The Committee on Women and Gender Equity discussed a new bill that would enable free child care for all New York City residents in the near future.
New York City Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez formally introduced a new bill to the Committee on Women and Gender Equity Thursday, with members of the newly-formed Mayor’s Office for Child Care and Early Childhood Education giving testimonials.
“The truth is we can longer afford to delay universal child care. The existing system is deeply, deeply flawed,” said Gutiérrez.
New York City is set to lose $23 billion in economic output and $2.2 billion in tax revenue from parents leaving the workforce or cutting their hours, according to a letter published by Mayor Eric Adams in June of last year. In a poll referenced by Gutiérrez, the New Yorkers United for Child Care found that 82% of people missing work for child care reasons, and that a quarter of all caregivers live in poverty.
“This is extremely important for the ecosystem for parents. Being a council member is extremely important to me, but being a dad is even more important,” said Council Member Kevin Riley who co-sponsored the proposed bill.
The bill will call for “inter-agency” cooperation from all layers of the state government; from the Mayor’s office to the Department of Health, the New York City Housing Authority and many more agencies.
“We understand that this is going to be extremely expensive, but it’s going to be even more expensive if we do not support our parents in the long run,” said Riley.
The panel of five council members also discussed how this proposed bill would affect the increasing migrant population. They encouraged the training of shelter workers to be done across the city in order for workers to best be able to inform parents in shelters of the resources the city offers.
“This policy-making might be extended to families with children being booted from the shelter system, which then makes it seem cruel,” said Tiffany Cabán, chair of the Committee on Women and Gender Equity of the back-and-forth policies being made at the state and federal levels on the migrant crisis.
The committee were vocal about their qualms with Mayor Adams’ recently-proposed budget cuts; formally known as “Programs to Eliminate the Gap.” More commonly referred to as PEGs, these programs by Mayor Adams are a direct response to the expensive migrant crisis, which could see all city agencies losing a total 15% of their budget by April of next year, with a five percent cut looming this November.
“When you’re proposing PEGs, you’re working against all of those goals. All it does is push this further and further into the future, and I just don’t believe that New Yorkers can afford to wait,” said Gutiérrez.
In a sentiment that best described the passion of the committee to get this bill passed that was in the air of this hearing, “A city without universal child care, in my opinion, is a city that kicks dirt in the faces of its families, children and parents, especially mothers,” Cabán said.
