Hochul To Unveil Child Care Expansion Plan Alongside Mamdani

NEW YORK — A sweeping plan to provide free child care for children under the age of five throughout New York state will be unveiled by Gov. Kathy Hochul today — a significant step toward enacting a key campaign pledge for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Hochul is expected to announce a partnership with Mamdani to provide free child care for two-year-olds in New York City, with the state covering the full cost of the first two years of the initiative. The announcement comes after Mamdani made universal child care a focal point of his affordability-focused campaign.

At the same time, Hochul will pledge to make pre-kindergarten access fully available statewide, a move she aims to complete by the 2028-29 school year.

All told, nearly 100,000 additional children would be eligible for child care, pre-K, subsidies or other community programs, the governor’s office said.

“There’s one thing that every family in New York can agree on, the cost of childcare is simply too high,” Hochul said in a statement. “As New York’s first mom governor, fighting for New York’s families has always been at the core of my agenda.”

The details provided by the governor’s office did not include a price tag for the plan, which is projected to cost at least $6 billion in New York City alone. Hochul also did not reveal how she intends to pay for it.

The governor is scheduled to make the announcement later this morning in New York City alongside Mamdani.

“This victory represents much more than a triumph of city and state government working in partnership — it is proof that when New Yorkers come together, we can transform the way government serves working families,” Mamdani said.

The state plans to launch an Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education to advance universal child care and support the rollout of universal pre-K.

The governor also signaled plans to boost the early childhood education workforce, including directing the City University of New York and State University of New York to expand early childhood education programs — a concern long raised by advocates who warned that a wide-scale expansion like universal child care would require significantly more staff.

Hochul’s administration also plans to expand child care subsidies to tens of thousands of additional families — a program that is substantially funded through federal money.

The governor’s new policy is a bet that New Yorkers will reward a push to address a long-standing concern for young families that child care has become a costly luxury. The governor has frequently pointed to her own experiences as a mother and has framed spending for child care as a business friendly proposition because it caters to workers’ needs. Over the last several years, she’s backed some $8 billion in spending meant to expand the state’s child care offerings.

Child care has been an area of agreement for the moderate Democratic governor and the democratic socialist mayor as well. Hochul endorsed Mamdani’s mayoral bid last summer after a series of talks with him, which included discussions over the issue.

While the mayor and governor disagree over other significant issues like Israel, hiking rich peoples’ taxes and Mamdani’s push to provide free bus service in New York City, the child care policy is considered a proposal that the new mayor would have comparatively less difficulty accomplishing in his first year.

An agreement would mark a significant milestone for the governor, who runs for a second full term this year and has pledged to address New Yorkers’ deep concerns over affordability. Hochul, who delivers her State of the State speech next week, has placed an emphasis on cost-of-living concerns like utility bills and grocery prices — but the buzzy political issue has taken on more weight since Mamdani sailed to victory by successfully framing his longshot campaign around affordability last year.

A child care plan, though, must still be approved by the Democratic-led state Legislature in Albany, and lawmakers will likely want to leave their own imprint on the policy as the state budget talks proceed. The details announced by Hochul today will likely change as the spending plan negotiations proceed over the next several months; a budget is due to pass by April 1.

The state is also still grappling with the Trump administration’s decision to freeze up to $10 billion in child care and social services funding for several blue states, including New York. Hochul said Wednesday the state is “looking at our litigation strategy” and that over $3.6 billion the state receives annually is at stake, including for child care, domestic violence services, homeless shelters and other social services.