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Why Child Care Is So Expensive

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#171

Post by kelnos »

wklauss wrote: post #93
vturner wrote: post #21

This may be somewhat off-topic, but I'm often surprised that leftist policies like the article advocates are often proposed at a national level? Why is this? Why not propose a state-sponsored child-care system in a leftist state - California, Washington, Massachusetts, etc. I'm not trying to start a war here, simply genuinely interested why people on the left push national social programs versus propose them in very…

They are, even at a more local level. New York City, for example, has a free pre-k (4yo) program. But in order to be effective, some of these policies need to be applied nationwide. In other cases, state budgets are simply too constrained for them. Like someone said in the comments, this is a program that could paid itself with the income tax from both parents working, but in the US the majority of income tax goes to…

> Like someone said in the comments, this is a program that could paid itself with the income tax from both parents working

That's a bit of a weird point to make, though. That income tax is already going toward paying for government programs. If you divert some of that to pay for early child care, some other programs will be left under- or unfunded.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#172

Post by bdamm »

xamuel wrote: post #151
jperras wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually one of the not-so-great facets of this program. It demands a minimum of 80% participation, meaning that if you wanted to stay at home to take care of your children but use subsidized daycare 1-2 days a week to give yourself a break, it's currently not possible. If a child is absent for more than 20% of the "regular" schedule, then the daycare loses that subsidy spot due to it being under-utilized. The…

It's as if they read in "Brave New World" about the abolition of the family unit and they took that as an instruction guide.

That happened some time ago. In fact, one of the issues with so many women in the workforce is that in the 50's that same class of women were providing community networking functions, allowing for local problem solving and support that is somewhat extinct now. Frankly I am unsold on the benefit to society of women in the workforce. Did we gain women's freedom at the cost of strong and good families? It's a taboo, now. I'm not saying we should go back, but as a society we appear generally unwilling to discuss this reality and loss to family. As if nannies are an entirely sufficient replacement for mothers, but I don't think they are.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#173

Post by ng12 »

cortesoft wrote: post #100
ng12 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes perfect economic sense: it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. The only confounding factor is whether the increase in workers increases the speed at which the economy grows/ I'd guess it probably does, but not enough to offset the downward pressure on wages.

It is pretty well accepted fact in economics that a growing workforce is a good thing for economic growth. > it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. You are leaving out a crucial factor - the wages that the 'new' workers earn are going to be spent in the economy, growing the economy as a whole. This is increasing the 'demand' side of that supply and demand curve.…

In these types of discussions I think "good for the economy" is a weasel phrase -- what's good for the economy is not necessarily good for the worker. This should be obvious: child labor was great for the economy for the reasons you mentioned. Similarly, we've seen massive economic growth since the 50s but at the same time a single-earner, blue collar family can't afford to buy a house and raise three kids.

It's very clear that an increase in labor supply puts downward pressure on wages and there's plenty of evidence that the economy is not growing fast enough to offset that pressure.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#174

Post by nilkn »

cortesoft wrote: post #100
ng12 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes perfect economic sense: it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. The only confounding factor is whether the increase in workers increases the speed at which the economy grows/ I'd guess it probably does, but not enough to offset the downward pressure on wages.

It is pretty well accepted fact in economics that a growing workforce is a good thing for economic growth. > it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. You are leaving out a crucial factor - the wages that the 'new' workers earn are going to be spent in the economy, growing the economy as a whole. This is increasing the 'demand' side of that supply and demand curve.…

Counter-point: my anecdotal observations suggest that folks are so intent on competing for housing that in the decades since dual incomes became commonplace the main effect has been to simply dramatically inflate the price of housing. In other words, the extra money may not be making it into the general economy much and it may instead just be supporting higher home prices.

Of course, home prices are not completely isolated from the rest of the US economy, but I think that's a far cry from the idea that each household just now has twice as much money to spend on goods, entertainment, food, etc.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#175

Post by meheleventyone »

pfortuny wrote: post #57
jperras wrote: post #7

It doesn't have to be this way. Québec has had subsidized daycare for almost 25 years, and the program literally pays for itself (and more!) via increased income taxes from parents that would have otherwise chosen to stay at home. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/affordable-daycare-su... > In Montreal, Quebec’s largest city, a day of child care cost on average $10 in 2016 > Quebec’s program, which introduced lo…

“It would allow more women to enter the workforce”. I understand what the quote means but, honestly, this is one of the big wrong points of our society: that caring for the children full-time is NOT being part of the workforce. This is one of those cultural ideas embedded in XXI Century logic which only does harm and transmits the wrong message: people’s life is as valuable as the money the work or the “job” they hav…

I don’t think that it’s that people don’t value those things but that people are unable to have the luxury to act on that belief. I’m also not convinced that the choice was made by the broad base of society.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#176

Post by orev »

pfortuny wrote: post #57
jperras wrote: post #7

It doesn't have to be this way. Québec has had subsidized daycare for almost 25 years, and the program literally pays for itself (and more!) via increased income taxes from parents that would have otherwise chosen to stay at home. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/affordable-daycare-su... > In Montreal, Quebec’s largest city, a day of child care cost on average $10 in 2016 > Quebec’s program, which introduced lo…

“It would allow more women to enter the workforce”. I understand what the quote means but, honestly, this is one of the big wrong points of our society: that caring for the children full-time is NOT being part of the workforce. This is one of those cultural ideas embedded in XXI Century logic which only does harm and transmits the wrong message: people’s life is as valuable as the money the work or the “job” they hav…

I think you’re being overly picky and cherry-picking your argument here. I don’t know anyone who thinks that child rearing is not hard work, and all agree that it is valuable.

But in the context of this discussion, “productivity” is an economic term for the production of goods or services, and the generation of income for the workers. Child rearing does neither of those things directly, so as an economic activity, it doesn’t register and thus those parents are not part of the workforce. Again, that does not mean it is not a valuable thing to do for both the child and society, but it also does not directly add to GDP, generate income taxes, etc.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#177

Post by kelnos »

ng12 wrote: post #49
cortesoft wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make economic sense.... 'doubling supply' is what economic growth is.... producing more should be balanced out with people consuming more, which is what a healthy economy does. This is like arguing that the invention of the assembly line caused inflation because you could produce too much. You contradict yourself by saying 'double supply' and 'inflationary effects'... increasing supply of a commodity (in…

It makes perfect economic sense: it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. The only confounding factor is whether the increase in workers increases the speed at which the economy grows/ I'd guess it probably does, but not enough to offset the downward pressure on wages.

> It makes perfect economic sense: it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value.

That assumes that the number of available jobs is perfectly-sized and fixed, and that there's no other work that could be done (or no under-employed, existing work that could be done better) if we had more workers. That would seem not to be true.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#178

Post by kelnos »

nilkn wrote: post #174
cortesoft wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty well accepted fact in economics that a growing workforce is a good thing for economic growth. > it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. You are leaving out a crucial factor - the wages that the 'new' workers earn are going to be spent in the economy, growing the economy as a whole. This is increasing the 'demand' side of that supply and demand curve.…

Counter-point: my anecdotal observations suggest that folks are so intent on competing for housing that in the decades since dual incomes became commonplace the main effect has been to simply dramatically inflate the price of housing. In other words, the extra money may not be making it into the general economy much and it may instead just be supporting higher home prices. Of course, home prices are not completely is…

I was thinking about this, too. In areas where housing supply is constrained, the increasing prevalence of dual incomes means people can bid higher, more competitive offers on housing. And of course they do, because why wouldn't they?

I would even expect this to be true, though on a smaller scale, in areas where housing supply isn't constrained, since, in general, each individual house is unique to some extent; two dual-income families fighting over the same house will have more resources to throw at their bids.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#179

Post by umvi »

Unpopular opinion - but I think farming out the majority of the raising of children to daycares is a bad idea in the long term. Obviously some times you don't have a choice, but I think stay-at-home moms (or dads) are extremely valuable for the development of the child and potentially worth more than any monetary gains to be had from dual-income.

Yeah, you might not be able to afford a nice house or car as quickly, but you get absolute control over how much love, attention, and correction your developing kids receive.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#180

Post by toomuchtodo »

snarf21 wrote: post #90
legitster wrote: post #41

It really comes down to the ratio. Our state has a 4-1 ratio for infants (which is entirely reasonable). You are basically paying for 1/4 of a person's time. If you want to put them into a daycare where the worker is adequately paid, that's $6000 a year alone, let alone overhead costs for facilities/admin. No matter who pays for it, raising children is time consuming. And time is becoming more valuable.

Exactly right. People also forget that while the parent works 8 hours a day, the kid is dropped off before and after commute time which means the kid may be in daycare for 9 or 10 hours. So if you get infant care at $175/week for four infants divided by 50 hours, you get $14/hour and that is gross revenue to the business. If you happen to lose an infant to a parental move, now you are losing money for that class. You…

Isn’t that market forces valuing a mother (or one parent, regardless of gender) at home raising their kid(s) more valuable than at the job they’d be giving up? I'm not sure I see a problem with the economy tilting towards parents being parents versus outsourcing their childcare (within reason, when one parent can comfortably support their family).
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