Mayor Zohran Mamdani answers questions from the media during a press conference Tuesday, March 3, 2026. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post City Hall says Gov. Kathy Hochul is sending Mayor Zohran Mamdani “$73 million to fund the first set of free 2-K seats,” 2,000 spots in four neighborhoods — or $36,500 per “free” seat, which is half again the $24,000 market rate for day care (which is all 2-K even pretends to be) for such tots.
And MamCare doesn’t get any cheaper in Year Two, when the gov’s promised $425 million to handle about 12,000 2-K kiddies, which works out to $35,400 per (adorable little) head.
1) This isn’t “free”: dollars-for-donuts, it’s pretty pricey for the taxpayers.
2) It’s not the “investment” City Hall’s press release calls it: It’s a social-welfare program, a new entitlement whose costs will surely grow.
3) It’d be a lot cheaper to just give the parents vouchers to use at a private day-care — and likely more popular, too, since you’d have a lot more choice and could find a more convenient locale run by people you trust, rather than being stuck with the limited options the city offers.
Of course, then the workers wouldn’t be unionized members of the United Federation of Teachers, earning outsized perks and pay — with automatically-deducted dues that top off the UFT’s coffers to feed its vast political power.
And if you’re tempted to believe that government-run day care is going to be higher-quality, let us direct your attention to the city-run (or UFT-run) public schools, which spend $40,000 per kid for mediocre-at-best results.
Lot of parents will appreciate help making ends meet, but simply meeting their day-care needs plainly isn’t what MamdaniCare is all about.
