Issue Position: Addressing the Affordability Crisis by Helping Families Get Ahead Changing the Game on Chile Care

Issue Position

OVERVIEW: Putting in Perspective the High Cost of Child Care

New York City is facing an unprecedented crisis of affordability. Soaring costs of living citywide threaten to price working families out of their longtime homes and communities. Among the costs that is essential to healthy families, but is increasingly expensive and inaccessible is child care.

The average cost of child care in NYC is increasing by $1,612 each year. The average family in New York is spending:

$16,250 to care for an infant
$11,648 for a toddler
$9,620 for a school-age child each year.[1]

Federal, state, and local tax credits alleviate the burden on families, but they do not go far enough. A robust commitment to increasing these credits will go a long way toward helping working families and allowing the next generation of New Yorkers to thrive.

The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC)

The CDCTC is meant to help working families pay for child or dependent care. Families at all income levels with children up to the age of 13 are eligible for the state and federal credit, although families with higher incomes receive lower credit amounts.[2] Only families earning under $30,000 per year and with children under the age of four are eligible for the City tax credit.[3]

A family receiving the maximum federal, state, and city credits would receive $6,143[4] - just over one third the average price of child care for an infant in New York City. But a family earning $50,000 with a three-year-old child, would only receive $2,400. This is a massive burden on New York City's working and middle class families.

As congressman, Espaillat will fight to:

Expand the federal CDCTC for families with children under four, when child care is the most expensive. The state and local CDCTC are calculated as a percentage of the federal, so this will give an extra boost to NYC families.
Allow families to claim up to 50 percent of child care expenses of up to $6,000 per child.
Increase the maximum credit for a family receiving the federal, state, and city credits for one child to $8,775 - a 43 percent increase.

Child care is a critical funding need and hardly constitutes an exorbitant expense. In fact, when you consider the profoundly positive impact support for child care has on creating strong families, it is surely a bargain. Electing Adriano Espaillat to Congress will be a step toward common sense investments in our city's future.

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