By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2026-08-07 13:40:46 | Updated at 2026-08-07 15:30:51
5 hours ago
Mayor Zohran Mamdani's proposed childcare program will cost the city $9 billion, according to a new estimate.
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The price New Yorkers will have to pay for Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “free” child care keeps growing.
The latest bad news: Where the mayor’s put the cost to taxpayers at $6 billion a year for universal care (for kids as young as 6 weeks), an outside estimate just came in at $9 billion.
Yes, analysts with the Center for NYC Affairs estimate that it will cost 50% more than advertised when it’s fully up and running — maybe even more.
This is no right-wing fearmongering: The center is affiliated with the New School, perhaps the most progressive local university.
And the reasons are self-evidently true: The city will have to pay workers far more than Mamdani has estimated.
Partly, that’s just supply and demand: You have to pay more to tempt thousands more workers into a job that involves changing diapers and wiping butts.
Partly, realistic politics: The United Federation of Teachers aims to unionize every last day-care worker, and the UFT is wildly successful in getting its people paid more — that’s a huge reason why the city now spends over $40,000 on every kid in its public schools.
Of course Mamdani shrugged off the report, mumbling that he’s focused on making “it easier to raise [a] family here in New York City” in the long term while he’s (supposedly) “assessing the cost and scaling” of his initiative.
So far, he hasn’t uttered a peep about one major cost: the way this is already making private child-care more expensive, since those centers have to match pay at the city-run competition.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who provided the state support that let Mamdani start the project this year, also downplayed the center’s report, claiming that heeding an “outside study” is “not how we operate” and promising to have her people look into it.
Sure, Kat — right after the November election, you’ll think about it.
It’s already public record that the $73 million, two-year 2,000-seat pilot program will cost taxpayers an absurd $36,500 per child, with plans to grow to 12,000 seats at a cost of $425 million, or over $35,000 per tot.
Now a level-headed analysis says the bill will run 50% higher, which we calculate means more than $50,000 a head — even more bloated than the Department of Education.
We get it: Finding quality, affordable child care is a major struggle for the city’s working parents — but waving the socialist magic wand doesn’t actually make it happen.
Indeed, given the state of the city’s other public services — from its terrible roads and decrepit public housing to its failure-factory public schools — parents should worry that Mamdani-care will prove every bit as low-quality as it is fundamentally unaffordable.
