Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, sitting in for Brian today, who's getting ready for that big debate tonight, as I might have mentioned. Now we continue our election series, 30 issues in 30 days. It's issue number 23, child care. We're going to compare what the candidates say they'll do to help families with the cost of child care, which is often their number one expense besides rent or mortgage. Zohran Mamdani has made this issue one of his signature ones and says he'll provide free childcare to all children from six weeks up until they're five years old. It would come at a multi-billion cost. Is that all doable? We'll discuss that and what Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, and the other have proposed on this issue. My guest is New York Times reporter Eliza Shapiro, who covers affordability in the city. Hey Eliza, welcome back to WNYC.

Eliza Shapiro: Hi Brigid, good to be with you.

Brigid Bergin: Eliza, I wonder if you could start by just laying out some of the current costs that parents are paying for childcare, especially for the very youngest children. They have babies and kids. I know the city comptroller's office put out a report last year that found the average cost to be about $26,000 annually, but what's the full range? What direction are those costs going?

Eliza Shapiro: It's a great question. I would say the rule of thumb is the younger the kid, the more expensive the care, because obviously, little kids need very highly specialized care in some cases. There's tons of regulations about where little kids can be. For really little kids and for young toddlers, there are fancy Montessori programs that could be easily $4,000 a month or more. There are private preschools that can be $30,000, $40,000 a year for a single kid.

Even at the slightly cheaper end of the range, it's certainly not affordable for families. Maybe some families are paying $2,000 a month or a bit less for an in-home daycare. That can A, really stretch families' budgets, and what we're finding is that particularly employees in in-home daycares are really struggling to make ends meet themselves.

Brigid Bergin: Eliza, just to underscore a point you made there, when we're talking about these costs, it's per child. When you say $40,000 at the higher end, that's for one kid.

Eliza Shapiro: That's right. I had just written this story about this white whale that I talk to a lot of my sources about, which, two kids is a lot is a lot in New York. Three kids is like, "Whoa." You have to really be a logistical mastermind, basically, or you just have to have a lot of money. I talk to people who are basically spending close to $100,000 a year on childcare if they have multiple kids. It's just a staggering amount of money when you really think about people's take-home pays.

Brigid Bergin: We have Zohran Mamdani, who has been campaigning on this promise to provide universal childcare for free for children from six weeks through age five. How does he say he's going to do it, and what are the logistics involved? The system of childcare is just such a patchwork already.

Eliza Shapiro: This is an operational challenge to end operational challenges in the city of New York. He wants universal free childcare for kids as young as six weeks old. A lot of what I'm hearing from talking to advocates and sources right now is that, if he wins, probably what this will look like is first making the current 3K system for three-year-olds truly universal, because there's been a lot of ups and downs with 3K.

Mayor Adams cut funding. It was restored, but it's patchy, and there's a lot of issues in the current 3K system. Shoring that up, actually making it so that everyone who wants a spot has one and doesn't have to travel across two boroughs to get one, and then starting to think about, and this is really the new piece, the vanguard of how the city is thinking about this, starting to think about a system for two-year-olds.

Some people are calling it 2-Care as opposed to 2K. That will involve essentially trying to figure out how to turn a lot of private programs public. Can the city contract with existing daycares and childcare centers? How do we make sure that teachers and childcare providers are made whole, and there's not a two-tiered system where some kinds of teachers and some kinds of unions are making less than others?

There's an enormous space challenge of finding the space for this. This was a huge issue for former Mayor de Blasio when he rolled out the universal pre-K system. Huge operational lift. What I will say politically that's been really fascinating to me recently is, we know Mamdani wants this, but he can't do it all by himself. There are two other huge political pillars that I think actually give this a shot that I haven't seen in a long time, certainly since UPK.

A, Governor Hochul is now saying explicitly she supports universal childcare, and very importantly as well, there's a huge swath of the city's business sector. The private sector, people who own and run huge companies and contribute to the city here that are realizing that the lack of childcare is bad for business. I think if you had the mayor, governor, and the business community all lining up behind this, we could really see movement next year.

Brigid Bergin: You were at a childcare summit last week at Etsy, just to give an example of some of the business folks who are talking about it. I wonder if you could just talk about some of the other people who are in that audience, because I think it really goes to your point about how this conversation is being convened in a different way as of late.

Eliza Shapiro: I've really noticed that, having covered childcare now for more than a decade in the city. I feel like there's a lot more recognition from a number of prominent real estate developers. I was on a similar panel at the Association for a Better New York, the Partnership for New York City, which is run by Kathy Wylde, has made this a top issue. I've been to events where a bunch of very prominent tech founders are saying, "We want to help here. We see that we're losing our employees. They're leaving the city once they get a little older and start having kids."

I would say the fact that the business community is so bought in is pretty rare to have that all. Mayor, governor, business community, all focused on the same issue. I would say that combination of tech, real estate, and finance, which is represented by the Partnership and by Tech NYC, is a rare opportunity, and I think, frankly, if Zohran Mamdani wins, he will have to move pretty quickly to take advantage. It's a little bit of the stars-aligning moment, and it certainly won't last forever.

Brigid Bergin: Let's talk about some of the costs associated with his plan, and I want to be sure that we get to some of what Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa have said on this issue. Let's play a clip of Mamdani from last week's debate talking about how he'd find the money for this enormous cost.

Zohran Mamdani: Making universal childcare a reality costs about $5 billion, or $6 billion a year. If you raise the state's top corporate tax rate to match that of New Jersey, you'd be raising $5 billion in and of itself.

Brigid Bergin: Eliza, you invoke the governor, who, as far as I know, is not too much in favor of raising taxes as a way to pay for this. What have you found in your reporting about how this could be paid for?

Eliza Shapiro: I think what's really interesting is Mamdani has shown, I think, this really pragmatic streak as he's talked about elements of this universal childcare program. He said very explicitly he thinks raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers is the best way to do this, just as Bill de Blasio said in 2013, 2014. Bill de Blasio at that point was blocked by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo. Kathy Hochul, who's facing her own reelection fight next year, has said raising taxes is a non-starter, but Mamdani has said, "That's what I'd like to do, but guess what? If there's other revenue streams, great, we'll find them."

I think that assuming he doesn't get the tax increase, it will take a real intense rethinking and retooling of the city's budget, the state priorities for next year. I've talked to advocates, certainly, who say the money is there if you move stuff around, and I've also talked to a lot of budget experts who have a lot of concern, obviously, about that $6 billion price tag. I do think it's pretty clear to me that it's not higher taxes are nothing.

Brigid Bergin: Let's talk a bit about who this program, if it were made available, would be available to. My understanding is Mamdani has talked about it as a universal benefit where there are no means testing. Why does he insist that it should be universal regardless of income?

Eliza Shapiro: Incredibly interesting dynamic in this campaign, I've found. I have a story about this coming soon about how Mamdani has really pushed for universal programs. Huge expansion of the social safety net for everyone, rich, poor in between. Cuomo has said that can amount to subsidizing the rich, and he would like to focus on working and low-income families. What's tricky about that Cuomo piece is that Pre-K is truly universal, 3K is mostly universal.

What we found is that people up and down the income scale really appreciate it. I've talked to people who make $100,000 $200,000, $300,000, or more a year and say they truly rely on free 3K and free Pre-k to stay in the city, to be able to save, to be able to buy a home, to be able to afford that second or third kid. This idea of universal non-means-tested programs has really proved popular, I think, in the context of childcare. That's why you don't also see Cuomo saying, "No, no, no, no, childcare should only be for low-income families."

He's talking about expanding 3K to make it truly universal, and he said universal childcare sounds great. It's just too expensive. He doesn't seem to have a principled issue with it. If it works, would be a program for all with the asterisk that it's pretty clear to me through my reporting that you obviously cannot snap your fingers and get to universality for infants to toddlers overnight.

It is highly likely that if any aspect of this program gets off the ground, typically what city government would do is first try it out in a few low-income neighborhoods, work out kinks there, see how it works, and then begin to expand it citywide. You can't go universal overnight. There will be some targeting initially, I have to imagine.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. I do want to play a clip of Cuomo, actually, relatively recently from MSNBC on Morning Joe. He was critiquing Mamdani's proposals. He's been doing a lot of critiquing as of late, and this was how he framed it.

Andrew Cuomo: You have to help poorer New Yorkers. The socialist movement provides universality. Childcare for everyone.Free for everyone, rich included. Forget that. Focus on the people who need the assistance.

Brigid Bergin: You do hear that difference between Mamdani and Cuomo there, and yet what he has talked about is the expansion of 3K. I want to play another clip of a conversation he had with Brian on this show, responding to a question about how he would expand 3K. Obviously, you'll have Brian first here.

Brian Lehrer: How about child care? Do you have anything to compete with Mr. Mamdani on that?

Andrew Cuomo: Child care is going to be a question of a government-provided subsidy one way or the other. I started 3K on the state side. I think that was a great advancement, and I think we have to continue that and expand that, but that is just a government-subsidized program. The market is not going to do that for you.

Brigid Bergin: Eliza, leaving out whether or not he was the originator of 3K on the state side, how do you see Cuomo's childcare plan next to Mamdani's, particularly when he starts to talk about things like subsidies and wanting to focus it primarily on some of the New Yorkers more in need?

Eliza Shapiro: It's really interesting. Currently, we have Mayor Adams has increased this pot of money for childcare vouchers for low-income families. I think that's been very helpful for some families, but there's an income cutoff. There's an income cliff. You have to submit paperwork to show that you're eligible, and you make a certain amount of money. I think what has been so striking to me in my reporting on childcare in the last few years is how much the cost of it impacts people that you might not technically fall in the income bracket of low income.

I talk to a lot of people who feel like, "We make good money, we have good jobs, we want to stay in New York. We love this city, but even as opposed to housing, childcare is the thing that is going to force us to move." I think what is complicated about this means testing versus universal debate is that, specifically, particularly when it comes to child care, you are seeing people who are not low income say, "This cost is going to force me to leave the city."

That's not a hypothetical thing. We're seeing families with kids under six. I believe the stat is twice as likely to leave the city as people without young kids. I found in my reporting that large families, families with three or more kids, are leaving at really high rates. We're seeing that change the demographics of the public school district, which has shrunk pretty significantly since COVID. I think part of this childcare debate is going to have to be about thinking how to retain young families, which I don't think any of the candidates would argue is incredibly important for the future of the city.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. I want to make sure that we play some of what Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa has said. He was interviewed in a PBS 13 show called Your Voice Matters. Here's about a minute and a half of Curtis Sliwa responding to a question about childcare.

Curtis Sliwa: Understand the concern about child care. The problem is, look at the budget. The state government has told us there's a $34 billion budget gap. That's Tom DiNapoli, the Democratic controller. That's going to cut monies that come from the state to the city. The federal government, the Trump administration, has said they're cutting the allocations to the city. We have a bloated budget to begin with, and we have some candidates who are promising child care almost six weeks after birth.

Pretty sure that Zohran Mamdani and some of the other candidates are jumping on board. First, you got to put out the spreadsheets. You have to see what is the money available? What can we afford to be able to apply to child care? Do we have to split the costs and expenses in order to try to encourage more families to stay here to improve and not move? I'm not going to make a declarative statement on this until I see how much money the city has available to spend, because right now there's very little in the rainy day fund, very little in the reserves.

It's an election year budget, and Eric Adams is acting like Santa Claus with our money. When I get elected on January 1st, 2026, the spreadsheets come out, and we'll see what's available to be able to provide child care at earlier and earlier ages. My whole goal is to get people out there, young, middle-aged, and old, to improve and not to move. Obviously, childcare expense are one of the things that are forcing people to flee this city.

Brigid Bergin: Eliza, nothing really in that answer that sounds anything like a universal childcare proposal or plan. Anything else jump out to you about what he said there?

Eliza Shapiro: Absolutely. I would say those concerns about the budget are echoed far and wide by Democrats and Republicans, by advocates and people who study the budget. There is no question that the city is in a financially precarious place, looking at some of these federal budget cuts. The way that I've had people describe it to me is you are really going to have to do a major rethinking if you're committed to spending billions of dollars to start to create universal childcare.

It is simply going to require a major rethinking of what your budget priorities are. That will require cuts from other parts of the budget. Obviously, a budget is a statement of priorities. I think Mamdani has made clear what his are, but that is going to mean that we are going to see significant changes in how City Hall marshals its budget. How the state thinks about its budget in the coming year. I think that's just going to be a really huge story in the New Year.

Brigid Bergin: I completely agree with you there, Eliza. We're going to leave it there for now. 30 issues in 30 days. Issue number 23, childcare. My guest has been Eliza Shapiro, reporter for the New York Times, who covers affordability. Eliza, thanks so much for coming on. Great to talk to you.

Eliza Shapiro: Thanks, Brigid. Talk to you soon.

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