NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 30, 2026) – This is the mayor’s first budget, and he started it off weeks ago by historically declaring that it wouldn’t be resolved on the backs of everyday New Yorkers. While we didn’t expect every priority to be addressed in his first year in office in just 6 months, Mayor Mamdani, the Progressive Caucus and the City Council balanced the budget without centering austerity. Having said that, we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge there are areas where more work is needed, especially as it pertains to the child care workforce.
This city budget cycle began with New York State making a commitment to universal child care. Governor Hochul could have done so much more for childcare providers if she had been willing to tax the rich to meet the moment we are in. By not doing that it left major gaps in that plan, with no funding for provider pay and 25,000 New York City families still waiting for child care vouchers. That makes the city’s investment at this time especially important. Though the final budget includes a few million for the workforce, we will continue fighting for the hundreds of millions still needed to alleviate the workforce crisis, as well as the significant funds still needed to provide low income families relief through the voucher program.
We will be looking at the final budget closely to identify where we need to focus our work moving forward. As always, we remain committed to fighting for what children and families need, and part of that work includes holding all our elected officials accountable for delivering results.
We look forward to the day when well resourced public schools and universal child care are a reality for all New Yorkers.