Long Island childcare costs are among America's highest. Providers say they're struggling to survive.

Meri Urena expected to return to work full time after giving birth to twin daughters last April.

Then she started pricing childcare.

After touring a daycare center with locations on Long Island and across the country, the Amityville mother said she was quoted $640 for just two days of care each week for her infant daughters — roughly $160 per child, per day.

For Urena and her husband, whose combined annual income is about $100,000, the cost put full-time childcare out of reach.

"Right now, it’s a little hard because there’s only one and a half paychecks coming in and it’s tough," said Urena, 44. "My plan was to come back to work full time. But after looking into the daycare costs, it’s nearly impossible."

Instead, Urena has remained part time at her customer service job while she and her husband piece together childcare with help from family.

Across Long Island, parents are confronting childcare costs that can exceed a year of tuition at a state college, forcing some families to delay careers, reduce work hours or leave the workforce altogether.

The price of childcare is prohibitive for many Long Island parents, with median prices for infant care at a daycare center totaling $21,000 annually, according to a 2024 New York State Office of Children and Family Services report.

Yet despite those high prices, childcare operators say many centers operate on thin margins because labor, insurance, rent and regulatory requirements consume most of the revenue they bring in.

The average annual price of childcare in New York was higher than every other state except Massachusetts between 2018 and 2023, and grew 18% during that period from $12,422 to $14,621 per child, according to federal Labor Department data.

Prices for infant care are about 55.7% higher at a daycare center in New York than the national average, according to Child Care Aware of America.

The shortage has compounded the problem. A 2025 state comptroller report found 60% of census tracts in New York were "childcare deserts" in 2023, including 23 on Long Island with no childcare at all.

"The bottom line is that it’s a regulated industry, as it should be, so there are very specific requirements on the number of staff you need based on the ages of the children, your square footage, the training that you need to have and all of those overhead structures," said Jennifer Rojas, executive director of the Suffolk County Child Care Council.

"When you add all of that up, it ends up costing a lot."

Why childcare costs so much

The challenge, operators and advocates say, is that childcare is both essential and labor-intensive. Parents struggle to afford care, while providers say the cost of operating a center leaves little room for profit.

"It’s a business model that is fundamentally flawed," said Linda Smith, executive director of The Child Care Trust, a national childcare policy organization supported by Child Care Aware.

"In any business, when the cost or price of the product is more than what most of your customers can afford, you have a failing business model," Smith said.

Despite the low wages childcare providers earn, Smith said, payroll often accounts for 75% to 85% of the total price parents pay for care. By comparison, businesses generally allot 7.5% to 30% of revenue to payroll, according to payroll company ADP.

Childcare workers on Long Island earn a median annual income of $38,844, according to state Labor Department figures. Childcare administrators earn a median income of $94,809, though experts said operators often go without a defined salary because of thin margins.

The economics of childcare disproportionately affect women on both sides of the equation, experts said.

When families decide one parent should stay home because childcare is too expensive, mothers are often the ones who leave the workforce, Smith said.

At the same time, childcare itself remains a predominantly female profession. Statewide, 96% of childcare workers are women, according to the New York Early Childhood Professional Development Institute.

Because the industry is overwhelmingly female and wages remain relatively low, childcare contributes to broader gender pay disparities, Smith said. The workforce is also disproportionately diverse. About 60% of early childcare workers identify as nonwhite, according to the institute.

"It does vary from state to state ... but we do know that it’s substantially women of color that are providing the care," Smith said.

Janna Rodriguez, owner of The Innovative Daycare Corp. in Freeport, said overhead is one of the industry’s biggest challenges.

Payroll alone runs between $10,000 and $13,000 a month, Rodriguez said. Rent for the home-based daycare is another $4,500 a month, while food and snacks can cost between $2,300 and $4,400 a month depending on the time of year. Add insurance, maintenance, curriculum supplies and utilities, and it becomes difficult to offer higher wages or turn much of a profit, she said.

Assistants at her center make around $18 an hour, she said.

Rising costs and the inability to fully pass them on to families leave many providers in a precarious position, Rodriguez said.

"It’s the reason why so many are leaving the sector," Rodriguez said. "They can’t pass on those costs to families."

Labor is such a large expense because state regulations require providers to maintain strict staffing ratios, particularly for infants.

Because of state regulations that require childcare operators who accept infants to have a certain number of staff on hand, payroll is one of the largest expenses for operators.

"The younger the children, the higher the cost goes up," Smith said. "As the children get older and more children are in the program, that tends to offset the cost of infants."

"Childcare is unlike any other business because it’s extremely expensive because it’s labor intensive," said Yohaina Martinez, owner of Little Feet Big Steps Daycare in North Babylon.

According to state regulations, home-based childcare providers must have one adult staffer on site for every two infants. Child care centers must maintain one staffer for every four infants.

"Being that I can only have two infants for every one adult, that minimum wage is $17 an hour this year, and will keep going up ... most of what the tuition is going towards is salary," Martinez said.

When the math doesn’t work

In 2023, Gov. Kathy Hochul expanded eligibility for the Child Care Assistance Program as part of a $7.6 billion investment in childcare over four years, allowing families of four earning up to $116,492.50 to qualify for assistance.

The expansion dramatically increased participation. In January, the governor’s office said the program was serving 170,000 children statewide — 100,000 more than when Hochul took office. The number of children receiving assistance grew by about 25% last year alone, according to the state.

"The eligibility has increased a lot, and that is great," Rojas said.

But the growth has created new pressures.

Currently, Suffolk County is not accepting new CCAP applications because of insufficient funding, Rojas said.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said funding remains available there and the county is "continuing to accept applications in a timely manner."

"There has been no break in services," Blakeman said.

The recently approved state budget includes another $2.2 billion investment in childcare, including $400 million intended to preserve childcare subsidies statewide. The state also has allotted roughly $150 million in grant funding to expand child care capacity and workforce development.

State officials said Hochul has invested more than $11.9 billion in childcare since taking office and nearly tripled the number of children served through CCAP.

While those investments have expanded access, experts said the broader economics of childcare remain difficult.

"In the vast majority of states, prices fall below what it costs providers to provide the care," said Sandra Bishop, senior director of research with Child Care Aware. "And the government subsidies are even lower than that. It’s a huge discrepancy."

Smith said, "the whole system is set up as a fail-fail."

Ashley Vaughn, an East Northport mother of four, said childcare costs pushed her family out of the market. Vaughn, 37, said for 10 years she worked full time as a corporate training manager at a home furnishing business.

During the pandemic, the job went remote, allowing Vaughn and her husband to save for a home while ensuring their children were cared for. But in 2023, while pregnant with her youngest, she was laid off.

"When I lost that job we had to make a decision because when we were looking up daycare and it was just so much money for the two youngest ones," she said.

Even lower-priced options were around $4,000 a month, a price tag that was unmanageable on one income. Vaughn is still without full-time work and relies on income from occasional doula work and short-term remote contracts.

"Our lifestyle has been built around me staying home and accessible to my children," she said.

Without the cost of childcare, she said, she would pursue in-person employment and substantially improve her family’s finances.

"I could confidently say it would more than double our income," Vaughn said.

Making it work for now

For now, Urena and her husband have pieced together a schedule that allows her to work three days a week. On the other days, the twins are cared for by grandparents while her husband works remotely nearby.

It’s not ideal, Urena said, who doesn’t want to place childcare burdens on either her mother or her in-laws.

"We’re very lucky the grandparents are around," Urena said. "They love it and it’s not like they complain, but it’s a burden for them. I’m sure they don’t want to raise children all over again."

Given the cost of childcare, she doesn’t see a path back to full-time work anytime soon.

"I’m going to be working part time, I guess, for a long time," she said.