The Daily Populous Thursday January 8th, 2026 evening edition
Authored by abcnews.go.com and submitted by Dr_Neurol

New York City parents may soon have access to free child care for their 2-year-olds, under a plan set to be unveiled by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani answers a question from media after a press conference with New York Governor Kathy Hochul and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

NEW YORK -- New York City parents may soon have access to free child care for their 2-year-olds, under a plan set to be unveiled Thursday by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The two Democrats are expected to detail the program at a news conference Thursday morning, along with a pledge from Hochul to pursue a wider, statewide free child care initiative.

“There’s one thing that every family in New York can agree on, the cost of childcare is simply too high,” Hochul said in a statement. “As New York’s first mom Governor, fighting for New York’s families has always been at the core of my agenda.”

For Mamdani, the announcement is the first step in fulfilling one of his trademark campaign promises, marking a major boon for the mayor just days after he took office with the promise of implementing a transformative agenda focused on making the city a more affordable place to live.

“This victory represents much more than a triumph of city and state government working in partnership — it is proof that when New Yorkers come together, we can transform the way government serves working families,” he said in a statement.

In a statement provided by the governor's office ahead of the announcement, Hochul said she is committing to fully funding the first two years of the city's free child care program for 2-year-olds, describing it as an expansion of the city's existing universal pre-K program.

The first year will focus on “high-need areas” selected by the city, then expand across the city by its fourth year, according to the statement.

Bryandan1elsonV2 on January 8th, 2026 at 16:53 UTC »

I need to get Mayor Wu on the phone right now. Massachusetts childcare costs are debilitating.

eskimospy212 on January 8th, 2026 at 15:29 UTC »

This is a good idea and something that will need to go nationwide in the future.

Absent some new innovation due to basic economics principles child care will continue to become more expensive relative to other things we buy, basically in perpetuity. The reason for this is while there have been massive productivity advances in other sectors there has been essentially zero productivity improvement in child care.

To put it very simply the number of cars an auto worker can make in a year has gone up massively in the last 100 years or whatever but the number of kids one child care worker can care for has remained basically the same. This means child care becomes more expensive as compared to cars over time and you can apply this to tons of other sectors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

francis2559 on January 8th, 2026 at 15:13 UTC »

> The two Democrats are expected to detail the program at a news conference Thursday morning, along with a pledge from Hochul to pursue a wider, statewide free child care initiative.

This would be a godsend for my friends.

Hochul has been frustrating in the past (congestion pricing) but it would be lovely if she finds room to move left.