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Supporting Families, Employers & New York’s Future: An Action Plan for a Strong and Equitable Child Care System. Final Report of the Child Care Availability Task Force.
New York Child Care Availability Task Force.
Technical Report
State Resource
50 p.
Public Domain
Published: 2021
Download: https://ocfs.ny.gov/reports/childcare/Child-Care-Availability-Task-Force-Report.pdf
This final report of the New York Child Care Availability Task Force presents an action plan for developing a strong and equitable child care system in New York State. It begins by explaining that the COVID-19 pandemic and the national reckoning with systemic racism has made it even more challenging to access high-quality affordable child care. Key findings of the Task Force and its recommendations are shared in the areas of child care affordability, equitable access to child care, high-quality child care, and coordinated systems. The following section of the report reviews the status of child care in New York State and shares findings from an examination of the cost of care for families and factors that contribute to such costs. Data indicates that in New York State, one year of tuition for infant care at a child care center is more than double of cost of tuition at a SUNY comprehensive four-year college; in family child care homes, subsidy rates are insufficient to support a living wage for the provider; despite the majority of low-income workers working non-traditional hours, there are few non-traditional care opportunities within the regulated child care system; there are only enough licensed and registered child care slots for one out of every four children in the State, however, when New York City is removed from the analysis, the ratio worsens to more than one in six; and providers reported that for programs that remained open during the pandemic, they were serving an average of 30% of their licensed capacity, which is not enough to remain fiscally viable. State and federal initiatives to address the availability of quality child care are described.
Keywords:
New York; Child care; State programs; Racism; Racial equity; Diversity equity inclusion; COVID-19; State disaster response; Strategic planning; State resource