BAIT AND SWITCH: Mamdani’s “Free” Childcare Promise Will Cost 50% More Than He Told Voters

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sold voters on free childcare for every kid from six weeks to five years old, with a price tag of about $6 billion a year, paid for by taxing the wealthy. A new study says the real number is closer to $9 billion — 50% higher than what he told voters — and the program hasn’t even launched yet.

The estimate comes from the Center for New York City Affairs, a nonpartisan research organization affiliated with The New School, and was first reported by the New York Post.

“An estimated $8.7 to $9.3 billion would be needed annually to fund universal child care in New York City,” the report states. That works out to roughly $27,000 per child — about $3 billion more per year than Mamdani promised on the campaign trail.

The gap is mostly labor. Researchers project the city would need to hire some 23,000 new childcare workers, concentrated among infants and children under three, and create roughly 10,000 new seats for kids below pre-K age — the most expensive children to care for, and the ones least accounted for in Mamdani’s campaign math.

The report also flags the city’s own track record: in fiscal year 2025, New York budgeted $2.5 billion for childcare services and ended up spending $3.8 billion.

“This is emblematic of the regular under-estimation of service delivery costs,” the researchers wrote. “Therefore, the City will need to identify at least an additional $4.9 to $5.5 billion to sustain a fully universal system.”

City Hall has not produced its own cost model and declined to comment on the $9 billion figure. A Mamdani spokesperson told the New York Times only that “delivering on those promises will require additional public investment, and this administration has been clear about that from the start,” crediting Gov. Kathy Hochul for her “partnership.”

That partnership currently totals $1.2 billion, which Hochul announced in January to start the program in select neighborhoods — funded, she made clear, by existing state revenue, not new taxes. The wealth tax Mamdani and his allies named as the funding source was taken off the table entirely.

So the plan is short at least $3 billion against Mamdani’s own sales pitch, closer to $5 billion against the city’s actual spending history, and the one partner writing checks has already ruled out the revenue mechanism the mayor promised would pay for it.