Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran on free childcare for every New York City child from six weeks to five years old, and he put a number on it: about $6 billion a year, paid for by taxing the wealthy. A new study says the real bill is closer to $9 billion — 50% higher than advertised — and the program has not even launched.
The estimate comes from the Center for New York City Affairs, a nonpartisan research organization affiliated with The New School, and was first reported by the New York Post.
“An estimated $8.7 to $9.3 billion would be needed annually to fund universal child care in New York City,” the report, released Monday, states. That works out to roughly $27,000 per child — and about $3 billion more per year than the mayor told voters.
The gap is mostly labor. Researchers project the city would need to hire some 23,000 new childcare workers, concentrated among infants and children under three, and create roughly 10,000 new seats for children below pre-K age. Those are the most expensive children to care for, and they were the least accounted for in the campaign math.
The report also points to a track record that should worry anyone reading the projection charitably. In fiscal year 2025, the city budgeted $2.5 billion for childcare services and spent $3.8 billion.
“This is emblematic of the regular under-estimation of service delivery costs,” the researchers wrote. “Therefore, the City will need to identify at least an additional $4.9 to $5.5 billion to sustain a fully universal system.”
Rolling out the program is essentially impossible without major support from Albany and Washington, the study concluded.
City Hall has not explained how it intends to close the gap beyond taxing high earners and asking the state for more money. It has released no cost model of its own and declined to comment on the $9 billion figure.
“Delivering on those promises will require additional public investment, and this administration has been clear about that from the start,” Mamdani spokesperson Jenna Lyle told The New York Times. “We are grateful to Governor Hochul for her partnership and initial investment in this work.”
That partnership currently amounts to $1.2 billion, which Gov. Kathy Hochul announced in January to start the program in select neighborhoods. She also made clear where the money would not come from: existing state revenues, she said, not new taxes. Taxing the rich — the mechanism Mamdani and his socialist allies have repeatedly named as the funding source — was off the table.
So the plan is short at least $3 billion against its own sales pitch, closer to $5 billion against the city’s own spending history, and the one partner writing checks has ruled out the revenue the mayor promised would pay for it.
New York currently offers free pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, with limited 2-year-old seats starting this fall. That is the program that exists. The one that was promised is now 50% more expensive than the number that helped win the election, and nobody at City Hall will say who pays.
Source: nypost.com
