IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v44y2026i1p131-151.html

A benefit‐cost analysis of child care subsidy expansions: The New York State case

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Paul Hartley
  • Irwin Garfinkel
  • Elizabeth Ananat
  • Sophie Collyer
  • Buyi Wang
  • Christopher Wimer

Abstract

Proposals to expand child care assistance have proliferated at the national and state levels. This paper uses a novel approach to estimate the benefits and costs of providing child care subsidies to families up to three times the federal poverty line while supplementing child care worker compensation — a recently‐enacted reform in New York State. We estimate a net present value of $12.14 billion in yearly social benefits relative to a yearly fiscal cost of $1.61 billion. We also examine the time path of benefits and costs, impacts of alternative program designs, and the sensitivity of our main findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Paul Hartley & Irwin Garfinkel & Elizabeth Ananat & Sophie Collyer & Buyi Wang & Christopher Wimer, 2026. "A benefit‐cost analysis of child care subsidy expansions: The New York State case," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 44(1), pages 131-151, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:44:y:2026:i:1:p:131-151
    DOI: 10.1111/coep.12697
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.12697
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/coep.12697?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:44:y:2026:i:1:p:131-151. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.