New York’s child care sector continues to face lingering challenges post-pandemic including child care deserts, low wages and high prices that are putting a financial strain on families statewide, according to a new report released by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
“The pandemic’s disruption of the state’s child care industry is far from over,” DiNapoli said. “Prices in New York are among the highest in the nation, while child care workers earn wages well below the state’s median, making it hard to attract and retain the workforce needed to provide services. An effective child care system is integral to the state’s economic future and must remain a priority for policymakers.”
DiNapoli’s report highlights these challenges, including:
- Persistent Child Care Deserts. The number of child care providers had been dropping even before 2020, but the decline accelerated in 2020 and 2021. During these two years, more than 80% of the decreases in providers and capacity occurred in home-based care. According to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), 60% of the state’s census tracts were child care deserts in 2023, with at least three children under the age of five per available slot in registered home-based providers or day care centers.
- Workforce Issues. In 2020, the number of day care services jobs statewide dropped by 19.8%. It recovered by 2023, but only in New York City and Long Island, not in the rest of the state. Providers cite relatively low pay as a significant hurdle to attracting and retaining staff. On top of the demanding work requirements and lower than average pay, many child care workers don’t get other benefits, such as employer-provided health insurance, paid time off or pensions.
- Chronically High Prices. From 2018 to 2023, New York’s average annual child care prices were higher than every other state except for Massachusetts, rising nearly 18% from $12,422 per child to $14,621, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. DOL). Data from the New York State Department of Labor (DOL) indicate county-level costs of infant center-based care can range from 10.2% to as high as 36.6% of median family income.
“Access to quality, affordable child care is a necessity for working families across New York, but a dire shortage of child care facilities and workers has made it a luxury in many parts of our state,” said U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “Working parents deserve the peace of mind that their children are in good hands when they go to work, and children deserve to learn and play in child care centers with adequate resources to support them. That’s why I am a cosponsor of the Child Care Workforce and Facilities Act, which would allocate $100 million in federal funding to train the child care workforce and build child care facilities across our state, especially in child care deserts. This is a vital investment in New York’s children, families, and workforce, and I am committed to fighting for its passage this Congress.”
“Investing in child care yields profound benefits for children, families, society and the economy,” said Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO. “New York state must prioritize sustaining and expanding past investments to ensure all families have equitable access to affordable, high-quality child care while providing child care providers with a living wage. We thank State Comptroller DiNapoli for releasing this report and helping draw attention to the many challenges families and child care workers face.”
"State Comptroller DiNapoli's timely report highlights the challenges faced daily by families that need care for their children, and the early childhood workforce that serves them,” said Kate Breslin, CEO of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy. “The child care workforce is understaffed and underpaid and suffers from chronic and pervasive disinvestment in the sector. This has led to a situation where too many parents cannot access or afford care for their children. Until we invest in the child care workforce, we will continue to face this problem. The State Comptroller’s report shines light on the need to publicly invest in child care and change policy to better serve New York’s families."
“New York state must act to maintain and expand previous investments in child care to give families equitable access to affordable quality child care and a living wage for child care providers,” said Janella Hinds, chair of the New York Union Child Care Coalition. “State Comptroller DiNapoli’s report on child care calls out the need for solid expenditures to support the working families that keep our state running.”
“Clearly, from the thorough report from State Comptroller DiNapoli, there is more work to be done to provide quality and affordable child care for working families of our state. We need to make major investments in child care by increasing access to licensed providers and recognizing the need for appropriate pay for providers, which will boost the local economy in our communities,” said Mary E. Sullivan, president of Civil Service Employees Association, AFSCME Local 1000, AFL-CIO.
“Without access to safe and affordable child care, we will continue to face an unmet need that puts our youngest and most vulnerable citizens at risk,” said Dr. Elaine Spaull, executive director of The Center for Youth. “The demand on our services at The Crisis Nursery sites at The Center for Youth reflect the critical challenges in our state that must be addressed as families are forced to make difficult choices. If we operated a child care center, it would be full every day and children would be turned away. I want to thank State Comptroller DiNapoli and his team for focusing on such an important issue for families across New York state."
Trends in Child Care Availability
According to OCFS, the number of child care providers in New York was steadily declining before the pandemic. From 2015 to 2019, providers decreased by 1,489, or 7.4%. The losses sped up during the pandemic, with a nearly equal decrease (7.3%) in just the two years between 2019 and 2021. From 2021 to 2023, the number of providers increased modestly by 1.7%, and grew by 3.6% in 2024. Even with these increases, the number of providers was still 9.6% below 2015 levels.
In 2020, when shut-down orders were in effect due to the pandemic, the state lost 9,549 child care slots and an additional 5,333 slots in 2021, for a cumulative decline of 1.9% from 2019 levels. Across the state, home-based providers were the most impacted, accounting for 83.9% of losses in providers and 87.2% of losses in capacity. Capacity began to grow again in 2022 and by 2024 exceeded 2019 levels by 2.7%.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, private sector employment within the child day care services industry fell sharply. Data reported by DOL show that in 2020 average annual employment in the industry dropped 19.8%. By 2023, the industry had recovered these jobs, but the recovery was not evenly distributed throughout the state. Employment outside of New York City and Long Island remained below 2018 levels.
According to DOL, child care worker wages present a significant barrier to growth of the industry’s workforce. In 2023, the median wage for those working in the sector was $38,234 annually, more than $20,000 less than the median wage for all New Yorkers. This equates to $18.38 an hour, compared to a minimum wage of $15 an hour in 2023 for downstate regions and $14.20 to $15 per hour in the rest of the state.
The report noted that child care providers operate under a multitude of requirements governing staffing, facilities, insurance and numerous other aspects of their operation and service. Care requires personnel on site, and cannot be substituted by technology or capital improvements. As a result, many providers operate on margins that are usually less than 1%, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Regional Availability
OCFS defines a “child care desert” as a census tract in which there are three or more children under the age of five per available child care slot in local day care centers or registered home-based care providers (excluding school age programs). In 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, downstate regions had the fewest child care deserts, with 55 to 56% of census tracts considered deserts in the Mid-Hudson and New York City regions, while the Mohawk Valley had the greatest share at 75%.
DiNapoli’s office analyzed the availability of child care within school district boundaries and found those with the lowest level of availability (higher children-per-slot ratios) tend to be in more rural areas, while districts with higher levels of availability (lower ratios) tend to be closer to, or in, population centers. In rural districts with less availability of child care, people may also have to travel farther to access it. The decline in home-based care may also have impacted rural areas more, as research showed rural areas are more reliant on home-based care and informal networks.
Child Care Prices and Subsidies
According to U.S. DOL, annual average child care prices for one child in New York in 2023 were about $12,000 for home-based care, $17,476 for toddler center-based care, and $20,459 for infant center-based care. Prices in New York were consistently among the five most expensive states for these and the other types of care.
Because of the burden that high prices may impose, particularly on low-income families, subsidies for child care are available through the state’s Child Care Assistance Program, which is administered by local departments of social services and overseen by OCFS. Over successive budgets, eligibility for subsidies has been expanded so that a family of four earning about $108,000 per year can qualify. In the period between July 2023 and June 2024, more than 111,000 children on average received subsidized child care.
Child Care Funding and Policy
Increased federal pandemic funding helped improve eligibility and benefits. These were policy changes that require recurring funding. As the pandemic funding winds down, the state’s Financial Plan indicates it will assume support for subsidies previously funded with federal resources, as well as additional funding for child care providers who meet certain quality standards, provide services to certain populations, or are open during non-traditional work hours. As a result, state operating support for OCFS is projected to grow from $432 million in state fiscal year (SFY) 2023-24 to over $1.2 billion starting in SFY 2027-28. In addition, the SFY 2024-25 Enacted Capital Plan projected $25 million in spending for existing or proposed day care centers and school-age child care programs in this year. Additional projected disbursements of $12.5 million in each of the next two state fiscal years would support an estimated 5,500 slots in child care facilities across the state. The SFY 2025-26 Executive Budget also includes a new proposal for $100 million in capital funding for the construction and expansion of child care centers.
DiNapoli said the state should remain focused on increasing the availability of child care, with an emphasis on areas with no providers, and prioritize reforming data collection to allow for more precise and timely assessment of availability by type of care provided and by locality. He also said the state should make efforts to increase the use of child care subsidies by eligible families, and help families search for providers. Special consideration should be given for efforts to boost availability in rural areas, and for whether additional changes to the cost definitions and payment mechanisms would yield improvements in availability and equity.
The Child Care Availability Taskforce reports make recommendations worth considering, particularly for providing support to businesses and regulatory relief to providers, and stabilizing and developing the workforce. Federal bills that recognize the importance of bolstering the workforce should be supported.
Reports
Lingering Challenges in the Child Care Sector
