B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Investments to Deliver Universal Child Care for New York Children Under Five — Governor & Mayor Mamdani to Launch Free Child Care for Two-Year-Olds in NYC

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced an unprecedented investment as the next step to deliver affordable, universal child care for children under five years of age across New York State. The Governor will partner with Mayor Zohran Mamdani to deliver free child care for two-year-olds in New York City, in addition to strengthening the existing 3K program to achieve universal care and ultimately, serve all families across the city.

B-ROLL: of the Governor greeting students and parents at the Flatbush YMCA available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr has photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Good morning. This is the day that everything changes.

I'm so proud to be here at the Flatbush Y to declare that New York State is open for families. And I'm so proud to be joined by an extraordinary partner, first week on the job, which you'd never know it. Mayor Mamdani has put forth a vision for this City that I am a big supporter of. And that is to make this city more affordable, more livable, more people friendly, and we're going to continue working together.

We also know that for a long time, families have been crying out for help, and I want to thank everyone in this room who's listened to those cries, who said the status quo is not working. We can do better because we're New Yorkers. Of course, we can dream bigger and do more and be more audacious. And that's why you're witnessing history here today.

So to all the champions, the advocates, our host, Sharon Levy, the Vice President of the YMCA — you will be hearing from Sharon. Hey Sharon. Our brand, newly elected City Council speaker Julie Menin, has joined us. Soyona Dawes — you're going to be hearing from a working mom. Who's a working mom in this room? I am. But also my colleagues in government, who are shoulder to shoulder with me as we've worked for many years to bring forth change for families, and I thank them for supporting our investments and our vision. And I know we're also, and I can't acknowledge all the electeds, but I have to give home turf advantage to Senator Kevin Parker. Let's give him a round of applause. This is his district and Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, who's been a great champion and mother of little Daniel who's been featured in — Daniel's here? Daniel's here. I never go anywhere to see this woman without Daniel at her side. I think Daniel's going to be talking about running for office before too long. It's the only life that this poor child knows but the families have been crying for help. When you live in Flatbush or you live upstate in the Finger Lakes, this is something every family can agree on. The cost of childcare is too damn high. As I said, I'm New York's first mom Governor, and I understand the urgency of this crisis because I lived it.

Now, it was a few decades ago, I'm willing to admit that, but I had a job that I dreamed about. My highest aspiration, and I encourage others to dream bigger, was to be a staffer for a Senator someday on Capitol Hill. I achieved that in my twenties with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. But our family was beginning and when that little boy came along, I could not find childcare. And certainly not childcare that we could afford with two government employees on a payroll. So I had to make a choice that I never thought I would do is walk away from that dream job and become a full-time mom because it costs too much for childcare for me to walk out the door in the morning. So I put my dreams on hold, and to be honest with you, I never knew when they'd get back on track. It was a big time of uncertainty for us.

But not only that, when your income — a two-family income goes down to one, you're clipping a lot of coupons for diapers and formula. And you're just sitting there stressed out looking at that bill at the end of the month, the utilities and the groceries and the gas and everything else.

So that was my lived experience, and now that little one, that baby has his own three-year-old and nothing's changed. It's still one of the biggest expenses for our families is the cost of childcare. So today we're working together with the mayor at this incredible place to announce the first major steps to make childcare universal, truly universal here in New York City.

As well as transforming the lives of children and parents all across the State. So we've already invested — thank you legislators — a significant amount in childcare. About three and a half times what it was when I first became Governor just four years ago — more than any governor who came before me, $8 billion in childcare already.

But we know, yes, that's a lot of money. But we know that this is a determinative factor on whether or not a family who wants to stay in New York or come to New York, whether or not they can pull it all off and make it work. But it also affects our businesses. Think about this: Why do people need childcare? Because they're going to a job, they're going to work. They're part of our economy, part of our productivity, revenues that we need in Albany. So if people stay home, it all collapses. We saw that during the pandemic, and I'm looking at my Commissioner of Labor, Roberta Reardon. I don't want to mention the pandemic, but we had hundreds and hundreds of millions of people collecting unemployment because there were no jobs. We're not talking about that scale anymore. Heaven help us if we do. But this is a daily occurrence, and I want to say we are so focused because I know my story is not unique. Right here, childcare costs between $26,000 and $40,000 a year. That's double the cost of a SUNY or CUNY college education. Think about that, I can either take care of my child or pay for college someday — what are we talking about here? A family with an infant and toddler, and that was me. But today they're making half of the city's median income.

They're spending half of their money on childcare. The math just doesn't add up, so here's what's happening. Either people are saying that they are getting together and talking about planning for that baby. Maybe painting an extra bedroom if you have one. I don't know who has an extra bedroom anymore — paint the living room.

You should be talking about that. But instead they're talking about maybe we can't afford to have kids at all. Yeah, maybe it's not going to be part of our dream or sick and tired of trying to figure all this out in a patchwork system that's not working. And they get worn down by the stress of it all — hey sweetie. They get worn down by it, right?

This takes a toll. But you know what? At some point they might just say, “I can't do this anymore. I have to leave a place I grew up and a place I love.” That, to me, is tragic. When someone leaves, we're all diminished. Our State, our City, we're sapped to the collective vitality and energy that each family and each child brings.

They're growing up in a different state. And for decades, governors have promised some form of childcare, but never delivered. And I'm here to say the era of empty promises ends with the two of us right here, right now.

We've laid the foundation since I took office, and I announced this in my State of the State exactly one year ago, that we'll be on a path to lay the groundwork for a robust universal childcare system statewide. We've already invested $6.5 billion in our State Childcare Assistance Program. Dramatically expanding the eligibility and capping costs at $15 per week for most of those families, that's incredible. We've doubled the number of children served by vouchers. We also knew we had a workforce shortage, especially after the pandemic. We invested over $500 million in direct bonuses to 80,000 workers to let them know we value them and to lift them up. And we also increased reimbursement rates, which we are told were too low — we increased them by 50 percent.

This is to help the providers maintain their staff and have a high quality of care, but also we needed buildings. We need investments. $110 million in new capital funding to open hundreds of new childcare centers. Now all of this groundwork was important, it's still important. But when I announced we're going to begin on a path to universal childcare, I said, “This has to go first.” It doesn't happen overnight, you just don't declare we now have universal childcare in the State of New York. You're all with me on that. But it has to start somewhere.

It requires skilled and caring workers and safe and welcoming places, and sustained investment. And today we're turning that foundation into a concrete, multi-year roadmap that'll ultimately deliver universal childcare for every single New York family statewide regardless of their income. Every child will have the same opportunity. We get the same head start. And no working parent will have to sacrifice their paycheck and career to make sure their babies and toddlers have an opportunity to grow and thrive.

So let's take a couple minutes to talk about how we will accomplish this starting right here in New York City, and I'm going to let the mayor talk about most of this. But this City just elected a mayor who spoke boldly of his vision for universal childcare and what needs to happen to be on this road back in November. Fresh off the election, we sat down, we had many conversations leading up to this, but we started talking about how we make this vision become reality, no longer a dream. And I told him this, whatever the City was ready to deliver, I would be his partner 100 percent of the way. And today, I'm proud to announce that New York State is paying the full cost to launch 2-Care for the first time, universal daycare for two-year-olds, as proposed by Mayor Mamdani.

We're not just paying for one year of the program. We don't usually go one year out in our budget, but just to let you know how serious we are, we're taking the unprecedented step to not just commit for the 2027 budget — which I'm working on right now — but also the following year as well to show you are in this for the long haul.

In the next few minutes, you'll hear from the Mayor about how to implement his plan, but you'll explain all this, but as the City builds capacity and trains workers and brings more communities online, we'll continue to provide the necessary funding to make sure that every child has access to this childcare. Now, across the state — my friends — this might be a newsflash, but there's more to New York State than just New York City. Can you work with me on this? So we have to look out for everybody.

So I have a little bit of a different approach for upstate because they're not as far ahead when it comes to four-year-old and three-year-old programs. We have some catch up to do there and I'm proud to leave that at, but it's an equally ambitious approach, and despite the fact that we've had a universal pre-K program in use for a decade, the people aren't doing it. Communities are not stepping up to do this. Communities have just not found a way to implement this, and that's a real barrier for families living outside the City. So to help them grow aligned with more closely to what we're doing here in the City, we're going to invest $470 million to support the administration of Universal Peak pre-K across all of our towns in our cities, and deliver on the guarantee I'm making today that universal pre-K will be available for every single four-year-old across New York by 2028 — two years from now because every child deserves this. The same opportunity.

It will not be mandatory for those who are staying in parts of states. We don't want to be told what to do. I get it. If you have another path to take care of your kids, God bless you. But a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't. And that's who we also have to step up for.

On top of this, I'm announcing a pilot to start a web of community-based daycares, when, not some day in the future, but starting this year to provide year-round, full day affordable care for newborns to three-year-olds across the state. Now that's going to start — we'll be announcing the initial counties. Again, some baby steps are required here, so work with us. But the initial counties we announced and we talk about how we grow this up after this initial year or two to grow this exponentially. And we'll double down on the proven success of our state childcare assistance program, our voucher system with an additional — drum roll for this — an additional $1.2 billion for communities across the state — including New York City — a 40 percent increase from last year.

That'll help hundreds of thousands of families just keep their costs low and keep their heads above water. So this year we're committing an additional $1.7 billion in what we call recurring spending. Something my Budget Director hates, but meaning we're committed and that means our total childcare investment this year will be $4.5 billion in the State of New York.

So we're in this. We're in for the long haul because of working parents. Having access to affordable childcare you can trust, it changes everything in your life because before kids, you didn't think about it, but all of a sudden when that baby is born and you hold the baby for the first time, or you adopt a child, bring a baby into your family, your priorities shift within seconds. And all of a sudden, your whole fiber and your whole being is surrounded around doing something that's going to help make this baby's life better than perhaps your own life was. That is what parents want to do and I want to let them do that. And if we can take this stress point off the plate of all the other struggles they have, my friends, then we are making New York State and New York City the best places in the nation to live, to raise a family, to grow a business, and to prosper.

Everyone has access to this and who'll be talking about people in this room. Think about people all across the state. The nurse from Yonkers who gets up with the crack of dawn. I wanted to say this: No longer has to pack lunches. If the kids are school age, we do free school lunches and breakfast. A lot of parents are happy with that one. If we're feeding our babies, taking care of our kids. But they drop their kids off at six in the morning, get to work by seven — or a housekeeper in Midwood who leaves her toddler with the neighbor in the morning trying to figure out what's going to happen if the neighbor gets sick or has to go somewhere. These are all stresses.

Now I want to mention Mariah here, mother of True. Mariah, stand up please. Mariah has a dream. She's pursuing her job of becoming a nurse. While juggling, not one job, but two jobs as an aesthetician and a teacher just to pay the bills. Every morning at 7:30 in the morning, she drops the kids off at a daycare down the road, and in that moment when she says goodbye — and I'm sure there's a lot of tears — but you know that they're safe and cared for. That allows you to take that sigh of relief and say, “My baby's okay. My child's okay. I'm going to be okay and we're going to get through this.”

To give that gift to people, I cannot underestimate what that does to your psyche and your whole being, because as I said, that child is your entire world and when your child is okay, then you're going to be just fine. And so, that's the power of affordable childcare because parents like Mariah and others, the foundation they need, and I'm proud to deliver on this very ambitious plan with existing state revenues. We got it done. We found a path forward and there's nothing going to get in our way. And I want to continue focusing on these transformational plans and the support we're providing Mayor Mamdani to make our collective vision become a reality.

So this is how we thrive. This is how we make life better. So to Mariah and all the parents out there across New York, this one's for you. We're going to lift you up. We're going to support you. We hear you. We hear you. And I'll never stop fighting for you, your families, and your futures. Thank you very much everyone.

Thank you. Thank you. Let me welcome Mayor Mamdani, someone who's also a big dreamer but also knows the dreams can get you this far. But now it's about the implementation, it's the execution and it's the follow through. So that's the difference. People can espouse great thoughts, many have come and gone in our halls of government for a long time. But you're looking at someone who wants to get things done, and I'll be a willing partner to that. Ladies and gentlemen, our Mayor.