- Families with kids under six are leaving New York City at twice the rate of others.
- High childcare and housing costs drive families out, with daycare costing $2,000 to $4,000 monthly.
- Lower-income and Black and Hispanic households have been disproportionately affected.
The concrete jungle is an increasingly unfriendly playground for young kids and their parents.
Families with kids under six years old are more than twice as likely to leave New York City than families without young kids, according to a new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. The exodus of these households from the city and the state — which has spiked since the pandemic — is likely in large part due to soaring housing and childcare costs.
Families with kids six or older move out of the city at the same rates as childless families, suggesting that the costs "uniquely associated with young children — childcare and the need for more space" are pushing families out of the city, FPI reported.
Those who are leaving New York City are more than twice as likely to say they're looking for more affordable housing than they were before the pandemic, the report found. The city is facing one of the most severe housing affordability crises in the country, with median rents at $3,700, median home prices hitting $785,000, and housing inventory at a more than 50-year low. Millennials are increasingly fleeing to the peripheral suburbs far outside the city, where housing tends to be cheaper.
The typical New York City family spends more than a quarter of their income on childcare, which is triple what the US government considers affordable, Business Insider reported last year. Families need to make north of $300,000 a year to afford just one child in daycare in the city, The New York Times reported.
Daycare and preschool programs in the city generally cost between $2,000 and $4,000 per month per child. And the typical family spends about $21,000 per year for childcare for a baby under 18 months old, the city comptroller reported in 2019.
To make matters worse, many parents of young kids were thrown into a panic several months ago when New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced he would cut $567 million from public preschool programs for three-year-olds. Adams reversed his decision this spring amid an outcry from local political leaders and parents.
The affordability crisis is hitting lower-income households and people of color much harder. People who are leaving New York are disproportionately Black and Hispanic. Black New Yorkers are 45% more likely to leave the state and Hispanic New Yorkers are 34% more likely to leave than the rest of the population, FPI found.
The out-migration of Black families from New York City is part of a broader trend, dubbed a "New Great Migration," of Black families leaving expensive northern cities for the suburbs and for the South, where the cost of living is lower. New York City has lost about 9% of its Black residents over the past 20 years and more than 19% of its Black children and teens from 2010 to 2020.
Unsurprisingly, wealthier households are far less impacted by these cost of living issues. Between 2020 and 2022, 17,500 millionaires moved into New York City, while 2,400 left, FPI reported last year. The Institute has found that New Yorkers who make $800,000 or more per year are 25% as likely to leave the city as those who make less.
Have you left New York City or State because of rising childcare and housing costs? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected] to share your story.