Affordability and the high cost of raising a family are key issues as campaign season heats up around the state, with mayoral elections this year and a governor’s election in 2026 that is likely to be competitive.
Child care is a sizable chunk of that cost. In 2023, for instance, infant care cost an average of about $19,500. High prices can create a substantial burden for parents, some of whom are likely to leave the workforce as a result.
The state helps many parents pay for it through a voucher system called the Child Care Assistance Program. In recent years, Governor Kathy Hochul and lawmakers nearly quadrupled the state’s spending on it, expanded eligibility for the vouchers, and increased payments to providers.
Still, the state spends less than half a percent of its approximately $240 billion budget on the program, and high child care costs continue to drive families out of the state and into poverty. Here’s a rundown of what the vouchers are, how they’re funded, and what might be next for child care in New York.
How do child care vouchers work?
New York’s Child Care Assistance Program helps eligible families with children between six weeks and 13 years old pay for child care. Parents can use the vouchers at any state-licensed child care provider, including day care centers and smaller in-home providers. They can also be used to pay for what the state calls “legally exempt” providers — typically a relative or friend who doesn’t need a state license but must meet certain requirements — and before- and after-school programs.
The vouchers cover nearly the whole cost of care — providers are reimbursed by the state at its set market rate and parents contribute a small copayment. Legally exempt providers are reimbursed at a lower rate.
New Yorkers can check their eligibility and apply online to get the assistance.
Who pays for it?
Child care assistance is funded by nearly every level of government.
The federal government operates a program that delivers block grants to states to fund child care assistance. The state puts its own money into the voucher program and decides how to distribute both federal and state dollars among 58 local social service districts. The state also requires counties to provide funds, and some counties choose to invest additional funds.
The state has spent more on the program over the past few years. New York allocated about $190 million to the program four years ago; last year, that number was $908 million — and it’s projected to grow more over the next couple of years. In the executive budget Hochul released last month, she proposed increasing that pot to a projected $1.1 billion to maintain current parental eligibility and provider reimbursement rates.
Who is eligible?
The federal government sets eligibility restrictions on the child care money it gives to states. New York also adds some of its own rules to the program, and it’s ultimately up to the state’s 58 social services districts to determine who qualifies. Income is the primary factor, and vouchers are only available to parents who are working, in school, or in a job training program.
As the state has increased child care funding in recent years, it has also expanded eligibility. Until a couple of years ago, only very low-income people could get the subsidies. But in the past couple budgets, lawmakers bumped the income limit to 85 percent of the statewide median income, the maximum allowed under federal rules.
In 2024, an average of 111,000 children were covered by the subsidies each month.
Even with the expansion, many low-income families are left out, thanks to a minimum earnings requirement that excludes some of the state’s poorest. Access is further restricted by a rule that limits the use of the vouchers to the exact hours that parents are at work or school. That can make it difficult for parents with unpredictable work schedules to use the vouchers, and also leaves no flexibility for running errands or attending to other care needs. Last year, Hochul vetoed legislation that would have scrapped those rules.
She did sign “presumptive eligibility” legislation that allows families to receive child care vouchers while they wait for their applications to be reviewed — a process that can take weeks.
Does it actually help parents?
On top of those restrictions, plenty of eligible families do not receive the funds, likely because they don’t know that they can. Enrollment in the program steadily decreased between 2012 and 2022, and while it increased steeply as the pandemic ended and New York expanded eligibility, it’s still not as high as it can be.
About half of New York families with young kids are eligible under the income restrictions, but only one in five actually receives the vouchers, leaving the state with extra money every year.
That means that just 111,000 of 1 million eligible children were getting subsidies last year, according to an estimate by the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy based on US Census data.
What’s next?
State leaders are under pressure from corporate employers and parents alike to invest far more in the system as costs continue to rise and some regions of the state face child care shortages. The governor’s budget proposal did not include new investments that advocates and legislators are pushing for, such as funding for the child care workforce.
Hochul said during her state of the state speech in January that she wants to “put our state on a pathway to universal childcare,” but has given few details on how she intends to do so.
Setting up a public, universal child care system in the state would cost$12.7 billion — about 5 percent of the state budget — according to New Yorkers United for Child Care. Progressive lawmakers have introduced universal child care bills in each of the past few legislative sessions, but Hochul has not endorsed any of them.