Naomi Veerasammy and her 2-year-old daughter leave their Jamaica, Queens, apartment weekday mornings by 6:30 a.m. and head to the home of whichever friend or relative has agreed to watch the toddler that day.

Veersammy, a paraprofessional at a public elementary school, relies on a rotating cast of relatives and friends to watch her daughter for little to no pay, so she can still make it to work by 8 a.m. on the city bus.

The single mom nets under $2,000 a month in income and can鈥檛 afford full-time day care, which costs between .

鈥淚t鈥檚 very, very hard on me financially, mentally, physically to find a sitter for my daughter every day,鈥� Veersammy said, adding that her daughter needs stability.

Hoping for more stable child care, Veerasammy applied for worth an average of $300 a week for kids up to age 13 from low-income families across the state.

Veerasammy met , but the city . She鈥檚 now on a waitlist that has mushroomed to 10,000 city children. It鈥檚 a glaring indication of both the exploding child care affordability crisis for the city鈥檚 middle- and low-income families and the insufficiency of the current publicly funded options to help defray those costs, experts said.

The massive waitlist is also an acute crisis in and of itself 鈥� one that threatens to and shutter .

Andrea Davilar, a family child care provider in St. Albans, Queens, currently has only four of her 12 full-day seats filled. She suspects there are families on the waitlist who are interested in enrolling their kids, but can鈥檛 until they receive vouchers.

鈥淎re they trying to force us out of business?鈥� she said of the city鈥檚 waitlist. 鈥淭hey have to remember we are the backbone behind the workforce.鈥�

Losing family child care providers is something the city can ill afford at a time when incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani is hoping to 鈥� an expansion that would likely lean heavily on home-based programs.

That鈥檚 part of why some observers are encouraging Mamdani to make clearing the voucher waitlist his first step on what could be a long road to building free child care.

Issuing vouchers to those 10,000 kids would bring 鈥渧irtually free child care immediately鈥� to a wide swath of city families, said Lauren Melodia, an economist at the New School鈥檚 Center for New York City Affairs who studies child care.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not the big vision 鈥� but you want to be able to deliver services to people while you鈥檙e building the big vision,鈥� she added.

Mamdani鈥檚 transition team didn鈥檛 respond to a request for comment.

Vouchers are a key tool for infant, toddler, after-school care

The vouchers can be redeemed at a wide range of child care providers or even used to pay approved relatives or friends. They鈥檙e an especially critical resource for families with kids 2 and under who don鈥檛 qualify for the city鈥檚 free 3-K and prekindergarten programs as well as those who need care outside of school hours.

Separate from the vouchers, the city funds a limited number of free seats for kids 2 and under from low-income families. But families often don鈥檛 know about the seats or how to apply, experts have said. Roughly 40% of those seats .

Officials in Mayor Eric Adams鈥� administration said the voucher program鈥檚 costs are soaring because of the program鈥檚 popularity, an increase in the voucher鈥檚 value, and a growing number of families who are supposed to receive subsidized child care as a condition of their federal welfare benefits.

Officials predict the city will need a total of $2.9 billion from the state in the upcoming budget 鈥� $1.8 billion more than the city typically receives 鈥� just to maintain the program.

Melodia, the economist, said the cost of providing vouchers to all the families on the waitlist for a year would be more modest: around $155 million.

Gordon Tepper, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, said 鈥渘o one has done more to support and expand child care statewide鈥� than the governor, noting that she has doubled funding for the voucher program and wants to reach universal child care.

Demand for vouchers boomed as eligibility widened

The voucher program鈥檚 current budget crunch traces back to a .

Prior to the pandemic, the city to families receiving federal cash assistance, whose child care the city is required to subsidize because their benefits come with work requirements.

Those work requirements relaxed during the pandemic, keeping more families at home with less need for child care. The number of vouchers going to those families fell from over 55,000 in 2017 to under 19,000 in 2022.

That drop, combined with a one-time infusion of federal relief funds, allowed Hochul to significantly expand the eligibility criteria for the vouchers, opening them to families who make under 85% of the state median income, or roughly $114,000 a year for a family of four.

At the same time, Hochul nearly doubled the value of the vouchers, from an average of $154 a week in 2019 to $301 a week last year. The change made the vouchers more attractive to families and providers 鈥� and expensive for the state.

City families flocked to the vouchers. Enrollment in the low-income voucher program

The changes created a major budget cliff.

After federal pandemic aid dried up, city officials resumed enforcing work requirements, bringing an expected surge of families who receive federal assistance to request vouchers.

To avoid kicking thousands of families out of the program each month, city officials asked the state, which has historically funded most of the voucher system, to commit an additional $900 million to the $1 billion city program.

Hochul eventually agreed to free up an additional $350 million for the program, contingent on the city chipping in the same amount.

That infusion allowed the city to continue offering vouchers to the majority of families who were already enrolled, city officials said. But it wasn鈥檛 enough to enroll new families.

Starting last May, the city began placing eligible new applicants for low-income vouchers on a waitlist, which has grown from to its current 10,000.

Parents on voucher waitlist are desperate for relief

For families stuck on the waitlist, shouldering the costs of child care on their own often comes at the expense of other basic needs.

Milana Kochishvili, a mother of two elementary school children in southern Brooklyn, applied for vouchers after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer鈥檚, leaving the family to rely on her $72,000 annual income as a payroll specialist at a plumbing company. But she has been on the waitlist for months.

The only after-school option that works with her schedule costs about $800 a month. With $4,500 a month in take-home pay 鈥� nearly half of which goes to pay rent 鈥� it鈥檚 an expense she can鈥檛 afford.

鈥淚鈥檓 in a position now where I can only afford basics,鈥� she said. 鈥淕od forbid the car breaks or something like that, that鈥檚 it.鈥�

Adams recently , with a pledge to add 20,000 seats by 2027. But for some parents who work longer hours, the schedule of the city鈥檚 free programs don鈥檛 fit their needs.

Kimberly Watson, a single mom of an elementary student in Brooklyn, works as a caseworker in a hospital and needed an after-school program with longer hours. The private program she found costs $450 a month 鈥� an untenable expense for Watson, who takes home roughly $2,700 a month in income and spends $1,200 on rent.

She applied for a child care voucher and cleared the eligibility threshold, but was placed on the waitlist. Paying for child care has left her behind on some utility bills 鈥� and even on her rent, she said.

Getting a voucher would mean she can 鈥渏ust cut back on one thing that I have to worry about so I can catch up on other things.鈥�

For Veerasammy, the paraprofessional with a 2-year-old, there could be some economic relief on the horizon: that would give paraprofessionals a $10,000 recurring annual bonus.

But she said that money would go toward paying off credit card debt, leaving her still in need of a voucher.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

The threat wasn鈥檛 the Cold War; it wasn鈥檛 tension in the Middle East; and it wasn鈥檛 international or domestic terrorism.

The threat was a lack of affordable, accessible, high-quality child care.

The makeup of the armed forces changed following the shift from a national draft to an all-volunteer military after the war in Vietnam. More service members had families in the late 1970s and 1980s 鈥� many of them with young children. And many more of those families included two working parents than in previous decades.

The child care crisis faced by the military 40 to 50 years ago was similar to the one civilians face today. More families with working parents increased the demand for child care. Thousands of children languished on waitlists, forcing families to consider forms of supervision that lacked consistent standards for safety, teacher training, student/teacher ratios, and curricula. Teachers were poorly compensated, and turnover was high.

Back then, as now, parents couldn鈥檛 afford the fees necessary to cover the costs of addressing these challenges, and limited public investment wasn鈥檛 enough to fill the gap.

Because the child care crisis was seen as a threat to the collective future of Americans, elected officials took action. Congress passed the , which put a priority on affordability, accessibility, and quality in child care for service members.

With the that were undertaken during the pandemic, North Carolinians now face a similar threat to our own collective future. The military鈥檚 approach offers lessons for where we can go from here, in our communities and across our state.

An experiment in universal child care

The Military Child Care Act wasn鈥檛 the first time the military had taken the lead on child care. During World War II, women entered the workforce in massive numbers, filling the roles of men who were drafted to serve in the military. This raised the question of who would care for children when both parents were working outside the home to defend American interests.

Congress responded with the , creating a nationwide, universal child care system to support working families with children through age 12. Federal grants were issued to communities that demonstrated their need for child care related to parents working in the defense industry.

The program distributed $1.4 billion (in 2025 dollars) between 1943 and 1946 to more than 600 communities in 47 states. The grants could be used to build and maintain child care facilities, train and compensate teachers, and provide meals to students.

In his of the Lanham Act鈥檚 outcomes for mothers and children, Chris M. Herbst, of Arizona State University鈥檚 School of Public Affairs, found that 鈥渢he Lanham Act increased maternal employment several years after the program was dismantled.鈥�

Herbst also found that 鈥渃hildren exposed to the program were more likely to be employed, to have higher earnings, and to be less likely to receive cash assistance as adults.鈥�

One lesson Herbst took from his research was that the Lanham Act was successful because of the broad support it received from parents, advocates for education and women, and employers. He noted: 鈥淓ach group was committed to its success because something larger was at stake.鈥�

Today鈥檚 military-operated child care model

While the Lanham Act was a short-lived national experiment that hasn鈥檛 received much study, the military鈥檚 child care program since adoption of the Military Child Care Act of 1989 has become a widely acclaimed model for publicly subsidized early care and learning, serving about 200,000 children each year.

Four categories of child care are available through military-operated child care programs: Child Development Centers (CDCs), Family Child Care (FCC), 24/7 Centers, and School Aged Care (SAC). describes each program type:

• Child Development Centers (CDCs) 鈥� CDCs provide child care services for infants, pretoddlers, toddlers, and preschoolers. They operate Monday through Friday during standard work hours, and depending on the location offer full-day, part-day, and hourly care.
• Family Child Care (FCC) 鈥斅� Family child care is provided by qualified child care professionals in their homes. Designed for infants through school agers, each FCC provider determines what care they offer, which may include full-day, part-day, school year, summer camp, 24/7, and extended care.聽
• 24/7 Centers 鈥� 24/7 Centers provide child care for infants through school age children in a home-like setting during both traditional and non-traditional hours on a regular basis. The program is designed to support watch standers or shift workers who work rotating or non-traditional schedules (i.e., evenings, overnights, and weekends).聽
• School Aged Care (SAC) 鈥� School age care is facility-based care for children from the start of kindergarten through the end of the summer after seventh grade. This program type operates Monday through Friday during standard work hours. SAC programs provide both School Year Care and Summer Camp.

Requirements for military-operated child care programs are typically more stringent than state requirements. For one thing, they must be accredited by one of the following: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), National Early Childhood Program Accreditation (NECPA), the Council on Accreditation (COA), or the National Accreditation Commission (NAC).

For context, the requirements for licensed child care in North Carolina are relatively stringent compared with other states, but still fall below the requirements for NAEYC accreditation, which is widely recognized as the national standard. Only in our state are NAEYC-accredited 鈥� many of which are Head Start or military-operated programs 鈥� out of about .

Military-operated child care programs offer families hourly, part-day, full-day, extended, or overnight care, plus afterschool and summer programs.

Fees are on a , ranging from $45 to $224 per week.

The maximum rate is on par with the national average for civilian child care in 2023, meaning that almost every family using military-operated child care programs is paying less than the national average for typically higher-quality early care and learning.

The Department of Defense budgeted about $1.8 billion for child care in 2024 鈥� about 0.2% of its $841.4 billion total budget.

Military child care in North Carolina

In addition to military-operated child care programs, service members may be eligible for (MCCYN), a fee assistance program for families who can鈥檛 access military-operated child care. MCCYN pays a portion of the cost of enrolling children in early care and learning programs that meet the military鈥檚 high-quality standards in their community.

North Carolina is one of 19 locations where military families may be eligible for , which expands the MCCYN program to child care programs that participate in state or local Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) in places where nationally accredited care is not available.

Both programs rely on the availability of high-quality child care in civilian communities. That鈥檚 a challenge in North Carolina, which was already facing a child care shortage before the pandemic. Our state has lost almost 6% of licensed child care programs since February 2020, because stabilization grants have ended.

According to the , there are 12 military bases and more than 130,000 active-duty military members in North Carolina, giving us the fourth-largest active-duty military population in the nation.

In January 2025, hosted the state鈥檚 first N.C. Military Community Childcare Summit, organized by the North Carolina Department of Military and Veteran Affairs (NCDMVA) to discuss the problem that military communities are having with access to community-based child care.

The summit culminated in a , a documentary about North Carolina鈥檚 child care crisis produced by the state Department of Health and Human Services and featuring EdNC鈥檚 early childhood reporter, Liz Bell.

Along similar lines, at the in April 2025, the theme was and the summit included a .

Higher compensation for higher quality

The issues of spouse resilience and child care are inextricably linked for Angie Mullennix, who works for at Fort Bragg, helping members of the U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) transition to careers in the private sector after their military service.

Mullennix served in the U.S. Army for four years after high school and has previously worked for the Department of Public Instruction as the state military liaison. Her husband recently retired from the SOF himself. They have two teenage children.

鈥淚f you look at the number of military spouses in North Carolina who have degrees and credentials and could be in the workforce, from nurses to lawyers, lots of them are staying at home,鈥� Mullennix said.

鈥淎 big reason why about 40% of (military) spouses do not work is because of child care not being available to them,鈥� Mullennix said, noting that lack of child care is also a barrier to workforce participation among the civilian population.

When Mullennix鈥檚 children were under the age of 5, she used hourly child care on base, which was available at no cost when her husband was away on assignment.

鈥淵ou ask any parent in the world, I don鈥檛 care who they are, there鈥檚 nothing more important than their child鈥檚 safety 鈥� then their education,鈥� Mullennix said. 鈥淎nd yet, the two things we think are the most important, we put (their providers) at the lowest pay and ask them to do quality care.鈥�

That鈥檚 what sets military child care apart from civilian early care and learning for Mullennix: high quality standards and higher pay for early childhood educators, including benefits. She sees lessons in this for North Carolina.

鈥淵ou gotta pay them to keep them, there鈥檚 no secret behind that,鈥� Mullennix said. 鈥淚f you pay them high, you can also set the standards really high.鈥�

And because workforce participation 鈥� and military readiness 鈥� is directly tied to the accessibility and affordability of high-quality child care, not investing in it threatens our collective future.

鈥淣orth Carolina, or any state that doesn鈥檛 offer child care, is shooting itself in the foot,鈥� Mullennix said.

Lessons from military child care

Policymakers at every level who are seeking to end the child care crisis can learn much from the military child care model. offers these lessons:

1. Do not be daunted by the task. It is possible to take a woefully inadequate child care system and dramatically improve it.
2. Recognize and acknowledge the seriousness of the child care problem and the consequences of inaction.聽
3. Improve quality by establishing and enforcing comprehensive standards, assisting providers in becoming accredited, and enhancing provider compensation and training.聽
4. Keep parent fees affordable through subsidies.聽
5. Expand the availability of all kinds of care by continually assessing unmet need and taking concrete action steps to address it.聽
6. Commit the resources necessary to get the job done.聽

That report was published 25 years ago by the National Women鈥檚 Law Center, but its lessons hold up today. Similar lessons have been highlighted in more recent articles published by , 蜜桃影视 Million, and , along with before the Council for a Strong America dissolved last year.

EdNC ran these lessons by , CEO of , and , director of policy for the at the University of Nebraska 鈥� and one of the primary architects of the military child care system.

Both agreed these are the right takeaways for policymakers across North Carolina to consider.

Lesson 1: Do not be daunted by the task

Gale Perry said the top lesson for her is: 鈥淪tart where you are, know that change is possible, and have a goal post in mind.鈥�

She pointed out that the military鈥檚 goal wasn鈥檛 a fully publicly funded child care system. It was a system that acknowledged Americans鈥� values around the role of parents in raising young children 鈥� and paying for their care and education. But also that their employers and the government 鈥渉ave a role in offsetting that cost, so that we can ensure that child care is quality, and it is stable, and that the families can actually afford it.鈥�

Smith said there was no 鈥渟ilver bullet鈥� when she and her colleagues were tasked with solving the military鈥檚 child care crisis in the 1990s 鈥� and there isn鈥檛 one for the civilian child care crisis today.

We had to redo the standards, we had to look at the workforce, we had to look at the health and safety issues, we had to look at the fees and how we could bring those fees down. We had to look at the infrastructure of all of it. We鈥檝e got to start thinking about the interconnectedness of all of these things if we鈥檙e going to be successful in this country.

Smith said people think that because she worked for the secretary of defense, 鈥淚 could just tell all the bases what to do, and that would magically happen, which is so not true. It wasn鈥檛 just like we could give an order and everybody jumped.鈥�

She said you just have to start where you are, and move up.

Lesson 2: Acknowledge the seriousness of the problem and the consequences of inaction

鈥淭he military understood very early the link between people getting to work and child care,鈥� Smith said.

As the military shifted away from relying on conscription and became a more welcoming workplace for women, the need for child care became evident. Smith described working on a base where children were routinely left in cars when their parents were unexpectedly called into work.

鈥淪o (military leaders) really got the connection to their guys going to work very quickly, and I think that we still haven鈥檛 all understood that in this country,鈥� Smith said, though she notes businesses have started making that connection since the pandemic.

鈥淭he other thing the military understood was that a pilot is every bit as important as the mechanic who works on the plane, and so they invest in all of their people,鈥� Smith said.

She and her team had to design a program that worked for everyone, or it wouldn鈥檛 work for anyone.

Lesson 3: Improve quality

Smith said quality was of critical importance when she was designing the military鈥檚 child care system in the 1990s, especially after child abuse and neglect scandals that came to light in the 1980s.

She and her team studied the child care standards of all 50 states and created a set of military standards that fell squarely in the middle. Then they set about training the 22,000 early childhood educators they already had 鈥� most of whom were military spouses 鈥� to meet those standards.

That was a six-month training program. Then there was an 18-month training to get them to move beyond those standards toward national accreditation. They hired highly qualified trainers to work with educators at each site.

鈥淎nd if you didn鈥檛 do it, guess what? You鈥檙e fired!鈥� Smith said.

There was an incentive to participate in the training, beyond keeping their jobs 鈥� higher compensation.

鈥淢aybe some were grumpy about it, but we didn鈥檛 have to fire people,鈥� Smith said.

North Carolina already has some tools in place to help educators advance their education and improve their compensation, specifically through the WAGE$ and TEACH programs 鈥� both of which were highlighted in the report that identified these lessons.

鈥�(The military) realized they had to get serious about quality and quality standards. And I would say that鈥檚 a lesson for us now, particularly in a climate that is deregulatory,鈥� Gale Perry said. 鈥淎nd while I鈥檓 for sensible regulatory reform, I think we have to be really thoughtful about not wanting stacks of child deaths in child care sitting on a desk waiting to be investigated.鈥�

Lesson 4: Keep parent fees affordable through subsidies

Smith said that while designing the military鈥檚 child care program, she and her team figured out that there was no way parents could afford the actual cost of high-quality child care. So they set up a subsidized system that would provide a 50% match 鈥� on average 鈥� to parents鈥� fees, paid directly to child care programs.

鈥淲e had to, on average, match parent fees dollar-for-dollar, with the higher-income people paying more and the lower-income paying less,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淪o a major, for example, would pay two-thirds of the cost, and a private would pay one-third, but the average was 50/50.鈥�

Smith pointed out that we鈥檙e already subsidizing child care in ways that are hidden 鈥� through the public benefits and social programs that early childhood educators often rely on because of low compensation, and through lack of workforce participation.

Lesson 5: Expand the availability of all kinds of care

Gale Perry said the military鈥檚 model really stands out to her for its ability to assess unmet needs and take action to improve.

鈥淚n the early 2000s when there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were a lot of deployments of National Guard and Reserve who did not live on post and did not have access to on-post child care,鈥� Gale Perry said. 鈥淭hat is really when the military got in the business of thinking about, how do we help build capacity and make child care accessible for military families off post?鈥�

That鈥檚 when the MCCYN came about, subsidizing high-quality early care and learning in a broader array of settings in the communities where service members live.

Smith said that the Military Child Care Act was originally targeted toward child care centers, but she recalls briefing the assistant secretary of defense on the potential effects of that strategy when they were designing the system:

I remember saying we need to apply all of this to family child care, to school-aged care, to part-day preschools, because if we don鈥檛, all the parents are going to have a demand on these centers that we can鈥檛 meet, right? Because if you lower the cost in the centers and you improve the quality, why would somebody go to another place when they get it cheaper and better over here?

She made the case for educators in every setting getting the same access to training and the same level of compensation, because that鈥檚 what would work best for everyone.

鈥淓verything applies to everybody,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淎nd I think that was one of the smartest policy decisions we made.鈥�

Lesson 6: Commit the resources necessary to get the job done

鈥淭here was this perception that we just had a lot of money and we threw it at鈥� child care, Smith said. But that wasn鈥檛 the case.

鈥淲hen they passed the Military Child Care Act, it didn鈥檛 come with an appropriation,鈥� Gale Perry said. 鈥淪o they had to fight equally hard for the funding, and a lot of the funding actually ended up coming from local base commanders making the decision to invest in child care.鈥�

Now the military submits a budget request to Congress each year, and depends on those appropriations.

For state and local policymakers seeking to solve the civilian child care crisis without public investment, the woman credited with solving the military鈥檚 own child care crisis 35 years ago has a message.

鈥淚t鈥檚 gonna cost. There鈥檚 no way it doesn鈥檛 cost,鈥� Smith said.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .