Liss details benefits of 2K for children, families, and economy

Children experience 90% of brain development before age 5 and a majority of it in their first few years of life.

Providing more children with high-quality early learning opportunities will set them up for a lifetime of academic and social-emotional success.

Parents currently spend an average of $26,000 for full-time child care for a two-year-old, though many families pay even more.

For parents, this can make it impossible to stay at a job they love and need to provide for their family because the math simply does not work.

For many, this leads to debt, tough trade-offs, or ultimately the decision to leave New York City.

Free 2K will make it easier for families to stay and raise their children here.

Because 2K will be offered in partnership with community-based child care programs and home-based providers, the program will bring resources to the work our educators and caregivers are already doing.

We have an opportunity, if we roll this program out in the right way, to support early childhood programs and educators as we do.

Ultimately, we believe 2K will bring significant economic return to our city, with more parents able to join the workforce, more families able to use their hard-earned resources in our local economy,

and more households with children able to stay in the city.

Despite the good return on investment, we are not doing this just for economic reasons, but more so because we believe that child care is and should be treated as a public good, and 2K is our first step toward delivering on that vision.