Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) Monday morning to discuss Mamdani’s plans for free, universal childcare at the District Council 37 union headquarters in downtown Manhattan.
Warren and Mamdani held a listening table with DC37 Executive Director Henry Garrido, hearing from childcare advocates and union membership as Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, continues to collect broader support from Democrats across the country.
“We know that it is our responsibility to move beyond the broken politics of the past, of our city and our state, and start to offer an alternative across this country to what it could look like to be a people that fight for the families that raise us,” Mamdani said of his plan to bring free childcare to New York City.
Warren described Mamdani as the “one person who has centered affordability” in the race for mayor, officially throwing her support behind the democratic socialist in the upcoming general election for mayor. Mamdani, who centered his primary campaign around promises to freeze rent, lower costs, and make buses free, has been an outspoken supporter of free universal childcare.
If elected, Mamdani has said, he would make childcare free for all NYC children aged six weeks to five years old. Mamdani has also pledged to raise wages for childcare workers. Currently, the city offers childcare vouchers to eligible families through the Administration for Children’s Services.
“I like this man, but what I like most of all is what he’s said he’ll fight for,” Warren said. “It’s so important that we have a leader who cares, but it’s also important that we have a leader who is steely on this issue.”
Warren described affordable childcare as “infrastructure” comparable to roads, bridges, and electricity — essential to keep a city running.
“If we want mommas and daddies to be able to go to work, then we need childcare all across New York City,” Warren said. “Even for people who say, ‘We’ll find a way to find the money,’ you still can’t find the slots. And that’s what happens when you take a basic piece of infrastructure and say to families, ‘You’re on your own.'”
New York City’s childcare system has increasingly faced staff shortages, rising costs, and limited spots for children. New York State has the second-highest average cost of childcare in the country, with families paying an annual average of $14,621 per child. In New York City, the average annual cost for childcare per child was $18,200 in 2024 — an increase of 79% since 2019.
Garrido, Warren, and Mamdani all discussed the impact that high childcare costs have on parents looking for work or trying to balance jobs with family. Mamdani said that the plan for free childcare is not only a “moral imperative” but an “economic imperative.”
Mamdani cited statistics showing that the city lost an estimated $23 billion in economic output in 2022 due to its childcare crisis — Mamdani said the loss in economic output is “nearly four times the cost what it would take for us to actually provide universal childcare.”
“We know that when other municipalities embark on this same journey, municipalities like Quebec, they saw a 10 to one return on that same investment,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani then criticized former Governor Andrew Cuomo — who lost the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June but rejoined the race as an independent candidate — for his creation of Tier 6 in 2012, which cut pension benefits for public employees and raised the retirement age.
“We know that this is all happening within a larger national context where Donald Trump is seeking to make it even more expensive to raise a family in this country,” Mamdani said. “Donald Trump is seeking to do the unthinkable, to put forward proposals and a vision of defunding Head Start, of all things.”
Congressional investigators found in July that President Donald Trump and his administration had illegally withheld funding from the federal Head Start program, which helps. fund childcare services for poor families. Head Start has long seen support from both sides of the aisle, but Trump floated its elimination in a draft for his recently-passed reconciliation bill.
After remarks from Mamdani, Warren, and Garrido, the trio heard from childcare advocates and parents about how free childcare would help in making ends meet.
Throughout Monday’s event, Warren and Mamdani slammed Trump for what they described as a failure to address the affordability crisis and bring prices down. Democrats in Congress and across the country have decried Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” for its cuts to healthcare and food benefits, which are expected to ramp up pressure on low income families who rely on federal assistance. Meanwhile, the bill eased taxes on billionaires and the ultra-wealthy — though it remains unclear exactly how much the country’s richest will save as a result of the legislation.
“For me, New York City is the place to start the conversation for Democrats on how affordability is the central issue, the central reason to be a Democrat, and that delivering on it in meaningful tangible ways that will touch working families is why we’re here,” Warren told press after the event.
Warren described Mamdani as a blueprint for Democrats across the country looking to center affordability in their campaigns and work — in Congress and beyond, Democrats are scrambling for a unified strategy to confront the national affordability crisis and bring working class Americans to the party in force. She aligned Cuomo with Congressional Republicans looking to “cut healthcare for millions of Americans and give away all of that money to a handful of billionaires.”
“I just want to be clear, if you’re for the billionaires, if you think New York City doesn’t work well enough for billionaires, if you think America doesn’t work well enough for billionaires, then shoot, go with Andrew Cuomo, go with the Republicans,” Warren said.
A spokesperson for Cuomo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
