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In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

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Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#261

Post by ninalanyon »

czhu12 wrote: post #142
yndoendo wrote: post #6

US actually provided child care to mothers employed during WWII. [0] Richard Nixon vetoed the bill that would have expanded it out to all families. [1] Funny how we keep forgetting the past and reject what benefited us as a whole with a moved to pure individualism built around selfishness. AKA The rich keep getting richer. [0] https://www.wwiimemorialfriends.org/blog/the-lanham-act-and-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…

For what its worth, the Economist recently wrote about how universal child care can harm children, citing a study from Quebec. > The trio published their first study in 2005, and the results were damning. Shifting to universal child care appeared to lead to a rise in aggression, anxiety and hyperactivity among Quebecer children, as well as a fall in motor and social skills. The effects were large: anxiety rates doubl…

In Norway every child has a right to a barnehage place (kindergarten). It's not free unless you are poor but it is very affordable at a maximum of about 3 000 NOK per month, about 300 USD, for five full days a week.

Children in barnehage learn to be social and cooperative, resilient and adaptable. They play outside in all weathers, learn to put on and take off their outer clothes, to set tables, help each other and the staff. They certainly do not fail to gain motor skills. It's not just child care and every barnehage has to be led by someone with a qualification in early childhood education although no formal class based instruction takes place.

So what exactly is New Mexico proposing to provide and what did Quebec provide?

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#262

Post by mariusor »

terminalshort wrote: post #100
mariusor wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with the terrible state of education in most nations, that is a patently untrue sentence at least in the fact that poor people can have access to education at all.

I didn't say anything about school. This article is about childcare for children below school age. But basic education is also actually quite cheap and easy to provide. Abraham Lincoln was educated in a one room school house. We have made it expensive by turning it into a bureaucratic nightmare with administrators, school boards, lawyers, and PTAs, when all you really need is a few good teachers who are given the aut…

"until very recently" includes pre-industrial times to my understanding when education did not exist in an organized fashion for the poor.

[edit] And in what world is Abraham Lincoln considered "the poor" for his times? I am sure you can come up with some less fortunate people during the same times which didn't really get the experience of that one room schoolhouse.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#263

Post by russdill »

georgeburdell wrote: post #256

Ham-fisted reactionary policy versus attacking the root cause, which is 1) cost of living has now increased to require two working parents 2) The government values housewives at about $2k per year in tax credits. Let women stay at home and raise their children as they know best, and pay them for the cost of the service they provide.

So, what, pay someone a full time salary for caring for 1 or two children? Pretty sure that doesn't scale

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#264

Post by ivan_gammel »

petcat wrote: post #169
bparsons wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the big reason other countries have free or cheap childcare. People who have kids want to continue earning money, and people who earn money want to have kids. It can be easily justified using only an economic productivity argument.

Very few other countries have free childcare. In Europe I'm only aware of Slovenia and a couple others. Canada doesn't have anything close to the universal system that's in New Mexico.

Berlin, Germany. Admission from 1.5 y.o.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#265

Post by seizethecheese »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #255
WalterBright wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a moved to pure individualism built around selfishness The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms, not community sacrifice. Meanwhile, during the 1800s, scores of millions of people moved up from poverty into the middle class and beyond. (Immigrants to the US arrived with nothing more than a suitcase.) > Funny how we keep forgetting the past and reject what benefited us as a whole Oh the irony!

> The US was founded on individual rights Excluding those whose land was stolen and redistributed by government. > not community sacrifice Excluding government-funded infrastructure projects like canals that enabled growth. And support that immigrants received from ethnic communities. > Meanwhile, during the 1800s, scores of millions of people moved up from poverty Yes, fifteen tons, we know that song.

This comment is sort of weird. Like you’re finding technically true rebuttals that don’t really refute the high level point.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#266

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Spivak wrote: post #242
hammock wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If we could fund universal child care so that the ratio of caregiver to child was more like 1 to 2 or 1 to 5 or even 1 to 8 in extreme cases, then the lack of attentiveness would not be a problem. Wait a minute… that sounds like…

Okay but you do understand that what you're suggesting costs the full salary a woman (because of course it would never be men asked give up their careers) could earn for the family and the economic gains that come with it. Back of the napkin calculation is three trillion dollars of value lost annually . And that's before the knock-on effects of such a massive recession. Household income will drop by 30-40% across the…

The other way to interpret GP is that we could implement long-term government-funded parental leave, especially if (!) the cost was comparable to universal child care. This could go to either parent, not necessarily the mother.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#267

Post by ninalanyon »

ponector wrote: post #181
bparsons wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the big reason other countries have free or cheap childcare. People who have kids want to continue earning money, and people who earn money want to have kids. It can be easily justified using only an economic productivity argument.

In which country there is a cheap childcare, especially if we are talking about children under 3? Also even if it is cheap, children can attend it few days a week, staying sick at home almost every week for a day or two. Not every employer can tolerate such worker.

> In which country there is a cheap childcare, especially if we are talking about children under 3?

Norway. The maximum price for barnehage (kindergarten Norwegian style) is 1 200 NOK per month, about 120 USD, but never more than 6% of the household's income. Every child is guaranteed a place. Families with low income get 20 hours a week 'core time' free. Children can attend from one year old until they start school at five or six.

See https://www.statsforvalteren.no/innlandet/barnehage-og-oppla...

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#268

Post by somenameforme »

phantasmish wrote: post #106
tbrownaw wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the tax man can't see it, it doesn't exist. . Scenario A: Max and Alex are a couple and have kids. Max stays home with them, and Alex has a job with a coworker named Avery. Scenario B: Max and Alex are a couple and have kids. They both work, and hire Avery to watch the kids. The same total work gets done by the same group of people in both cases, but the second measures as "better" for "the economy".

I have a suspicion a lot of the “why did wages stop keeping pace with the growth of the economy?” problem is because real productivity hasn’t been growing nearly as fast as our measures of it. But the measures are tied to ways for capitalists to extract more money, so that fake-growth does make line go up for owners. But there’s not nearly as much more actual work getting done as one might think from the numbers. I m…

It's inflation IMO. Wages started stagnating in the 70s which is exactly when the USD became completely unbacked (due to the end of Bretton Woods), enabling the government to go endlessly deep into debt, which we proceeded to do with gusto, sending inflation skyrocketing.

Somebody who's earning 20% more today than they were 5 years ago would probably think they're on, at least, a reasonable career trajectory. In reality they would be earning less in real terms than they were 5 years ago, thanks to inflation.

In times of low or no inflation it's impossible for this happen. But with inflation it becomes very difficult for workers to really appreciate how much they're earning, and it enables employers to even cut wages while their employees smile about receiving a 2% 'pay raise' when they should be raging about the pay cut they just took.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#269

Post by georgeburdell »

russdill wrote: post #263
georgeburdell wrote: post #256

Ham-fisted reactionary policy versus attacking the root cause, which is 1) cost of living has now increased to require two working parents 2) The government values housewives at about $2k per year in tax credits. Let women stay at home and raise their children as they know best, and pay them for the cost of the service they provide.

So, what, pay someone a full time salary for caring for 1 or two children? Pretty sure that doesn't scale

If governments aren’t willing to value women at what their work at home is worth, they’re not serious about tackling the birthrate problem. Show me a country with universal childcare with a TFR above 2.1. It’s a cheap substitute for the love and attention only a mother can provide young children

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#270

Post by AnthonyMouse »

hammock wrote: post #179
beowulfey wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an intractable issue. It's just a matter of economics.

Agreed. If we could fund universal child care so that the ratio of caregiver to child was more like 1 to 2 or 1 to 5 or even 1 to 8 in extreme cases, then the lack of attentiveness would not be a problem. Wait a minute… that sounds like…

> Wait a minute… that sounds like…

The child tax credit.

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