New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care • Hacker News Board

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#391

Post by prepend » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #336

mothballed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. Stay at home moms do not provide a less valuable service than childcare providers. This policy appears to disincentives children staying with their mother even when it is preferred.

I just don't understand this mentality. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We are lucky that we can afford to do this. Most of our kid's friends have both parents working and they pay for child care. If suddenly they were able to have that childcare paid for, that would be wonderful! It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it? I don't need to have my own "waiver" payment in order for me to be in favor…

> It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it

It affects you like if your neighbor got a $5000 tax credit and you didn’t.

It’s community money paying for it so it impacts you because it is your tax dollars being spent.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#392

Post by KetoManx64 » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

justinrubek wrote: post #374

KetoManx64 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand how economics work if you think this is actually going to be helpful. By providing "universal" child care, you just moved the cost of childcare from the individual to the tax base so now everyone has to pay an ineffifient system that often eats up 30-50% of the incoming money in bureaucratic inneficiencies before it will even reach the child care system. On top of that the increased taxes are goi…

Oh no, society will have to bear the cost of the infrastructure to maintain itself rather than reap the benefits of a population without putting back into. How terrible.

It doesn't work that way. The US Welfare programs have created multi generational families that have never worked and do not have any parents or grandparents that have ever worked a real job because if anyone did they would risk losing $100k's worth of free benefits to work a minimum wage job that would only pay them $30k. It has created a permanant underclass of people with no job skills that are wholly dependant on the system for their survival.

This is just an extension of that.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#393

Post by vlovich123 » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #336

mothballed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. Stay at home moms do not provide a less valuable service than childcare providers. This policy appears to disincentives children staying with their mother even when it is preferred.

I just don't understand this mentality. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We are lucky that we can afford to do this. Most of our kid's friends have both parents working and they pay for child care. If suddenly they were able to have that childcare paid for, that would be wonderful! It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it? I don't need to have my own "waiver" payment in order for me to be in favor…

There's two things I think you've overlooked. One thing is that politically it's easier for benefits to remain sticky if everyone benefits from it vs a subpopulation. That's why universal income has stronger support than welfare benefits. Additionally, when you don't have means testing, the bureaucracy is a lot more straightforward and politicians can't mess with it by effectively cutting the program by increasing the administrative burden.

> We are lucky that we can afford to do this.

This is the second piece. What about people who are on the margin who aren't wealthy enough to do this and the subsidy would hep them achieve this? The subsidy could help the mom stay home and maybe do part-time work from home even. The thing that's easiest to miss when you're well on one side of a boundary is only looking at the other side of the boundary instead of also looking at where that boundary is drawn.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#394

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #5

Childcare is a great way to kick this off - it's politically hard to fight against anything "for the children" and it's not a stretch at all to extend coverage gradually, as people see the benefit and want it elsewhere / just one more year / etc. Just gotta hope it stays funded enough to avoid descending into a bureaucratic death spiral with months of delays for everything.

> it's politically hard to fight against anything "for the children"

The entire incel and tradwife spectrum hates these policies.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#395

Post by Ajedi32 » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

Muromec wrote: post #134

Ajedi32 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With this option, they are now financially penalized for making that choice in order to subsidize those who don't. I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

This exact mindset of minmaxing everything is how the society stops having kids.

People are going to respond to incentives whether you think they should or not.

I think it's less "mindsets" that have changed so much as the incentives themselves. People no longer need to have kids in order to have sex or to have a comfortable retirement, so many simply don't. Though I'd agree there's certainly a mindset shift that has developed along with that.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#396

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

SilverElfin wrote: post #384

ryandrake wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand this mentality. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We are lucky that we can afford to do this. Most of our kid's friends have both parents working and they pay for child care. If suddenly they were able to have that childcare paid for, that would be wonderful! It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it? I don't need to have my own "waiver" payment in order for me to be in favor…

Of course it affects your situation. It’s paid for from taxes so it takes away from other things you as a taxpayer could have, right? But also if the goal is to incentivize raising children, someone who wants to raise their child in a family centric way rather than outsourcing it should have help too right? But leaving those arguments aside, I also think that only subsidizing daycare is too one size fits all, just li…

> It’s paid for from taxes so it takes away from other things you as a taxpayer could have, right?

I don't expect every tax dollar I spend to come back to me in the form of a direct benefit.

> Like if I want to not have a single daycare provider but want to instead take my kids to a few different activities during the day (like to a museum and then a swim class and then baseball or whatever), why shouldn’t tax funds be made available to offset the costs of those things?

I would be 100% open to this sort of taxpayer-funded educational enrichment for families who can't afford it themselves, depending on the usual criteria, like how well-run/efficient it is and so on.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#397

Post by hedora » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #376

hedora wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like she was a poor fit, or the child care center sucked. Try to find one that has long average tenure (10+ years, if possible).

Sure, if the place paid everyone a lot and had much higher staff:child ratios then everything would be great. Except it would cost an absolute fortune for parents thus even less viable under a government program. Government programs almost universally have higher overhead and more waste than private businesses. There is no incentive for government employees to improve efficiency, reduce budgets, or cut costs.

We didn’t notice a positive correlation between teacher tenure and cost when we looked around.

If anything, there was a negative correlation: The big corporate ones had high teacher turnover, more levels of administration, and turned a healthy profit for ownership/shareholders. They were priced to match.

Also, government run programs usually are less expensive (take pretty much any privatization program anywhere as an evidence). The government programs don’t have to pay money to shareholders, and aren’t siphoning resources for expansion, marketing, etc.

If government leadership is corrupt as we see in the US right now, then, of course, prices skyrocket, though that usually comes hand in hand with outsourcing/subcontractors/privatization. It’s hard to collect bribe money from civil servants…

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#398

Post by KittenInABox » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #391

ryandrake wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand this mentality. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We are lucky that we can afford to do this. Most of our kid's friends have both parents working and they pay for child care. If suddenly they were able to have that childcare paid for, that would be wonderful! It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it? I don't need to have my own "waiver" payment in order for me to be in favor…

> It doesn't affect our situation at all. Why would we oppose it It affects you like if your neighbor got a $5000 tax credit and you didn’t. It’s community money paying for it so it impacts you because it is your tax dollars being spent.

If my neighbor already gets a $5000 tax credit remodeling his bathroom or installing a new/greener boiler. Should I get $5000 for not remodeling?

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#399

Post by jajuuka » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

SilverElfin wrote: post #330

Aurornis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You realize a lot of people actually prefer to give their child their best instead of outsourcing it My wife and I staggered our work schedules to minimize the time spent at daycare. The one thing we didn’t expect: The kids absolutely loved daycare. It was a great place with excellent caretakers. Most of all, it was socialization with their friends. From reading sneering interment comments (like the one above) I wa…

> The kids absolutely loved daycare. It was a great place with excellent caretakers. Most of all, it was socialization with their friends. People who stay at home and take care of their own kids aren’t skipping socialization. They still participate in various activities where there are other kids. But, the kids do get a lot higher quality care from stay at home parents than a daycare can afford. If you stay at the da…

This is buying into the idea of rugged individualism when it comes to parenting. That all a child needs is their parents and that time away from children is a failure of parents. This couldn't be further from the truth. Many studies show that children raised in a cooperative environment where they are exposed to various people and practices from extended family, professionals, teachers, etc help reinforce social connectedness.

Not to mention parents have more to them to simply being parents. Their own desires, wants, and needs. Balancing these with being parents leads to the more fulfillment.

Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care

#400

Post by Pet_Ant » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

SilverElfin wrote: post #315

Pet_Ant wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stay at home moms do not provide a less valuable service than childcare providers. They are strictly less efficient than commercial daycare because the adult-child ratio is much higher. How many women would be of out of the work for if they were taking care of children? Also, it prevents trickle down and the lifting of the poorest in society.

Less efficient? No they aren’t strictly less efficient because they provide MUCH better quality of care.

To less children. Even if the area under the curve was the same (and I suspect that there very much are diminishing returns) they have a very negative effect on the Gini coefficient and that is a negative externality that should not be incentivised.

If your position is that people should not be compelled to contribute to overall society and the lifting of the boats of others, than there isn't enough alignment of values for a meaningful conversation.