Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights Plan to Make Child Care More Affordable, Accessible, and Fair in New York

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted a plan to make New York's child care system fairer, more affordable, and easier to access, as part of the 2023 State of the State. The proposals include plans to streamline and centralize the child care application process, expand access to the system, and provide assistance to families, workers, and businesses to support New York's child care infrastructure.

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

Thank you for the warm welcome. Please sit down. Well, I can promise this: Today's remarks will not be as long as yesterday's for those of you who followed the State of the State, and it is so fabulous to be back here in the Bronx. I spent a lot of time here. You know I'm not from the Bronx. I'm from a place called Buffalo, but there's a lot of similarities in how people perceived - and that's a past word - perceived our communities when we were growing up. And when you grow up in an area that doesn't quite get the respect sometimes and people knock you down a little bit, you kind of get a little chip on your shoulder, but it makes you tougher. It makes you tougher, it makes you a fighter. And that's why I felt this synergy and this connection to the people of the Bronx for so long because they have fought for a long time to dispel people of a reputation that was not fair.

Because I've seen the renaissance of this incredible borough, and it gives me such joy to go visit the businesses, the attractions, the beautiful natural scenery, the parks, the beaches, the people. But to come to a place like this, a place we find the most creative way to stimulate our children. As a mom and a new grandma, I love children's museums, so this was not a heavy lift for me to come to. I said, "Let's go somewhere fun." So, we came here to the Bronx. We are here at this beautiful museum and I'm so proud to be here.

Let me acknowledge some of my great partners in government. And also, Carla Precht, I want to thank you for inviting us here and hosting us, the CEO of the Bronx Children's Museum. Thank you, Carla. Your board members who've joined us and others who believe in just letting kids be kids, letting them come and have a refuge. They can get away from the stresses of their lives and just play. So, thank you. Thank you.

Also, we have incredible leadership here at the state and local level, people I've had a chance to work with for a long time. And a little bit new to this district, but this is one of the best parts of his district, our Senator, Luis Sepúlveda. Thank you, Senator Sepulveda. Also representing this beautiful part of our state - it's this incredible neighborhood, beautiful diversity, is our Assemblymember, Latoya Joyner. And I want to thank her for the passion she brings to her job as well. We also have Yudelka Tapia from our state assembly. Thank you.

Diana Ayala, the New York City Council Deputy Speaker. Diana's here. Amanda Septimo, our state assemblymember has joined us. Amanda, where are you? Just saw her. But also, the one and only, the Bronx Borough President, who has done such an amazing job, Vanessa Gibson. Vanessa, this woman has been tested by fire her first days on the job and she is coming through, and what a leader she is and I thank her for her friendship and her work with me over the past year in this position and her past positions before that. You'll also be hearing from Wanda Carter, the Chief Operating Officer of the Highbridge Advisory Council Family Services. And also joining us is our Acting OCFS Commissioner, Suzanne Miles-Gustave. Suzanne.

So, everybody's in the house. And all the advocates and the child care providers and all those who disbelieve that your life's work, your calling is to do whatever we can to give our children the very best start in life. I honor you and I appreciate you so deeply, and we just came from a classroom at the Highbridge Council Advisory Family Service. God, those kids were cute. I said, "You want to get me in a good mood, team? Put me with little kids first thing in the morning. Not too early, I already did the mom thing." In fact, my son texted me. He's been taking care of the baby for four months, paternity leave. And he texted, "Mom, she was up at 5:00 AM today, I never get any sleep." I was like, "Hey, you did the same to me. You know, payback's awful, I'm sorry." I said, "She's my grandchild, she can do whatever she wants. Just deal with it."

So, being with the kids this morning was just a beautiful experience. You know, they're so innocent, so young, so hopeful that they can just have security, have love, all the things that help our kids thrive. And the work that they're doing over there is incredible. And again, here at this museum, you stimulate the kids, you give them that refuge, you offer them a chance to find out who they are and just have fun. I know there's over 36,000 kids who come through here a year, and I know it's going to continue to grow because we're going to continue supporting the mission of this beautiful museum. So, thank you. Thank you on behalf of all the people of New York for creating this spectacular space.

I want to talk about one of my top priorities. You know, there's a lot of issues we talked about in the State of the State yesterday. All of them are important. All of them are my highest priorities. But my very first stop leaving that event, I said, I want to put the spotlight on something that's going to have a generational impact, which is how we take care of our kids today, how we let families and moms in particular, get back to their jobs when they want to work, or they have to. So, we're going to talk about how we can lift up families and working parents, really overhauling our state's child care system because the plans can be good, but if families aren't taking advantage of them, it's just a plan on a piece of paper. It's not helping people's lives. It's so - I don't mind turning things upside down. That's the harder part sometimes, but the harder work is always the work worth pursuing.

So, I made this front and center about how we've got to talk about making New York more affordable, more livable. We know what the pandemic did to families. It threw even working moms in particular, you know, mostly were low wage jobs and a lot of our nurses and our hospitality workers, our hotel workers, our restaurant workers, our service workers, our transit workers. I don't want to keep repeating the pandemic word, but it really did create upheaval that literally three years later we're still dealing with, and even today I talked to parents whose kids are in child care, but it's often not even that reliable because a case of COVID, the kids get sick, everybody goes home, parents can't work that day. So, some have just said, "I can't do this anymore. It's just too hard. I need to have something that's reliable, that's going to be there that can allow me to do my work so I can bring food home, bring a check home, pay the bills."

The pandemic has made it harder for families to pay the mortgage if they have a home, pay the rent. Utility costs are up 20, 30 percent from last year just this winter alone. It's been a cold winter. Everything's up. You're a parent - diapers and formula. I remember I had to stay home from work. My husband was working an entry-level job in government. I couldn't wait for my kids to get out of diapers, not because I didn't like changing them, but because I couldn't afford them. I mean, and formula. I remember thinking, "My God, when they finally stop needing diapers and formula, we're going to have so much money in our pockets." I really did. I thought we were going to be, like, rich. And then all of a sudden you realize like, oh, but now there's expensive sneakers and backpacks and all - maybe the diapers and formula was the cheapest part of their lives. I don't know. I didn't know it at the time. But even those are going up. Even those are going up. So, inflation has hit our families so hard, every New Yorker is stretched thin, and no one suffered more than our parents.

So, I mentioned all the expenses we pay - utility bills, rent, food. You know what, you know what's more expensive for families than even paying their rent? Child care. Child care is more expensive than people's rent. The average cost in New York State - it's the average all over the state, expensive areas, less expensive areas - is about $15,000 or $1,200 a month. That's for one baby. Imagine two. Well, I'm doing the math real quick, that's 30,000. And a toddler's a little bit cheaper, but combine a toddler and an infant - about $27,000 a year. Now you're earning minimum wage. That's all you have available to you right now. It just doesn't add up. It doesn't add up. In fact, child care in our state is almost 5 percent more than the average monthly rent payment. It's, compared to a four-year college degree in one of our state institutions, one year is about $7,400. It's easier to send your kid to college than to get them taken care of before they go to kindergarten. And New York State is ranked number six in the nation for having the most expensive child care. It can take up to 22 percent of someone's income. And the cost for older kids are high as well.

Like I said, you've all figured out, I am the first mother to lead the state. And it gives you that perspective that I don't think my 56 predecessors would've had as directly as I do. It's just staying a fact here. And I knew what it was like when he had to come down to that choice. I had a job I loved, working for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan - the highest honor at the time for a young person to get a job like that. Newly married, starting out. This is great. Let's have a family. I'll stay, keep my job, we'll get child care. Boy, I looked hard, couldn't find any, couldn't find any at all. It's the time when it just wasn't available. So, I had to leave the job, put my career on hold because my husband was working, we could do that. Like I said, it was tight, but I had a husband who was working. How many people have that luxury? How many people have that luxury that I had? That's where it gets tough. The working moms who say, "Yeah, I'd like to be home with taking care of my baby. That's fine, but I just can't." Those are the people that I worry about. It's those families. Because a lot of times - we've seen after the pandemic - you leave the workforce, you never get back. So we have to do something differently. Last year working with the legislature, thank you to my partners in government, we said we need more money for this. More money.

So, we proposed and got to a budget of $7 billion for child care for four years. That was historic. That was historic. But here's the crazy thing, the money's there. The programs are there, but families aren't accessing it. Less than 10 percent of eligible families have enrolled for child care assistance since we put all this money there. You have to ask why. Part of it is, it's a legacy of a system that was set up to be difficult to navigate, and I don't know if that's by design, but that's just not okay with me because we're proud of this. But if families can't get through the bureaucracy and all the hassle, then you say, I just, I surrender. I don't have time for this. I have to take care of my family. So, we said, "Why can't we make this easier?" So, we're going to streamline and centralize the child care application process. It sounds simple, but no one's done it before.

So, families should be able to pre-screen for eligibility, online eligibility, and filling out the forms in all 62 counties. Remove all the unnecessary reporting and all those. I mean, you're not trying to start a bank or something. You're just trying to apply for child care and simplify all the documentation. But also, I also looked at the limits last year and what it was, the eligibility. I mean, how many families are even eligible for this assistance? Last year we saw it was $67,000 was the cap. So, only families earning up to $67,000 could take advantage of this program. I said, "That's not very high." So, we worked together and raised it to $83,000. Yes. Well, that's, we're going to be even better than that. We're going to be better. And I said, okay. But inflation's still gone up, right? Things have gotten even worse since last year. So now we're going to raise it for the first time ever to the highest level eligible under federal law, 85 percent of New York's median income, which is approximately $93,000 a year.

And that alone will make over 113,000 more families eligible. This will help more people, but also think about this. Why don't we fast-track the enrollment process for people who are already getting assistance, right? They already went through a lot to get Home Energy Assistance or Medicaid or the SNAP program. They already had to fill out a lot of paperwork. They already got approved for that. So, qualifying for one of those says to me, you probably qualify for this when the threshold is $93,000, they've already given the information. We already know who they are, and they shouldn't have to go through the application process multiple times. So, we'll make a change. When you're eligible for one of these other programs, you're automatically eligible for child care. How about that for being simple?

And we think our estimates are that there will be about another 83,000 people we can put on the rolls and make it easier for them. So that's how we're going to make a change. And also, we're not stopping there. Co-payments. Right now, families contribute up to 10 percent of their income for the child care co-payments. Okay? We're trying to help these families. 10 percent of their income, they need to spend it on diapers and food and formula. Let's ease that burden. And we'll make that a contribution to be capped at 1 percent of their family income above the poverty level.

So, those are the ways we proposed just yesterday. Need to get it through the legislature. I feel confident they're all on the same page with that one. And I'm excited about it. I really want to make this be a clear statement of our priorities as a state who we're focused on, and it is children and their stressed-out parents.

And so, I also found other ways we could reduce the cost of living because that goes to the quality of life. And we talked, I'll just touch briefly on some of our other initiatives. We've proposed the New York Housing Compact. One of the reasons rent is so high is because there are not enough rental units out there. Why housing prices are so high? There are not enough houses out there on the market because they have not been built. We plan to build over 800,000 new housing units over the next decade. That has to be a good start. Let's all get around that. Let's commit to that. To give our families, let's give our families better options.

We also talk about the quality of life for all New Yorkers. That includes those suffering from mental health illness, people who need real help. We can no longer walk past people on a sidewalk or ignore them suffering in their homes. That's not who we are as a people. We're better than that. So we have put forth an ambitious plan, but also the money behind it. A $1 billion investment to ensure all New Yorkers have access to affordable mental health services. That's going to make a difference.

And then I mentioned energy. We have to help low-income families. And I mentioned yesterday that New York state has the oldest housing stock in the country. It's drafty, it's cold. I remember sticking towels by the window sill trying to stop the wind from blowing in in buffalo, sometimes the snow would slip in through the cracks. So, our houses are not insulated, so we're going to help low-income families retrofit their homes, upgrade appliances, reduce their costs, and help them switch from fossil fuel, which generate pollution, cause asthma in our kids help them shift to clean energy heating systems, which are expensive at the outset, but over time they dramatically reduce your energy costs. So then families won't have to say, "Well, I'm going to keep the temperature really cold today because I can't afford the next bill." Are we going to let people have warmth in their homes? I know what I want.

Lastly, we talked about, just more money in pockets overall. 900,000 people are on the minimum wage in this state. Like I said, you're earning minimum wage, you have to pay those child care costs. Why did you get up in the morning? You know you're just going to struggle. It's just going to be a struggle. So, we said in light of the high inflation, let's peg the minimum wage to the rate of inflation. Inflation goes up your wages go up. And we'll have some guardrails because we want to make sure we're not hurting businesses. We have to give them the notice, the advanced warning, let them know. And if there's a recession, we'll have to make some adjustments, because that's going to affect things.

But overall, it just makes sense. And also the fact that more women are likely to be minimum wage earners, more women of color are more likely to be minimum wage earners. And this is just one more way to just say, we're here to help. We care about you. We want to take off some of that stress, some of that burden that's on your shoulders.

So, all these plans are ambitious. I don't take on the easy fights, somebody else can do those. I'm here to take on the hard ones, but the necessary ones and we will meet this moment. Focusing on our children is a great start, making this place a place not only their parents can live and thrive, but they'll be a home and a job and an education for them as they grow older as well.

So, I want to close by saying again, thank you to all of our child care providers across the state. The ones who showed up during the pandemic, they were the first responders for our first responders. Never forget that what they did for us, showing up so our healthcare workers and service workers, and others could get to their job. So, I'm grateful to them. I'm grateful for what they do for our families today. I'm grateful for all of you here today. With that, let me introduce an incredible individual, great partner in government, someone who cares deeply about his district, and that is our Senator Luis Sepúlveda, Senator.

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