Free day care for all: What could go wrong?

Having kids in New York City is expensive. Young couples are having fewer children or moving out of the city. It's no wonder parents want someone else to pay the bills, writes Reason's Liz Wolfe.

Photo: Natalie Bond/Pexels

Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral race by promising free day care for children six weeks and up, for rich and poor families. Expanding the current program, which covers preschoolers, would cost an extra $6 billion a year. The city hasn't got that, writes Wolfe, so Mamdani would need state legislators to raise taxes to pay for it

The current universal pre-K program works well for affluent parents, she writes. They pay for a summer camp or private 3-K program run by a high-quality center. That gives them priority for that center's free 4-K program. "Day-care centers flourished in middle- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods," Wolfe writes. Demand was high.

Lower-income parents can't afford the "hacks" needed to get into the high-quality centers, she writes. Uptake is low at centers in poor neighborhoods. Many seats remained vacant.

New York could lower costs by lowering education requirements for preschool teachers and child-care workers, she writes. Expanding visas for au pairs and nannies would help too, but seems politically unlikely.

Of course, New York City could get a lot more home-based day care centers, which parents prefer for young children, by "scrapping the city's rent-stabilization regime," Wolfe writes. Letting market forces work "would free up 28 percent of the total housing stock (and 44 percent of all rentals!)." But don't hold your breath.

New Mexico's free child care program launched on Nov. 1, reports Eryn Mathewson for CNN. "Nearly all families, regardless of income or immigration status" are eligible for free home-based or center-based care for children from six weeks old to 13. (I was a free babysitter for my newborn brother was I was 13.)

Sixty-three percent of new enrollees come from middle-class or more affluent families.

The program's estimated cost is $600 million, and some worry it will not be sustainable. In addition, the state will have to add child-care homes and centers and recruit an additional 5,000 child-care workers.

Forty percent of licensed providers have agreed to pay $16 to $19 an hour for staffers, up from an average of $15 an hour. That should help with recruitment. But some providers say they can't afford to pay that much unless the state pays more per child.

New Mexico's students aren't doing well in K-12 schools. I predict investing state dollars in child care will have no effect on that.

In Minnesota, YouTuber Nick Shirley visited the "Quality Learing Center" (sic), which has received millions of dollars to care for children. There appeared to be no children there. The center has been cited for numerous violations, including failing to protect children from hazards, so it must have had some there. (Another violation was failing to document the existence of all the students, so maybe not.)