New York State’s Child Care Assistance Program is meant to help families afford the high cost of child care. It aims to ensure that children can receive nurturing and reliable care while their parents work. Over the past several years, New York State has made substantial reforms to the state’s Child Care Assistance Program. Most notably, lawmakers have significantly expanded eligibility for assistance throughout the state. These expansions came in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and a long period of disinvestment in the system.  

Household Income Eligibility by Family Size:  

New York State makes Child Care Assistance Program enrollment data by county available back to 2007. The height of average monthly enrollment was in 2011, with 135,648 children enrolled across the state. We can see that the COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted enrollment state wide, with a decrease of about 26,000 kids enrolled between 2020 and 2021. However, steady declines in enrollment occurred years before the pandemic. Child Care Assistance Program enrollment began to rise again in the latest year of available data, showing the first increase in enrollment since 2016. It is worth noting that there is a significant lag in county-level enrollment. The latest information published by New York State in December 2023 covered average monthly enrollment from July 2022 through June 2023. More recent statewide data shows significant increases in enrollment over the past year, but that data is not available at a local level.  

While certain patterns are present statewide, enrollment data look very different at the local level. The map below shows what percentage of eligible children were enrolled in the Child Care Assistance Program in 2023 in each county.  

The recovery in enrollment from the COVID-19 pandemic was uneven through June 2023. The graphs below show the average monthly enrollment in the Child Care Assistance Program for each county from 2008 – 2023. Looking across counties you see that most counties served fewer children through their assistance programs in 2023 than they did prior to the pandemic, although some bounced back more than others.  

New York’s Child Care Assistance Program enrollment is on the mend, but there is still work to be done. The numbers of children eligible for assistance far exceeds the number of enrolled children. Our partners in the field think this is due to a combination of a lack of available child care providers, a difficult application process, and a lack of knowledge about the program’s existence (among other reasons). It is important to note that there are also many eligible children who are cared for at home by a parent or loved one. In Monroe County, 21% of households do not have both parents in the workforce. 

A poll of Monroe County parents in fall of 2023 revealed that far fewer families believe they are eligible for assistance than census data would suggest is the case. Over half of Monroe County children under 13 years of age qualify for child care assistance, with only 9.3% of eligible children enrolled in the Child Care Assistance Program.  

While New York State’s Child Care Assistance Program has been strengthened since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is still much work to be done. Low enrollment in this program is a symptom of larger issues in the child care sector, especially low wages for child care workers, which limits the capacity to serve children. A safe, supportive child care environment is essential for children.  

Emily Rathbun is a Research and Policy Analyst at The Children’s Agenda.