The release of “The Status of Child Care Across New York State;” marks the third phase in an action research project on the true cost of child care, coordinated by Cornell University’s ILR Buffalo Co-Lab between 2021 and 2024. In each of these phases, Buffalo Co-Lab partnered foundations, elected officials, nonprofit organizations, child care providers, and advocates to determine the “true” cost of child care. As a result of the first phase of the project, the initial influx of NYS funding helped to stabilize the child care industry during and immediately after the pandemic. This report utilizes quantitative analyses of economic and demographic data and qualitative focus group responses to show an unevenly changing child care landscape, with minor gains in aggregate capacity over the past 2.5 years, and meaningful losses in many areas across the state, especially in upstate counties and low-income communities, where child care deserts and near-deserts already existed. In addition to presenting the bleak economic status of the child care industry in NYS, this report showcases one of the proposed solutions for the crisis facing child care: a workforce compensation fund (rather than temporary wage stabilization grants).