By Amairani Marin Tovar and Hannah Ford
Introduction
The Mamdani Administration’s childcare initiative is officially underway. At the center of the plan is a bold commitment: to deliver free child care to two-year-olds while strengthening the City’s existing 3K system. On paper, the goals are straightforward: expand access, lower costs for families, and build on prior investments. But as with any major public expansion, the real story lies in how this vision translates on the ground.
For the nonprofit organizations that actually deliver these services, this moment carries both opportunity and uncertainty. These providers are the backbone of the early childhood system. They operate the classrooms, hire and retain staff, manage compliance, and support families every day. Any large-scale policy shift will land squarely on their shoulders.
We have been here before. During the UPK expansion under the de Blasio administration, nonprofit providers experienced significant growing pains. Rapid scale-up created operational strain. Contracting delays and reimbursement challenges put financial pressure on organizations. Workforce shortages intensified as expectations outpaced compensation structures. The vision of universal access was compelling, but the systems needed to sustain providers lagged behind.
The Mamdani Administration has signaled that this new childcare push is not only about early learning outcomes but also about economic impact. Increasing childcare accessibility is being framed as a way to unlock labor force participation, particularly for working parents who cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. That framing is critical.
Our view is simple: early childhood care and education must be positioned as a workforce development strategy within the City’s broader economic development agenda. Childcare enables parents to work, advance, and contribute to the economy. It is not just a social service– it is core infrastructure. But that only works if we invest in the people who do the work. Nonprofit providers make up a substantial share of this ecosystem. They operate in neighborhoods with the highest need, serve working-class families, and deliver services under city contracts. Expanding access without strengthening the workforce will recreate the same stress points we have seen before. If this administration wants childcare to function as economic infrastructure, then the nonprofit providers and early childhood educators at the center of the system must be treated as such.
To understand what this expansion really entails, we need to ground the conversation in the current landscape.
There are approximately 10,000 unique licensed child care programs operating across the five boroughs, serving nearly 500,000 children under the age of five, most with all parents working outside of the home. Working parents rely on accessible and affordable childcare, but the strained early childhood system does not currently support the scale of demand; there are more than 2 children for every one licensed child care seat. Today, nearly 40,000 workers support the city’s childcare programs, but these teachers and caregivers are underpaid, overworked, and undersupported. This contributes to significant workforce challenges, including high turnover and a shallow career pipeline into the sector. If the city fails to prioritize and invest in the child care workforce, it will face a significant child care accessibility crisis, which will exacerbate the broader systemic workforce challenges.
So what is lacking?
The most urgent issue is workforce. Child care is notorious for high turnover, staffing shortages, and low wages. Providers compete with public schools that often offer higher pay for positions with comparable responsibilities and credential requirements. Child care programs must meet strict staff-to-child ratios set by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. These ratios are non-negotiable. They require well-trained staff in every classroom, every day.
If the city expands seats without expanding the workforce pipeline, programs simply cannot operate. You can fund a classroom, but you cannot open it without qualified teachers. According to Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, Chancellor of the City University of New York, CUNY is already enrolling over 3,600 students across 50 early childhood programs. The City must work closely with CUNY and other higher‑education institutions to strengthen and accelerate a coordinated pipeline of qualified educators. The challenge is scale — training enough qualified educators, quickly, without compromising quality.
At the end of the day, this initiative will require more physical locations and more people trained to staff them. That means identifying space, navigating zoning and regulatory requirements, and investing in professional development pipelines that make early childhood education a viable career path.
Success Next Door in New Jersey
Other states have started to connect these dots. In New Jersey, child care has been tied directly to the state’s broader economic development platform, unlocking funding for child care sites and aligning the sector with workforce goals. This approach recognizes childcare as foundational, not peripheral, to economic growth. New York City must emulate this approach with the local context in mind. The city’s economic challenges, including slowing job growth and a shrinking working and middle-class family population, should be addressed through early child care policy.
Cost is another reality that cannot be ignored. Providing care for children under five can approach $20,000 per child annually. If demand increases under a free care model, will funding keep pace with the true cost of delivery? Nonprofit providers operate on thin margins. Chronic underfunding will further destabilize the system.
Then there is the question of contracts. Providers that operate under city agreements have long described payment delays, administrative burdens, and reimbursement structures that do not reflect the actual cost of care. If this initiative is to succeed, implementation must be clear, and contracting must be streamlined so providers are paid on time and in full.
From the City’s and nonprofit perspectives, we are seeing this as part of a broader human services challenge. Workers are underpaid across the sector. Childcare workers, who are overwhelmingly women, remain systematically undervalued. Expanding access without addressing compensation will deepen inequities within the workforce itself.
Equity also extends to children. Persistent learning gaps between lower-income and higher-income families underscore why access to high-quality early childhood care matters. Expansion must prioritize communities with the greatest need and avoid replicating existing disparities.
For the Mamdani childcare initiative to succeed, three elements must align.
Locations and centers that can physically deliver care
A qualified, supported workforce
Sustainable funding that reflects the real cost of care
Getting there requires intentional investment. Staff must be well-trained, well-managed, and well-paid. That is not a luxury– it is the foundation of quality, compliance, and system stability.
This is where the workforce development lens becomes powerful. If childcare is a workforce strategy for parents, it must also be a workforce strategy for educators. Grants and public investments that focus on training pipelines, credential attainment, career ladders, and wage supports can strengthen supply while advancing economic mobility for the workers themselves.
This framing will not solve every structural challenge, but it creates alignment. It connects childcare policy to housing, tax incentives, labor standards, and economic development —and enables cross-agency collaboration rather than siloed implementation. The city must treat early childhood care as workforce policy and pursue economic growth by investing in it directly, or risk exacerbating the affordability crisis already pushing workers out.
For nonprofit advocates, this perspective is especially important. Positioning early childhood care as economic infrastructure expands the coalition. It moves the conversation beyond child care as a social good and toward child care as a driver of labor force participation, business growth, and neighborhood stability.
Amairani Marin Tovar is a manager at Public Works Partners, a woman-owned urban planning and management consulting firm. She works with city agencies, non-profit clients, and their diverse stakeholders to deliver high-quality products that align with their mission-driven organizations.
Hannah Ford is a Project Coordinator on Public Works’ Organizational Health practice, where she supports research, data collection, and analysis. She also assists with designing and implementing outreach efforts, surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
