NY wants free child care for 12-year-olds – taxpayers foot the $13B annual tab
The Democratic Socialists of America votes for full-day, “free pre-teen care for all” nationwide — with taxpayers footing the $13 billion annual tab, The Post has learned.
Brooklyn District Sen. Jabari Brisport told colleagues during DSA’s NYC “Tax the Rich” meeting last week that the universal child care plan the group wants goes beyond what Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned for — serving children from six to 12 weeks old.
Mamdani’s program seeks free childcare around the world for children six to five weeks old.
Brisport estimated the cost of the pie-in-the-sky proposal would range from $8 billion to $13 billion a year — double or triple the $4.5 billion Gov. Kathy Hochul has set aside to fund free child care statewide next fiscal year.
The city already offers free child care and preschool from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for children ages 3 and 4 through its 3-K and pre-K programs, but DSA wants a “true universal program” that extends regular business hours to help working parents, Brisport emphasized.
“It’s a full day,” he said. “It doesn’t end during the day when you’re still working, and . . .
Brisport did not say where the big money would come from.
Critics like Assemblywoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) say the DSA should confuse New Yorkers who are wired for ATM machines.
“Our taxpayers are already burdened as they are, and now the DSA wants to double the deficit, so that they can start educating the next generation after learning from the womb to high school,” he said.
This is funny. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and the taxpayers of New York City should not have to bear this additional cost, so that our children are fed left-wing propaganda next to their bottles every morning.”
Mamdani wants the state to tax billionaires and corporations to fund his global childcare program and other pet projects, but Hochul has opposed the idea and, instead, proposed cash flow.
Hizzoner was vague but said his plan was inspired by Quebecers.
A Canadian province offers parents low-cost childcare for $9.35 a day for children from birth to 12 years of age, including home and after-school care.
Both the moderate Dem governor and Socialist Mamdani earlier this month announced that the state would put up $73 million to fund NYC’s first 2,000 free seats for 2-year-olds starting this fall. That’s $36,500 per seat — or 41% more than the average annual cost of private child care in the city.
The state plans to kick in another $425 million in the fall of 2027 to fund another 12,000 2-K seats.
Doug Kellogg, director of state projects for the American Conservative for Tax Reform, said Brisport’s revelation about DSA’s true goals for free child care “should make it clear that New York is a five-point disaster” with “socialist driving policy.”
“Only a social worker can force spending $8 billion on top of the billions that Gov. Hochul has already proposed to expand child care,” he said. “And that is cumulative [top of] New York’s highest per pupil spending for first through sixth graders.
“This is duplicitous, wasteful, offensive, and taxpayers can’t afford it. It’s radical social ideologies like this that are fueling the slew of proposed tax increases in Albany, on everything from crypto and gold to helicopter rides.”
The Mayor’s Office and the Governor’s Office did not return messages.
