In an editorial, Jersey City Ward B council candidate Joel Brooks details what he believes the city can do about a national childcare crisis.
I’m a working parent like a lot of Jersey City residents. I’m a busy labor organizer for our state’s healthcare workers and a city council candidate in Ward B.
My two-year-old daughter, Esme, is a vibrant, beautiful handful, and my partner, Marisol, is a hardworking nurse. We’re a great team, and we are extremely fortunate. But the financial load of raising a child weighs on us, and I know we’re not alone.
America is deep in a cost-of-living crisis, and Jersey City is no exception. As a DSA-endorsed city council hopeful, I’m determined to lighten the load for the families in our community.
In a time when New Jersey politicians deepen inequities for working parents, cutting $30 million to the Child Care Assistance Program, Jersey City needs free universal childcare now more than ever. It’s not a pipe dream — it’s a promise, and it’s a step towards a more equitable and livable city for Westside’s families.
If being a parent is a scary proposition right now, being an early childhood educator is just as daunting. Childcare workers deserve fair compensation and manageable workloads, and in today’s market, these are in short supply.
Sites like ZipRecruiter cite an average salary of $15 an hour in our city, when these skilled laborers are tasked with some of the most difficult, unrelenting work imaginable.
Across the river, child care workers have the lowest median income of any care worker in NYC, netting just $25,000 a year in the most expensive city in the country. Workers deserve fair pay, and our children deserve qualified caregivers and reliable attention
Meanwhile, monthly daycare costs in Jersey City average $2600 to $3000 per month, a second rent payment or mortgage for many residents.
Some become stay-at-home caregivers, abandoning careers because the cost of childcare matches or exceeds their income. Others decide not to have children, because the numbers simply don’t add up.
The current threshold for state-subsidized childcare between ages 0-2 is 200% of the poverty level, or $62,400 for a family of four.
My platform as councilman starts by raising that number to 300%, then continuing to build a stronger, sturdier safety net for working families.
It’s not all doom and gloom. The future is just in front of us, and it’s brighter. Free universal childcare for all would allow a child’s parents to pursue meaningful work, whether that’s a traditional nuclear family or a single parent juggling these demands.
The mental load of cobbling together care can be exhausting, as working class people turn to a mix of family members, licensed centers, nannies, or babysitters, but with free universal childcare, 9-5 coverage is one less variable to consider.
We could even use these funds to let parents choose a trusted caregiver to pay, whether that’s a neighbor or a relative.
Zoom out and these policies also stabilize the workforce, because qualified employees don’t disappear from the labor force during their child’s formative years.
It also goes a long way for gender parity — labor force participation is consistently lower for women in “prime working years” than men.
What’s more, a well-funded program could ensure that we leave the lose-lose game of expensive bills and subpar wages in the past.
While we’re uplifting Jersey City’s children, we can empower childcare laborers with fairer wages, better working conditions, and career stability.
As parents worry less, so can laborers, whose incomes under my proposal would match the rate of public school teachers.
The benefits of universal childcare are obvious. The question then becomes: how do we fund it? Establishment politicians often stop here, as if a program by and for the working class is a pie-in-the-sky idea.
But it isn’t: just like we had to build free preschool programs for 3 and 4 year-olds from scratch, other cities (and entire states) are beginning to fund care programs for all of their smallest citizens, from infancy onward, regardless of income.
Meanwhile, in the NJ state legislature, Bill A5717 is inching its way to reality. It would codify universal preschool across our state, and mandate full-day kindergarten across all districts.
It would also prioritize projects in low-income, high-need areas, splitting the costs of care between the state and each district. While this happens at a state level, Jersey City has the chance to pioneer even further.
The money is here, stored between the Hudson and the Hackensack, in plain sight. It’s in the Kushner condos in Journal Square, or the luxury high-rises lining the waterfront.
It’s in the pockets of our city’s wealthiest residents. Zohran Mamdani estimates that it would cost New York City between $5-$8 billion to implement a similar program, and even a conservative guess would put Jersey City’s total far lower (we claim 300,824 citizens to NYC’s 8 million).
Our city has granted developers millions of dollars in tax abatements with the promise of affordable housing that’s yet to truly materialize.
It’s a straightforward solution to benefit the many at a cost to very few: tax the city’s wealthiest individuals and corporations to care for its youngest and most vulnerable future stars.
The first step to shaping a better world is investing in the people who will lead it.
Jersey City’s parents, children, and workers deserve dignity and care, and if I’m elected to represent Ward B, turning these ideals into a day-to-day reality will be one of my first priorities.
Read our campaign’s white paper on how we can build towards universal childcare here in Jersey City.
