Subscription-based companies, from gyms to streaming services to cell phone networks, are infamous for making it fiendishly difficult to quit. Some force subscribers to send cancellations through snail mail or to wait on hold for hours. Others hide cancellation buttons on their websites.

As part of her affordability agenda, Governor Kathy Hochul promised to crack down on this behavior by making it “just as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to sign up.”

But her plan contains a loophole that would exempt many of the major companies that offer subscription services.

Local social service representatives had stern words Thursday for the state agency overseeing HEAP, a heating assistance program that suddenly closed — and then reopened — last month.

“I really felt like the carpet was just ripped out from underneath us here,” Kira Pospesel, social services commissioner for Greene County, told state officials at an advisory council meeting for the Home Energy Assistance Program.

Affordability and the high cost of raising a family are key issues as campaign season heats up around the state, with mayoral elections this year and a governor’s election in 2026 that is likely to be competitive.

Child care is a sizable chunk of that cost. in 2023, for instance, infant care cost an average of about $20,500, according to a new state comptroller’s report. In recent years, New York has had the most expensive child care of any state except Massachusetts. Those high prices can create a substantial burden for parents, some of whom leave the workforce as a result.