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

governor.state.nm.us

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

#401

Post by vidarh »

SilverElfin wrote: post #316
jjk166 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is that stay at home parents should get the same credit as childcare providers because they perform the same service to society. If you're only caring for your own kids, you are providing significantly less to society than those caring for many kids. You want to focus on raising your own kids, that's fine, but do it on your dime.

> If you're only caring for your own kids, you are providing significantly less to society than those caring for many kids. I disagree with this. Perhaps caring for your own kids produces much better kids (and eventually, adults). And that may be more of a benefit to society than a large number of people being incentivized to create large number of kids whose care is just outsourced to childcare centers where they re…

> Perhaps caring for your own kids produces much better kids (and eventually, adults).

In places with universal childcare provisions, one of the arguments is often that children in childcare tends to benefit from the extra socialisation. I don't know to what extent that is supported by hard evidence, but it's at least by no means clear that caring for your own children is a net benefit for society even direct economic arguments aside.

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

#402

Post by tomrod »

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.

At the median: probably. At the tails: probably not.

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

#403

Post by pear01 »

mothballed wrote: post #343
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…

Why wouldn't you want your friends to better be able to afford what you have, by getting an equal value stipend to stay at home if you're for universal childcare? There are many families that might be only one or two tuitions away from being able to stay at home with their child like they had wished, and assigning the waiver/voucher to the child instead of to the daycare can make that happen. And no it's not a free l…

So if I pack my kids lunch but other kids get a "free" lunch I'm worse off? Yes there is no "free lunch" I'm paying a tax for something I don't need. The comment you are replying to already anticipates this. How is it not the same argument? Your budget comment also puzzles me. What if my existing family budget is put under stress by the "free lunch tax" so now I'm even further away from being able to pack my own lunch? How is it different? Because it's a "new" tax? You can make the same argument for any tax then. At the end of the day are your children better or worse off if their future fellow citizens are growing up under roofs that can't afford childcare or healthcare or food? For someone that seems to know enough about costs and incentives and tradeoffs you seem to have quite a constrained view. Also, I'm curious about your waivers claim re costs because I would think given the scenario you laid out that would make the program more expensive. Your taxed for things other people use more than you. That's what society is. The point of the comment you are replying to is that people obsess over this as if they are being personally violated when really it is often just greed in the face of the common good.

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

#404

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

unethical_ban wrote: post #56
WD-42 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize a lot of people actually prefer to give their child their best instead of outsourcing it so they can focus on bettering the economy, right?

What an insulting way to phrase that. For a single parent, providing the needed money to survive and eat requires working, and child care can be impossibly expensive.

They should give money that can be used on anything instead of specifically for healthcare. That way you can choose to take care of your kids yourself and put that money towards food than having to work and then outsource childcare.

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

#405

Post by seanmcdirmid »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #269

Sounds great. >average annual family savings of $12,000 per child. How is NM paying for this? They currently have a 'D' grade from Truth in Accounting[1] with a $9.8 billion debt burden driven by unfunded obligations of pension and retiree health care [1] https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/NM-2020-2pa...

This is actually kind of smart: any other kind of social welfare like free housing or free healthcare could be gamed by people moving in state to exploit it without providing much in return. But free child care...this could genuinely attract jobs and people to work them for the benefit of the state as a whole.

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

#406

Post by tomrod »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #400
SilverElfin wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 valu…

It does offer a potential backdoor to UBI while also encouraging desirable outcomes -- increased birth rate for wanted children, more people willing to foster, optionality for women to enter workforce, etc.

I suspect there will be some fraud (I have 30 kids, wheee!) as well as foster/adoption abuse -- probably AZ's experiment with paying parents to home school would be instructive.

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

#407

Post by jtbayly »

KittenInABox wrote: post #398
prepend wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

You have demonstrated the point of the policy.

What is it that is being incentivized here? Leaving your children and working all day.

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

#408

Post by mothballed »

pear01 wrote: post #403
mothballed wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you want your friends to better be able to afford what you have, by getting an equal value stipend to stay at home if you're for universal childcare? There are many families that might be only one or two tuitions away from being able to stay at home with their child like they had wished, and assigning the waiver/voucher to the child instead of to the daycare can make that happen. And no it's not a free l…

So if I pack my kids lunch but other kids get a "free" lunch I'm worse off? Yes there is no "free lunch" I'm paying a tax for something I don't need. The comment you are replying to already anticipates this. How is it not the same argument? Your budget comment also puzzles me. What if my existing family budget is put under stress by the "free lunch tax" so now I'm even further away from being able to pack my own lunc…

It's very convenient that it is greed when the stay at home mom wants an equal voucher, but not greed when a mom joins a capitalist for-profit enterprise for whatever wage she can avail herself of with the childcare bill footed by everyone else. Which is precisely what we are discussing.

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

#409

Post by ryandrake »

vlovich123 wrote: post #393
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…

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 th…

I addressed your second point in another comment. If voters thought there was a societal advantage to financially encourage stay-at-home parenthood with a subsidy, I'd be open to listen to the pros and cons of that, too, but that's kind of a separate issue. This one is about easing the burden for those who already pay for professional childcare, including those on the margin.

The first point is just unfortunate humanity crab bucket mentality. "Others shouldn't benefit if I don't." I don't think there's anything we can do about that :(

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

#410

Post by mothballed »

jtbayly wrote: post #407
KittenInABox wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You have demonstrated the point of the policy. What is it that is being incentivized here? Leaving your children and working all day.

Exactly. If the incentive was to take care of children, the money would go with the child whether they are taken care of by a stay at home or someone the state can tax income from.
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