Child care has been a professional and personal priority of mine, both as an Assemblymember and mother of three children. My oldest child is nearly an adult, and in that time there hasn’t been anywhere near enough work to bolster our child care ecosystem.
Long before the pandemic, our child care industry was hanging on by a thread – with low child care worker wages, not enough available slots, and costs on par with a year of SUNY education. Now, the system is in crisis. Over the past year, I’ve been developing solutions to ensure that our child care system can truly recover, and address the root causes that got us to this point.
I wrote the Early Learning Child Care Act, that would expand subsidies and provide free care, at point of service for families making under $106,000 (400% of the federal poverty line), and cap costs at 7% of income for families making up to $265,000 a year. This would also establish a $45,000 wage floor for child care workers to address workforce shortage issues, and reflect the vital importance of this work. I’ll continue fighting to ensure that all New York families have access to affordable, quality child care.