The Childcare Crisis in New York: Families Forced to Choose Between Careers and Children

It’s not good to be a family with young children in New York. The only viable solution: that one of the two parents sacrifices their career to look after the children…

New York soon to be emptied of its families? This scenario, which may seem improbable, is a very real threat if we are to believe the New York Timeswhich also evokes “a potentially devastating crisis for the future of the city”. At issue: two mechanisms that make childcare almost impossible unless you stop working to take care of it.

A quarter of household income spends on childcare

Since 2017, median prices for childcare services have skyrocketed in New York, reveals the American daily, which gives examples of Montessori preschool programs costing more than $4,000 per month in affluent neighborhoods, and budgets means $2,000 per month of child care for working-class families. In theory, however, child care services should not represent more than 7% of total household income, according to federal recommendations. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that a typical city family spends more than a quarter of its income paying for child care.

More than half of New York City families spend more than they can afford on child care, regardless of their income, according to a study by the Robin Hood Foundation, an organization charity dedicated to fighting poverty in New York City.

Poor childminders

The other problem concerns the supply of childcare which tends to be reduced… Affected by increasingly high costs, workers who provide childcare services are leaving the sector. With rents rising, they earn barely more than minimum wage, barely allowing them to stay in New York or pay for child care for their own children.

While the problems in this sector are not new, low wages being the main problem, they have become more serious since the Covid-19 pandemic. The city has lost at least a third of its daycare workers since 2020. As for those who remain, more than half receive subsidies for care for their own children. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, a quarter of childminders in the city live in poverty. The vast majority of them are women of color.

Black families are deserting New York

Faced with these two problems combined, families no longer have the choice to stay… Between 2019 and the end of 2022, their number decreased considerably, according to a study by researchers at the New School. Black families are the most numerous to have left the city, citing problems of financial accessibility. The city has also seen a sharp decline in its public school enrollment.

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2023-10-14 08:30:00
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