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

#451

Post by lillecarl » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #440

lillecarl wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden we value equality and everyone working. If someone is wealthy enough to have a stay-at-home parent it's their choice to do so, we shouldn't subsidize the rich. It is good for children to go to a place where they learn to interact with others early. We give 480 days off to the parents to share (90 "mandatory" per parent), then they go to childcare. Individualism breeds privileged shits, if you want your kid…

You don't subsidize the rich, yet you subsidize rich child care corporations (or high-level bureaucrats in the event it is public) at the expense of not subsidizing stay at home moms. You don't want people paid for taking care of their children, but it's OK if other people are paid for taking care of their chidlren. None of this makes sense. Especially not this false dichotomy that either you send your kids to daycar…

We live in different societies, yours is extremely on the individualism spectrum and ours is on the "common good" spectrum. We don't subsidize the childcare corporations here, we do what's best for society.

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

#452

Post by bombcar » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

rml wrote: post #187

bombcar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many things that may be better overall, but because they're not financialized, they don't show up on GDP and so are deemed "worthless." Breastfeeding doesn't move money around, but formula does; things like that. Cooking your own meal doesn't raise GDP beyond the cost of supplies, but door-dashing from a restaurant does.

In the book 'Double Entry' the author explains that the guy who created GDP was actually in favor of having family caregiving and household activities accounted for in GDP. If that had happened, different world

This actually DOES occur at the margins, in some cases.

If you have a severely disabled child (who is on SSA), you often can get certified by the state and get paid as the caretaker. Then the action appears on the GDP.

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

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Post by ndriscoll » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #409

vlovich123 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 human…

It's not a crab bucket mentality. Subsidizing one group that competes in the same markets (e.g. only dual income families, who compete with single income families for housing in desirable areas to raise kids) actually increases costs for the unsubsidized group. It doesn't just make them relatively worse off, but absolutely worse off. It shifts the margin of who can afford a single family lifestyle, all else equal.

Since it's subsidizing specific behavior and not merely being poor or whatever, people will naturally look at whether they think that behavior ought to be incentivized, or whether the government should stay neutral.

My wife is also a stay at home mom, and I've argued before that an increase in the child tax credit with a phase out for high income (so we might not qualify) makes more sense than a childcare credit/deduction for this reason. Then you're just subsidizing having kids, which seems fine to me (assuming we're subsidizing anything) since that's sort of necessary to sustain society.

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

#454

Post by smeeth » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

declan_roberts wrote: post #326

smeeth wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most obvious example is the children of addicts. It’s hard to imagine a kid is better off stuck at home with druggie parents than spending the day in daycare.

A good example of bottom quintile policy. Because the bottom quintile has a better outcome with a certain approach, it becomes standard care for everyone else. Once you see it, you'll see it everywhere.

…so?

A realistic stay-at-home subsidy would max out around $30k. Your proposal only meaningfully shifts incentives for the bottom income quintile. For everyone else:

- Upper-income families can already afford to choose whatever setup they want.

- Middle-income families couldn’t take it because it’d mean too steep a drop in income.

So the alternative you proposed economically benefits the bottom quintile while leaving their kids worse off. For everyone else, it probably either doesn't matter or gives them cash they don't need as much.

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

#455

Post by mothballed » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #448

aeternum wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good government policies generally avoid step functions otherwise you get perverse incentives. For example, if you lose too many benefits when you get a job, it can easily make getting a job yield negative expected value, this is bad because often it stunts future career potential. There may be families that cannot quite afford to be a stay-at-home mom even though they want to. Providing the waiver also increases the…

My house has never been on fire, should I get a tax rebate for never needing service from the fire department? Government services exist to help people who need them. The idea that government services need to have the same net effect on every citizen is unusually popular in the US and is part of the reason we have worse government services than our peer nations.

This is more like saying you'll get a tax rebate if you move from your family home you built with your bare hands into a megacorp built condo complex of equal value and fire risk.

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

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Post by bombcar » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

ch4s3 wrote: post #225

xp84 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sometimes surprising to read a comment like this, which applies just common sense, basic math, and logic, instead of the typical online comment mixture of hysteria, panic, and portraying one's non-favorite "team" as a bunch of mustachio-twirling cartoon villains.

You read a lot of books about economics, history, and political science and suddenly everything starts to look like it's complicated. The recent trend of commentators shouting "it's actually not complicated" is troubling. I try to present commentary with some nuance and humility. I have a perspective, but I endeavor to leave room for the possibility that I don't have a full understanding or that my model of the world…

The key I realized is that there is always complexity, but the "simple" understanding is still "mostly" right.

No complexity can make a $1 billion expense able to be paid with $1m of revenue.

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

#457

Post by pempem » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:36 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #408

pear01 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your argument smacks of insincerity due to its limited scope of viewing SAHMs as moms providing childcare.

1/ You haven't mentioned how that SAHM must get a cooking credit, healthcare, retirement or house management credit or anything else in the litany of jobs required outside of immediate childcare and costs incurred by simply existing as a woman. Just a voucher for the hours, I assume, at which childcare would be open and none of the other hours

2/ A SAHP (thats stay at home parent) should be incentivized by raising wages and allowing life to be more affordable but your argument seems to be very focused on "moms" and "capitalist enterprises" and does not consider the reality that when SAHMs were more economically viable, it was not viable for all families.

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

#458

Post by Pxtl » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:36 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #80

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.

> Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. This is a great way to kill a policy. It would technically be most fair if every parent was given the same amount of money per child, period. Then they could do what they needed or wanted with it. But doing so would not only increase the costs dramatically (by a multiple) it would give money…

Literally what Canada did under Harper, and then grew substantially larger under Trudeau.

End result is that Canada's child poverty rate was cut in half over the aughts.

https://x.com/trevortombe/status/1100416615202533377

And yes, it hit the same political hurdles you'd expect. A Liberal-party aide helped lose the 2006 selection by saying parents would burn it on "beer and popcorn". He's still around as a consultant and professional trash-talking commentator. This is ironic considering how the party championed it's success after they (rightly) expanded the program.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/liberal-apologizes-for-saying...

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

#459

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #443

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to disagree. In Switzerland, a lot of emphasis is put on assimilation to a Swiss identity via pre-school and school. Now this eventually raises the bar for parents to raise their kids, but it also acts to Swissify immigrant kids quickly as well (and 25% of the residents in Switzerland are not born as swiss, many of those are refugees from African countries that America has problems dealing with). America's DIY…

Switzerland has not achieved a replacement rate TFR since 1970. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/che/swi... Any sustainable policy would obviously result in a TFR of at least the replacement rate.

I have no idea what TFR has to do with anything here. So Swiss people aren't having kids like they were before, that is not relevant to education outcomes, maybe they are just really good in teaching sex education.

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

#460

Post by bombcar » Tue, Sep 09, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

motorest wrote: post #252

bombcar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many things that may be better overall, but because they're not financialized, they don't show up on GDP and so are deemed "worthless." Breastfeeding doesn't move money around, but formula does; things like that. Cooking your own meal doesn't raise GDP beyond the cost of supplies, but door-dashing from a restaurant does.

> There are many things that may be better overall, but because they're not financialized, they don't show up on GDP and so are deemed "worthless." I think you're confusing GDP with a measure of worth or quality. It is not. Just because you can earn money doing double-shifts in a coal mine that doesn't make it better than spending the same time at a beach doing nothing.

It's a confusion the whole world seems to have, even if you ask everyone and they'd deny it.

GDP of a country is flat for 10 years, but everyone is happier and healthier and feels better? Bad country!

GDP is soaring for ten years, but everyone is depressed, suicidal, deep in debt, overweight, and dying early? Good country!