We get a status update on accessibility issues with New York’s child care subsidies and consider what needs to be done to realize the state’s statutory goals to cut child poverty. Our guest is Pete Nabozny, a member of the state’s Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council and deputy executive director…

Thanks to the grant, one hun­dred work­ers at Mount Kisco Child Care Cen­ter, Lois Bronz Chil­dren’s Cen­ter in White Plains, and Eliz­a­beth Mas­cia Child Care Cen­ter in Tar­ry­town will re­ceive a $2-per-hour salary in­crease, up to $350 per month, for three years. Ac­cord­ing to the Rochester-based or­ga­ni­za­tion Chil­dren’s Agenda, child­care…

The waitlist for New York City’s enormously popular childcare voucher program for low-income families has ballooned to 25,000 kids and isn’t likely to shrink, according to officials and experts — even as its budget keeps growing. Officials from the city’s Administration of Children’s Services, which administers the state and federally…

For over a year now, many families who are eligible for a state childcare subsidy haven’t been receiving it. That’s because demand for that program has far surpassed funding for it. In the North Country, St. Lawrence, Clinton, Essex, Warren, and Herkimer counties have all run out of their childcare…

Childcare providers around the state said the governor’s proposal is historic, but fails to properly address the workforce shortage and waitlist backlogs. They’re urging legislative leaders not to accept Hochul’s plan as-is and instead to include an extra $500 million for the workforce to ensure the system doesn't collapse under…

Early Intervention services are a mandated federal service that New York State is failing to provide for one of our most vulnerable groups, disabled children. New York comes in 48th in terms of service provision in our country. The failure to provide these services is careless and unjust. While I…

The Children’s Agenda Senior Policy Analyst Shannon Mullin discusses the limited access to pre-kindergarten outside of New York City and considers what has been proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul to increase availability.

Gov. Kathy Hochul made a visit to The B.C. Center at SUNY Broome Feb. 4 to visit the children enrolled in the program and to highlight Broome County's unique position as one of three upstate counties selected for a pilot program boosting universal childcare. The new state pilot partnership will…

A group of New York lawmakers and child care advocates are pushing to prioritize better pay for the child care workforce in this year’s state spending plan to complement the significant investments Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed in her executive budget. Hochul’s plan includes funding for 2-care and more money for…

Nearly 16,000 New York City kids and their families are languishing on a ballooning waitlist for child care vouchers as the city runs out of cash to meet demand for the program, city numbers show. The child care crisis is taking center stage as Mayor Zohran Mamdani vows to expand…

Parents are cutting back on child care as costs stretch budgets. Research shows 1 in 5 families face child care hardships because of the expense, with single mothers most affected.

Broome County will play a major role in Gov. Kathy Hochul's $4.5 billion push to deliver statewide universal childcare. Broome County is one of just three New York state counties that have been selected as launching pads for the initiative through a new pilot program. On Jan. 14 Hochul announced…

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday will unveil a plan to vastly expand free or affordable child care for New Yorkers across the state over the next several years. In doing so, Ms. Hochul is partnering with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and putting him on a path toward realizing one of the…

Policymakers of all stripes in New York are talking about increasing access to child care, but there isn’t a consensus on how to get there. We explore some possible next steps to take in 2026 with Pete Nabozny, director of policy for The Children’s Agenda.

Advocates with the Empire State Campaign for Child Care, who have long lobbied the state to set out on a realistic path to a universal system seized on the energy and attention, unveiled on Monday a proposal for initiating next steps that they hope Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers…

New York’s funding for pre-K education is not keeping up with inflation, according to a new report.

Chief Program Officer Brigit Hurley provides an update on the state’s effort to deliver early intervention services in a timely fashion, including cuts to funding by the Hochul administration that prompted a lawsuit by service providers.

New York’s early intervention providers haven’t seen a substantive raise in three decades — and vulnerable young children are losing out.

New York State’s Early Intervention Program is ranked last in the nation for the timely delivery of services, like physical and speech therapy, to young children with developmental delays. Right now, only half of the children who qualify for therapy are actually getting it, and that's having an impact on…

Pete Nabozny, Director of Policy for The Children’s Agenda, discusses possible paths to funding a universal child care system in New York.

In New York, low and even middle income families can get help paying for licensed childcare for their children. It’s called CCAP, or the Child Care Assistance Program. Expanding that program by making more families eligible has been a huge part of Gov. Kathy Hochul's policy agenda, and it's received…

Pete Nabozny, Director of Policy for The Children’s Agenda, discusses the expected impacts of the State's budget on child poverty.

The Adams administration’s improbable hope that New York state would allocate more funding for child care vouchers was dashed Friday as Gov. Hochul signed the budget into law — leaving the essential program in limbo. City Hall had been counting on the state to provide hundreds of millions of dollars…

Mayor Adams’ latest budget plan does not include millions of dollars in funding needed to keep thousands of the city’s families on child care vouchers, putting a critical program for working families at risk of being significantly chopped down in scale. Adams had been counting on the state to pony…

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislative leaders struck a tentative $254 billion budget deal earlier this week that includes $400 million for the Child Care Assistance Program. The program provides subsidized child care and after-school to more than 80,000 New York City families and more across the state — but…

Without significant funding increases for child care in the New York State 2025-26 budget, thousands of working families could lose or be waitlisted for child care services across the state.

Brigit Hurley, Chief Program Officer for The Children’s Agenda, discusses the state of Early Intervention in New York and what advocates are determined to see accomplished in this year's budget.

New data reaffirms that families continue to struggle financially, with Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature under pressure to address rising child poverty statewide. The Rockefeller Institute of Government and the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York want the state to boost the Empire State Child…

Advocates argue that by sending payments directly to families, the Working Families Tax Credit will help cover essential costs like groceries, childcare, and rent, ultimately lifting thousands of children out of poverty.

“We believe families struggling with affordability in New York would be better served by a larger Empire State Child Credit expansion and investments in other priorities like child care and affordable housing,” Nabozny said.

Pete Nabozny, director of policy for The Children’s Agenda and a member of the state’s Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council, weighs in on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed expansion of the state’s child tax credit and new funding for child care facility construction.

On January 1, 2025, New York State submitted paperwork to instate a long awaited 5% rate increase for Early Intervention, the federally mandated program that provides therapy to babies and toddlers with developmental delays. That increase was hard-won and passed in the 2024-25 NYS Budget last April. It was the…

The Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council just issued recommendations to cut the state’s child poverty rate in half, as Hochul committed to do in 2021 when she signed legislation creating the council. The council voted Wednesday to endorse a $9 billion package of proposals that it estimates would provide financial…

On Wednesday, the advisory council created by this statute released a slate of recommendations for realizing that goal. Members of the council voted unanimously to support the expansion of public assistance benefits and the Empire State Child Credit — causes they hope will feature in Hochul’s executive budget next year.

More than 155,000 public school students experienced homelessness in New York in the 2022-23 school year, the highest level since at least 2009.

While families in New York struggle to afford childcare, childcare providers struggle with low wages. Though the state offers subsidies and temporary wage boosts, the sector remains in crisis, with middle-income and working-class families frequently left out.

State lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul honed in on the backlog of early intervention needs in this year’s budget, but not much progress has been made solving this critical problem.

The Children’s Agenda Director of Policy Pete Nabozny discusses a recent survey of Monroe County parents who receive social services and considers how the administration of these programs can be improved across New York.

The Children’s Agenda released a new report this week highlighting the experiences of families who apply for public benefit programs. This includes programs like WIC, SNAP, and Medicaid.

A new report from The Children’s Agenda, EdTrust-NY, and Raising New York highlights the need for more accessible public benefits programs in New York. The report surveyed 50 Monroe County families with young children, revealing challenges like confusing applications and long wait times for benefits such as Medicaid, SNAP, and…

School closures are a fact of life in a country as dynamic as the United States.

NPR’s Juana Summers talks with ProPublica ’s Alec MacGillis about his recent reporting on how declining enrollment is a crisis for American public schools.

Rochester, New York, is shutting 11 of its 45 schools. In Seattle, parents expect 20 elementary schools will close. In Columbus, Ohio, nine schools may cease to operate. Closings fall especially on majority-Black schools. As top students move to private and suburban schools, special-needs students are left behind in fewer…

The Children’s Agenda CEO Larry Marx discusses child care and early intervention policies addressed by state lawmakers in the 2024 legislative session.

We’ll highlight the work of the state’s Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council, consider whether anything in the current state budget will put a meaningful dent in child poverty rates, and debate the different policy options to address this persistent problem that plagues communities across the state.

Una conversación sobre lo que está pasando en La Agenda de los Niños / A conversation about what's happening at The Children's Agenda

“A lack of investment in poverty-fighting measures isn’t just a missing line in the budget. It’s felt by the family stretching to afford rent and child care, it’s felt by a child going without school lunch, and it’s felt by families deciding whether New York is a place where they…

We highlight New York’s ongoing failure to provide adequate access to Early Intervention services for toddlers with Brigit Hurley, Chief Program Officer for The Children’s Agenda.