It's the Brian Lair Show on WNYC. I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom sitting in for Brian today.

Who's getting ready for that big debate tonight, as I might have mentioned.

Now we continue our election series, 30 issues in 30 days. It's issue number 23, child care.

We're going to compare what the candidates say they'll do to help families with the cost of child care,

which is often their number one expense besides rent or mortgage.

So Ranam Dani has made this issue one of his signature ones and says he'll provide free

child care to all children from six weeks up until they're five years old. It would come

at a multi-billion cost. Is that all doable? We'll discuss that in what Andrew Cuomo and

Curtis Slewa and the other say in the report have proposed on this issue. My guest is New York Times

reporter Eliza Shapiro, who covers affordability in the city. Hey, Eliza, welcome back to WNYC.

Hi, Virgin, good to be with you. And, you know, Eliza, I wonder if you could start by just

laying out some of the current costs that parents are paying for child care, especially for the

very youngest children they have babies and kids. I know the city controller's office put out a report

last year that found the average cost to be about $26,000 annually.

But what's the full range? What direction are those costs going?

Yeah, it's a great question. I would say the rule of thumb is the younger the kid, the more

expensive the care, because there's obviously little kids need very highly specialized care in some cases.

There's tons of regulations about where little kids can be.

So for really little kids and for young toddlers, there are kind of fancy Montessori programs that could be easily $4,000 a month or more.

There are private preschools that can be, you know, $30,000 a year for a single kid.

But even at sort of the slightly cheaper end of the range, it's certainly not affordable for families.

So, you know, maybe some families are paying $2,000 a month or a bit less for sort of like an in-home daycare.

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