Every day hundreds of thousands of children are placed in child care during the hours when their

parents are at work, however, the demand for quality regulated care far exceeds the supply. New York City currently provides child care subsidies to 95,000 children whose families could not otherwise afford child care for their children, but a shortage of resources for child care subsidies has resulted in a large and growing unmet need. Citizens’ Committee for Children (CCC) has estimated that as many as 100,000 New York City children between the ages of zero to five are currently eligible for a child care subsidy, but do not receive one because of a limited supply.1 Further, the short supply of licensed centers and regulated family child care homes has forced as many as 34,000 families who receive a child care subsidy to place their children in informal care.2

As a result of these shortages, hundreds of thousands of low- and moderate-income families turn to informal, unregulated care of varying or poor quality. While some arrangements may be adequate, others place children in settings that lack proper adult supervision, developmentally appropriate stimulation, and have dangerously poor health and safety conditions. Too often, parents are forced to choose between poor quality child care arrangements and the prospect of dropping out of the labor force, or having welfare benefits terminated.