Mayor Mamdani Names Cardi B As Example While Announcing NYC’s Largest Childcare Expansion

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a major expansion of subsidized childcare, moving 10,000 low-income families off the waitlist for affordable care.

The initiative marks the first time in 15 months that families have been removed from the voucher program’s backlog, which currently includes more than 29,000 children waiting for assistance.

Mamdani made the announcement at Bronx Works, an organization that runs high-quality childcare centers and partners with the city to help families access childcare vouchers.

During his remarks, the mayor referenced Cardi B as one of several Bronx natives who achieved greatness, using the rapper as an example of how public goods and services provide the foundation for success.

“For nearly three decades, the voucher program has helped give children in the Bronx and across our city a strong start in life, regardless of how much money their parents have in their pocket,” Mamdani said. “But we can only serve the number of children that the funding allows. And in May of 2025, the number of children in need of vouchers exceeded the program’s capacity. New families were placed on a wait list. A wait list that kept on growing. Today, there are more than 29,000 children on that wait list, with more being added by the day.”

Governor Kathy Hochul’s $1.2 billion investment in the city’s historic universal childcare program powers the expansion, including $475 million to stabilize and expand the voucher program.

The city is taking the expansion one step further by eliminating co-pays entirely.

“And I have to be honest, when I say affordable, I might be misspeaking because what I mean to say is 100% free,” Mamdani said. “This past August, we announced a $5.2 million investment to cover the fees that families would otherwise have to pay out of pocket. That means that every family currently in the program and every family coming off the wait list will not have to worry about whether or not they can afford the co-pays traditional to the voucher program.”

The city also launched a new feature on its childcare provider map at nyc.gov/childcare that allows families to search for providers accepting vouchers, including high-quality home-based providers.

Mamdani framed the expansion as part of a broader effort to make childcare a universal public good, comparing it to other services once considered radical but now standard.

He acknowledged that cynics reject the idea of universal childcare as a public good, but pointed out that the same criticism was once applied to public schools, parks, subways, libraries, sewers, trash collection, and street lamps.

“The marker of progress, my friends, is expanding both what is promised and to whom it is promised,” Mamdani said. “Bringing New York City closer to a future where every New Yorker can access universal child care. It’s about more than just lifting a financial burden from New Yorker’s shoulders.”

The mayor emphasized that the expansion will benefit the city in the long term.

He said that 30 years from now, when New York City is creating new art and music, it will be in part because children had access to the public goods they needed to succeed, including universal childcare.