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childcare
Mamdani Endorses Hochul, Citing Commitment to Ending 'Era of Empty Promises'
"New Yorkers deserve leaders who believe in transformation. Leaders who understand that hope is inspired by a vision, and sustained by change."
Feb 05, 2026
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani opened his essay explaining his decision to endorse Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in her run for reelection with the same words she spoke last month when the pair announced—just days after Mamdani was sworn in—that they had reached an agreement to deliver a universal childcare program for his city.
"The era of empty promises ends," Mamdani, also a Democrat, wrote at The Nation.
The universal childcare program for children aged 6 weeks to 5 years, which Hochul agreed to fund for its first two years, is "as consequential a policy victory as our movement has seen in quite some time," said the mayor, who is an avowed democratic socialist.
Although he and Hochul have "real differences, particularly when it comes to taxation of the wealthiest, at a moment defined by profound income inequality," Mandani wrote, the governor moved to provide $1.7 billion in state funding to expand the social safety net for millions of New York City families.
"We delivered this historic win together," he wrote, emphasizing that the unlikely duo, should Hochul win reelection, plan to continue engaging "in an honest dialogue that leads to results."
I'm endorsing Gov. @KathyHochul because she's someone willing to engage in honest dialogue that delivers results.Along with the movement that powered our campaign, it's how we secured a historic agreement on childcare. And we're just getting started.www.thenation.com/article/poli...
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— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 9:25 AM
Mamdani endorsed Hochul over Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who chose India Walton, a democratic socialist who ran for mayor of Buffalo in 2021, as his running mate this week. Delgado has positioned himself as a progressive challenger to Hochul, who has faced criticism from environmental justice groups for approving a fracked gas pipeline and has not thrown her support behind the single-payer New York Health Act as Delgado has.
Although Mamdani and Hochul disagree on some key issues, the mayor emphasized that he has “come to trust” the governor since she endorsed his campaign last September, when other top Democratic lawmakers like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) refused to do so.
"For too long, our politics has been defined by a familiar cycle: big promises, bitter fights, and little tangible progress. This stagnation has taken a toll," wrote Mamdani. "Those of us entrusted with the sacred oath of service must heed that call and work together to honor it. That requires not the absence of disagreement but the presence of trust. We must be able to disagree honestly while still delivering for the people we serve. Over the past six months, Gov. Hochul and I have done exactly that."
He added that in his collaboration with Hochul, he has seen a model for what the Democratic Party can be.
"At its best, the Democratic Party has been a big tent not because it avoids conflict but because it channels conflict toward progress," Mamdani wrote. "A party united not by conformity but by a commitment to structural change—and to the work required to achieve it."
"New Yorkers deserve leaders who believe in transformation. Leaders who understand that hope is inspired by a vision, and sustained by change," he wrote. "Gov. Kathy Hochul has earned my endorsement because she has chosen to govern in that spirit."
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Will Employers Invest in Our Kids? An Interview with Nancy Folbre
Children are getting more expensive for parents even as investment in future workers is becoming less cost-effective for employers. What should be done about it?
Jan 11, 2026
The Trump administration has suspended over $10 billion of federal childcare funds for five Democratic-led states over alleged fraud. So what if childcare in the United States is already outrageously expensive, much higher than in other developed countries? And why is it that childcare in the US is so expensive?
Socialist and feminist economist Nancy Folbre sheds light on these questions in the interview that follows by pointing out the various changes that have taken place over time in the organization of social reproduction and argues, in turn, that universal childcare, an idea that is becoming increasingly popular with voters across many parts of the United States, is very much needed.
Nancy Folbre is professor emerita of economics and director of the Program on Gender and Care Work at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
C. J. Polychroniou: You’ve written widely about the rising price of parenting. Despite concerns about a national birthrate that is now below replacement level, there seems to be relatively little public effort to increase economic support for parents and children in this country. Why?
Nancy Folbre: The undeclared wars the Trump administration is conducting include a brazen process of reducing public support for the next generation. This process began last spring when billionaire Elon Musk spearheaded budget cuts and layoffs in programs benefiting children and began dismantling the Department of Education. It escalated in the first week of 2026 when the administration used accusations of fraud from a partisan video of childcare centers in Minnesota as an excuse to freeze federal childcare funds to five Democratic states.
The strategy is transparent: Tar all social spending with a sticky claim of fraud and abuse. This includes spending on parents and children, already hurt by cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. These cuts have reduced the affordability of family care for all but the affluent, making a mockery of the Trump administration’s promises of prosperity for all.
An understanding of the deeper forces driving this strategy requires a deep dive into historical changes in the organization of our social reproduction.
A similar logic applies in a different direction to investments in us and our children—why risk them if they are not cost-effective? Robots may soon be cheaper, and they never go on strike OR vote.
Children are getting more expensive for parents even as investment in future workers is becoming less cost-effective for employers. Economic pressures became evident centuries ago when child labor was outlawed and technological change increased the demand for skilled labor. This shift in demand helped incentivize investments in public health and education that were financed by higher taxes. The need for future workers—and soldiers—also intensified the need for wages sufficient to support at least a modicum of family care.
While employers constantly sought ways to reduce labor costs, their need for an ample supply of skilled labor at least partially aligned their incentives with those of workers themselves through support for the so-called welfare state (better termed a “social investment” state) that helped develop and maintain the capabilities of the working population.
Fast forward to the present. The huge amounts of money being invested in artificial intelligence represent a new bet on reducing labor costs both directly (through reduced employment and wages) and indirectly (through reduced investment in health, education, and social services).
A recent Wall Street Journal headline put it this way: “AI Job Losses Are Coming, Tech Execs Say. The Question: Who’s Most at Risk?” The answer: most of us—because general artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to reduce private incentives to invest in humans rather than data centers. Elon Musk, who spearheaded efforts to cut federal spending in early 2025, is happily promoting Tesla’s new Optimus robot.
C. J. Polychroniou: You seem to be suggesting that class conflict affects public policies, which affect demographic outcomes (and vice versa). How do most economists think about these issues?
Nancy Folbre: Mainstream economists seldom pay much attention to collective identities or interests such as those based on class, gender, citizenship, or parenthood. Their general confidence in the efficiency of market forces makes them hopeful that that the labor market will adjust to changing prices—that new jobs will replace those rendered obsolete. However, college-educated, entry-level workers in the US are already experiencing diminished job prospects. Some economists predict that the “adjustment costs” will be high—a polite way of saying that the younger generation is in for an unpleasant economic shock.
Some ideological adjustment is also underway. The theory of “human capital” successfully promoted the view that the labor market would reward the skills represented by a college degree, reinforcing the claim that employees are generally paid according to the value of what they produce. The very term “human capital” suggests that there is no real distinction between capitalists and workers—everyone can be a capitalist by investing in their own earning power.
This utopian fantasy has long been countered by evidence that the environment people grow up in—including many factors well beyond their own control—shapes their economic trajectory. The fantasy is countered even more powerfully by evidence that the returns to a college education are now declining for individuals coming from low-income families. The surge of investment in AI raises the distinct possibility that the supply of “human capital” is likely to further exceed the demand for it, threatening downward mobility for a segment of the paid labor force once considered relatively secure.
Of course, even conservative economists recognize that a good education—from preschool to college--does more than merely increase lifetime earnings. It enhances the skills that people need to manage their own lives—skills like troubleshooting phones, making good decisions about what to buy, how to save, how to vote, and how to parent. Well-educated people live longer—and not just because they tend to earn more money.
But these benefits are not as profitable as increased productivity for a private firm.
Because they have characteristics of a public good, their economic contribution is difficult to measure, much less privately capture. Policies such as universal childcare, paid family or sick leave, and options to engage in employment from home yield significant economic returns, but these are not channeled directly to those who pay for them.
Standard economics textbooks note that firms have economic incentives to pollute the environment if this increases profitability, even if future inhabitants of the planet will pay a high price. A similar logic applies in a different direction to investments in us and our children—why risk them if they are not cost-effective? Robots may soon be cheaper, and they never go on strike OR vote.
C. J. Polychroniou: It sounds like you’re arguing that the theory of “human capital” no longer holds much water. But there are some economists out there who have articulated larger criticisms of capitalist institutions in general. How do these criticisms connect the rising private cost of children, fertility decline, and the possible obsolescence of the white-collar labor force?
Nancy Folbre: Kind of a long story, but I’ll keep it short! Economists like myself, influenced by socialist and feminist ideas, highlight the institutional arrangements that shape the distribution of the costs of raising children and the reproduction of human society itself. In many precapitalist societies, parents enjoyed at least partial payback for the costs of childrearing, as adult children contributed to family income and the support of their elders. Capitalist institutions encouraged labor mobility and reliance on individual earnings, weakening such family and community-based transfers.
Democratic engagement and bargaining over the role of the state gradually led to a different system of intergenerational transfers, taxing employers and the working-age population to help finance public education for the young and pensions and healthcare for the elderly.
This institutional compromise helped stabilize the process of “social reproduction” but also led to unequal distribution of its costs. It allowed employers to keep their contributions to the production of the next generation relatively low. It delivered fewer benefits to parents (those devoting time and money to producing new workers and taxpayers) than to non-parents. It also reinforced a gender division of labor that imposed a disproportionate share of the private costs of family care on women.
We can’t continue to treat care as a kind of expensive hobby rather than a productive contribution to our collective future.
These inequalities amplified increases in the private cost of raising children (for mothers in particular), encouraging efforts to limit family size. New technologies, increased demand for skills, and opportunities for employment outside the home also played an obvious role.
Until recently, fertility decline was considered an economic boon, allowing more women to enter paid employment and promoting the growth of Gross Domestic Product. As is now widely recognized, however, below-replacement fertility poses problems of its own. When women bear less than about 2.1 children over their lifetime, they don’t generate enough surviving children to “replace” their biological parents.
If this rate persists, the size of the youngest generation declines steadily over time, increasing the share of the elderly population relative to the employment-age, tax-paying population. The economic burden of increased old-age dependency increases political conflict over who should pay the costs—and can intensify the economic stresses of caring for younger dependents as well.
Reduction in the size of the global population offers some potential benefits, given current threats to the global environment (not to mention the dicey future of decent jobs). But if we prove unable to get back up to replacement levels of fertility at some point in the future, we will render ourselves extinct. I’d call that a pretty acute crisis of social reproduction.
C. J. Polychroniou: How can we avert such a crisis? Are you suggesting that we adopt pronatalist policies? How do responses in other countries differ from those in the US?
Nancy Folbre: No. We’re not in a state of demographic emergency and we don’t need to encourage a higher birth rate. Much of the global population is suffering from lack of decent employment. And the number of children in the US harmed by poverty makes investment in child health and education a much higher priority than increasing births here.
However, investments in child “quality” can help stabilize and strengthen private commitments. Many other countries are implementing policies designed to make family care more affordable. As is well-known, most affluent European countries have put such policies in place. South Korea began providing universal childcare services in 2013 and is now increasing parental leave allowances. Canada is a more nearby example, with its rollout of a new federal childcare system that will offer universal childcare services at a private cost of $10 a day. Within the US, both New Mexico and New York City are setting an example with new initiatives.
The US as a whole is lagging beyond for several reasons. Racial and ethnic divisions, regional differences, and exceptionally high levels of earnings inequality have weakened the solidarity needed to build a “pro-care” coalition. Imperialist rhetoric and illegal military actions have literally bloodied the water.
As I argue in my forthcoming book, Making Care Work, we need to do a better job explaining the public benefits of investment in human capabilities, including the care of people experiencing illness, frailty, or disability. We can’t continue to treat care as a kind of expensive hobby rather than a productive contribution to our collective future.
Let’s talk about how to move forward in another interview—I think that a universal basic income will be part of the solution, even though it will face vehement opposition. Will employers invest in our kids? Only if we can make them.
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Democrat-Led States Sue Trump Admin for 'Unlawful' Federal Childcare Funding Freeze
"It is especially pathetic that, once again, his administration's actions are inflicting harm on the most vulnerable among us," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
Jan 09, 2026
The Democratic attorneys general of California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York on Thursday sued President Donald Trump's administration over its "extraordinary and cruel action to immediately freeze $10 billion in federal funds that plaintiff states use to help provide services and cash assistance that allow families to access food, safe housing, and childcare."
Amid a childcare funding fraud scandal in Minnesota, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday announced the halt on a total of around $7.35 billion for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, $2.4 billion for the Child Care and Development Fund, and $870 million for social services grants for those five Democrat-led states.
The states' complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York, says that the department and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., along with the Administration for Children and Families and its leader, Alex Adams, "have no statutory or constitutional authority to do this. Nor do they have any justification for this action beyond a desire to punish plaintiff states for their political leadership. The action is thus clearly unlawful many times over."
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison argued that "withholding all funding for these vital programs will not help fight fraud as purported, and will instead shred the finances of Minnesotans already struggling to get by. Without childcare assistance, poor families will be forced to choose between parents going to work and paying their bills or staying home to provide childcare during their working hours. And it's not just families who benefit from these programs that will suffer."
"Minnesota's entire childcare system will be put under immense strain if childcare centers lose the funding provided by these programs, which could force centers to lay off staff or close their doors entirely," Ellison warned. "This extreme outcome is not just cruel, it's also another example of the Trump administration going off the rails and deciding not to follow the processes and mechanisms Congress put in place to manage federal grants in a responsible way."
"Federal laws and regulations give a roadmap for reasonable, legal ways to audit funding programs and address areas of potential noncompliance, but this 'funding freeze' takes a chainsaw to the entire system without regard to who it hurts," the former congressman stressed. "I will not allow that to happen, so today I am filing a lawsuit to halt these cuts and protect families across Minnesota from Trump's heartless attack on low-income families."
BREAKING--We have filed our 50th lawsuit against the Trump Administration, challenging its illegal and harmful actions. It addresses the withholding of funds for the neediest among us, including access to child care. I will always fight for Colorado. www.axios.com/local/denver...
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— Phil Weiser (@philweiser.bsky.social) January 9, 2026 at 11:18 AM
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Wednesday that at least one other targeted state is being investigated. She said that "the president has directed all agencies across the board to look at federal spending programs in not just Minnesota, but also in the state of California to identify fraud and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all those who have committed it."
After the federal suit was filed, HHS General Counsel Mike Stuart said that the department "stands by its decision to take this action to defend American taxpayers" and "it's unfortunate that these attorney generals from these Democrat-led states are less focused on reducing fraud and more focused on partisan political stunts."
Meanwhile, California Attorney General Rob Bonta—who has now taken the Trump administration to court over 50 times—declared that "the American people are sick and tired of President Trump's lawlessness, lies, and misinformation campaigns."
"It is especially pathetic that, once again, his administration's actions are inflicting harm on the most vulnerable among us," he said. "As a society, we are rightly judged by how we treat our neighbors in need, and this is a shameful way to treat them."
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul similarly ripped the funding freeze as not only "unlawful" but "particularly callous," while New York's Letitia James also highlighted that "once again, the most vulnerable families in our communities are bearing the brunt of this administration’s campaign of chaos and retribution."
"After jeopardizing food assistance and healthcare, this administration is now threatening to cut off childcare and other critical programs that parents depend on to provide for their children," James continued. "As New Yorkers struggle with the rising cost of living, I will not allow this administration to play political games with the resources families need to help make ends meet.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser emphasized that "the US Constitution does not permit the president to single out states for punishment based on their exercise of core sovereign powers," and vowed that "the administration cannot punish Colorado into submission."
In addition to being blasted by leaders from the five targeted states, the funding freeze has been condemned by a growing number of elected officials across the country. US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted Friday that the move could impact nearly 340,000 children.
"At a time when our childcare system is already struggling, this will be a disaster for working parents and their kids," Sanders said. "This illegal order must be rescinded."
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