. What better way to show support for working families than to advocate for child care at this critical moment?
But it’s not enough to pass stopgap investments in child care affordability. Real, long-term solutions to the child care crisis will require addressing our state’s child care shortage. Ask any parent, and they’ll tell you that no matter how much you can pay, snagging a spot in a child care program can feel like winning the lottery. Some waitlists are years long. That’s because the child care sector is struggling with an extreme workforce shortage. In addition to investing in CCAP, Gov. Hochul should also invest $500M to create a permanent compensation fund for the early childhood workforce, which would help recruit and retain child care staff. This is critically important because it doesn’t matter how many child care centers and classrooms exist, if there are no educators to staff those rooms, those rooms remain empty.
Supporting the child care workforce supports parents and our economy. The truth is, without affordable child care, families cannot afford to stay in New York. And without living wages, neither can child care providers! We need investments in child care that will make child care affordable for families, and we need to ensure child care educators earn family-sustaining wages – not poverty wages – so they can stay in the professions they love, taking care of and educating our kids at the most critical time in their development. A permanent workforce compensation fund would be a huge step forward.
New York has the opportunity to build a child care system that enhances the health and stability of families and communities, but in order to do that, we need to invest in our families and our child care workforce. Families can’t wait, and parents all over the state are counting on Gov. Hochul to fulfill her promises to working families. The time to do that is now. Especially at a time when the federal government is slashing budgets and social programs left and right, it is up to Governor Hochul and state legislators to step up to protect the working families of New York.
Diana E. Limongi, MA, MPA, is senior campaign director at MomsRising/MamásConPoder and a member of the Empire State Campaign for Child Care. She lives in Astoria, NY.
