(The Center Square) — New York child care providers will have access to $100 million in state grants to build new facilities under a program unveiled Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The new initiative will provide financial support for the construction of new child care facilities and the expansion of existing programs, including school-age care, with the goal of creating 6,000 to 10,000 new child care seats, according to the Hochul administration. The grants, which will range from $500,000 to $5 million, are aimed at making child care more affordable in a state with some of the highest costs in the nation.
“I deeply understand how important it is for New York State to continue to address the critical child care shortage that makes it difficult for families to find the safe, quality child care services they need,” Hochul said in a statement. “Our construction grants will go a long way to increase the availability of quality child care statewide.”
Under the program, 60% of funding will go to child care facilities downstate, including New York City, Long Island and the Mid-Hudson region, while 40% will be “equitably” made available to the rest of the state, according to the Hochul administration. The grant funding will be split 60% to child care centers and 40% to school-age programs.
The capital funding program, a key plank of Hochul’s 2025 legislative agenda, was based on a similar $50 million initiative launched in 2024, which added about 5,500 new child care seats, according to the administration.
Overall, the lack of child care options in New York is costing working families, some of whom are spending 20% to 40% of their annual income on programs.
The average cost of child care is $15,394 a year in New York, the sixth-most expensive state in the nation, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute.
A typical family in New York would have to spend 39.8% of its income on child care for an infant and a 4-year-old, according to the report. Child care costs in New York City are even higher.
Many child care providers are financially strained in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and advocates say low compensation and the rising costs of caring for children are putting some providers out of business.
Meanwhile, early education providers struggle to retain workers in an industry where the pay is traditionally low, and health risks are elevated.
Hochul touted that the new program adds to $8 billion in spending on expanding child care since she took office in 2021, including increasing pay rates for child care and early education providers to attract and retain workers.
Last year, Hochul clashed with fellow Democrats and child care advocates over a proposal floated by lawmakers during budget negotiations, which called for spending $5 billion for a universal child care system for all New York families, regardless of income or immigration status. More recently, she has been in talks with incoming New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on his proposal to increase wealth taxes to pay for universal child care in the city.
