As the city reopens and our economy begins to recover from the pandemic, it is crucial that we support parents, particularly Black and Latino New Yorkers, women and communities of color who have been disproportionately impacted by the economic downturn, as they re-enter the workforce. One crucial support for families in accomplishing this is ensuring they have options for care for their children.

CCC’s new factsheet demonstrates the crippling shortage of child care available in NYC for the youngest children and the extent to which NYC’s child care affordability crisis displaces women and low income New Yorkers from the labor force. Findings from the data include:

• Child care for infant and toddlers is unaffordable for families across the income spectrum and particularly for households with low incomes.
• Half of infants and toddlers in NYC live in households with low incomes, and yet only 16% of income-eligible infant and toddlers are receiving care through subsidized, publicly funded early education system
• Three out of every four households with children living in poverty lost employment income since March 2020 in NY Metro Area.
• As New York’s economy and schools reopened, 41% of women (ages 25 to 54) with children remained out of work.