As Mayor Mamdanitouts progress in expanding “free” childcare, the bills for his socialist ambitions keep growing.
He hasn’t come up with a plan to pay for it all — other than, of course, betting that Albany will let him hike taxes.
Look at childcare: The city’s pre-K and 3-K programs run partly through private providers who say the city pays them less than the work costs.
One Brooklyn preschool owner told Intelligencer this week that her last contract funded assistant teachers at $30,000, with no health insurance.
According to the city comptroller’s 2024 review, 90% of certified lead childcare teachers with master’s degrees and at least a year of experience earned less than Department of Education peers.
The city lost 1,300 family daycare providers after pre-K and 3-K rolled out, the Center for New York City Affairs wrote — and as the program expands to cover 2-year-olds, more providers are wondering how they’ll make ends meet.
For years, NYC’s early-childhood programs have been plagued by delayed payments to providers, supply-demand mismatches and management failures.
Mamdani only started addressing these nuts-and-bolts issues in August, yet he wants to expand.
All told, his universal childcare program would cost an eyewatering $9 billion annually.
Repeating mistake
He’s repeating what Mayor Bill de Blasiodid with 3-K: announcing a big initiative without securing the necessary funding first.
If state funding runs out, Mamdani doesn’t have a plan to ensure that families will continue to receive the care they now rely on.
He’s betting that Gov. Hochul won’t want to be the one to take childcare away.
But the deeper problem goes to the heart of the larger socialist agenda: promising ever-richer government benefits — free buses, universal childcare, city-run grocery stores and, eventually, the dream of single-payer healthcare — while outrunning the economic base that pays for it all.
Remember candidate Mamdani’s pledge for free buses? That stalled as soon as Mayor Mamdani entered Gracie Mansion.
If he wants to revive it, he’ll need to come up with just over $1.1 billion a year, according to the Independent Budget Office.
What’s more, the money collected from bus fares is guaranteed as security for the MTA’s bondholders.
So if he wants to make all buses fare-free, he’ll need to secure the bondholders’ consent — which he hasn’t yet sought.
For four years now, New York City’s spending has outrun its revenues.
Between fiscal years 2017 and 2026, city spending rose $16 billion above inflation, according to the Citizens Budget Commission.
The mayor faces an estimated $6.4 billion budget gap for the upcoming fiscal 2028, with gaps growing to $8.5 billion by 2030.
Mamdani only managed to close the gaps in the fiscal 2026 and 2027 budgets through some $6 billion in one-time, temporary measures.
Those easy moves won’t be available to him come January.
Pragmatic move
All signs point to Mamdani rattling the tin cup harder in Albany next year.
He’s betting that Hochul, freed from the pressures of a gubernatorial election, will give him billions in new tax hikes.
The mayor has shown he can be pragmatic.
He negotiated a delay on the misguided and expensive state mandate to reduce the city’s class sizes and pushed back against the City Council’s unsustainable expansion of city-funded rental vouchers.
To deliver on childcare, Mamdani must accept fiscal reality, cut the DOE’s bloated budget and put the money toward programs that parents want, like childcare vouchers.
Otherwise, New York’s children and families will be left with nothing but grandiose promises.
Liena Zagare is editor of the Manhattan Institute’s Bigger Apple newsletter, and John Ketcham is the institute’s director of Cities.
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