The recent uptick in New York City's economy could provide a huge sigh of relief for the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who lost their job in the Great Recession and are still out of work. But many of the city's unemployed will need more than just enhanced skills to take advantage of the new job opportunities; they'll need access to affordable child care. In recent years, subsidized child care has become an essential work support for New York's large and fast-growing population of working poor--those who hold jobs but, because of low wages and the city's high cost of living, still struggle to adequately support a family here. It's also a critical support for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers to successfully complete a postsecondary degree program, which in today's economy has become fundamental to accessing higher-paying jobs. Unfortunately, as the author details in this report, the supply of subsidized child care in New York City, while never adequate, has slipped over the past few years. And the city's working poor--those who earn too much to qualify for subsidized care but too little to comfortably afford the high cost of child care in New York--have been the biggest losers. Today, just one in four low-income children under the age of six is being served by child care programs across the five boroughs. At the same time, waiting lists for child care centers in the city are extensive--as many as 40,000 parents are waiting for child care services. And signs point to continued deterioration unless the city and state change course. (Contains 5 charts and 38 endnotes.) [Funding for this report was provided by the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and the Working Poor Families Project, a national initiative supported by the Annie E. Casey, Ford, Joyce and Mott Foundations.]