San Francisco Expands Child Care Subsidies to Tackle Affordability Issues

San Francisco is expanding access to child care by offering 50% discounts to middle- and upper-middle-income earners in an effort to tackle affordability issues in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

Under a plan announced Wednesday, parents who earn up to $311,000 per year for a family of four, or 200% of the area median income, will qualify for tuition assistance at more than 500 city-funded early childhood education and care programs starting in July.

And families earning up to 150% of the area median income will immediately qualify for free child care.

“Today marks the beginning of a powerful effort to reduce the cost of living for San Francisco families by tens of thousands of dollars each year,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a statement. “We’re committed to making San Francisco a place where families can stay, grow, and build their future.”

The news offered relief for Sarah Klevan, a mom of two who would meet the new eligibility requirement.

“It would be a huge difference for our family,” she said.

Klevan said, although she and her husband each earn six-figure salaries — she’s a policy researcher, and he’s a public school librarian — they live paycheck-to-paycheck in San Francisco. Next to their mortgage, child care takes up a big chunk of their monthly expenses.

They spend about $2,000 per month in part-time preschool for their daughter, who’s almost 3, and after-school care for their 6-year-old son, Klevan said.

“We’re really lucky to have family nearby [to provide backup care],” she said. “I really don’t think it would not be feasible for us to live here otherwise.”

The subsidies will help her pay for more hours of preschool for her daughter.

The subsidies will be funded by more than $550 million in unspent money from a commercial real estate tax voters approved in 2018. The goal of the tax measure, dubbed Baby Prop C, was to provide early education and care for all children under 5 years old. But revenue from the measure was tied up by a lawsuit that was resolved in 2021.

The city began by first offering free child care to low-income families, then tuition assistance to families earning between 111% to 150% of the area median income, which is up to $233,800 for a family of four.

The plan also called for increasing the eligibility threshold to cover families making up to 200% of the area median income, but the city didn’t offer a timeline. That left some child care advocates frustrated by the pace of the city’s ambitious plan to offer universal child care.

Supervisor Stephen Sherill had previously requested a Feb. 4 hearing with the city’s Department of Early Childhood to ask whether the expansion could happen sooner.

“One of the biggest expenses for young families is child care, some paying $3,000 a month per child in some cases,” he said Wednesday. “That is a crazy amount because that’s after taxes. That is a massive expense.”

Sherill also cited concerns about how the department is getting the word out to families about their eligibility for the subsidies. After San Francisco expanded them to families earning up to 150% of the area median income in May 2024, only about 200 families signed up, according to data provided by Wu Yee Children’s Services, which is responsible for enrolling eligible families.

“That’s a comically low number,” he said. “Does every pediatrician’s office know about this, and are they telling their patients? Does everyone who leaves the maternity ward in San Francisco get information about this? When a family signs up online for a slot, are they informed of this subsidy?”

Sherill asked, “If not enough people take advantage, then what is the point of this program?”