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New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
471–480 of 695 posts
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
100%. This is also why it makes sense to have money move with the child regardless of whether they’re in public schools or home schooled or at a private school.
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#473Earlier 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…
Isn’t the idea that many families want to have a stay at home mom, but can’t afford to and are forced to work.
Therefore a waiver would help with this?
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#474Earlier 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…
I'm not sure I follow, but I'm open to being wrong. The point of this subsidy is not to encourage people to move from paid-childcare to stay-at-home. That's a totally separate economic decision. The point of it is to ease/eliminate the burden of those who require paid-childcare. If we think there is a societal advantage to financially incentivize parents to stay-at-home with a subsidy, I'd be open to looking at the c…
> And I am not significantly worse off if my neighbor's childcare burden is lifted.
This seems like an unrelated consideration though. You may be significantly worse off. Maybe the government that provides this raises taxes considerably to make this work. Or maybe they take on crippling debt. Maybe their credit rating goes down.
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
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You don't pay "into" social security. You pay up. The people you paid are dead and won't be returning your money. Yours will be funded by now-children. That investment lies by far on parents, with some pittances paid into property taxes for schools or low-income welfare programs.
Irrespective of how it technically works, the fairness principle is "you paid in therefore you are paid out". Childless people aren't getting a better or worse deal than anyone else.
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#476Earlier 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…
Right. I agree, but I think you are appealing to generosity when it works just as well if you appeal to greed and selfishness. If I'm a parent who does not intend to take advantage of the program and therefore not to get any benefit directly, and I assume the program is done well and not rushed, I could reasonably expect: - More parents able to be in the work force (immediately) - Better metrics for the young childre…
> Higher birth rate??? (probably not but this one is interesting regardless)
Why probably not? Childcare before primary school is a huge expense in the US, I think the largest for a healthy kid, around 24k$ per year where I live, so basically every other child is another 24k$ to the budget, or one parent not working. With this approach, having 2 or 3 children is more feasible, and the money saved from universal childcare could be in part invested for college or the child's future.
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A sub replacement rate TFR leads to extinction, not to mention wreaks havoc on government policies that have long been dependent on growth.
Switzerland has a high immigration rate, so they aren't going to be hit by this in the short term, and in the long term I don't think they are going to sweat some population loss.
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate your optimism but I’m skeptical. I dated someone who worked in child care (with a degree in ECE). She was quite miserable caring for a dozen screaming babies all day. I think the burnout and turnover for such a job (which requires a degree but still paid minimum wage) is likely to be extremely high. The other thing that doesn’t make sense to me is the economics of it. The pay for the staff is very low bu…
What sort of huge overhead is there that dwarfs the pay for low-paid staff?
- Extra-staffing of floaters to be able to give staff breaks or handle staff sick days or workers quitting
- Taxes
- Insurance
- Administrative staff to handle billing and compliance
- Facilities -- Rent, maintenance, HVAC. Adding to this, the facility might have to use expensive first floor space because the regulation requires them to be able to easily evacuate kids who can't down stairs on their own.
- Profits/Owner-operator salary (anyone who can own and operate a successful high-quality day-care with five classrooms could command 6 figures salary on the private market)
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#479Earlier 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.
Sure. Right after I get all my tax money back from all the userless wars we've fought in the last 20 years because I was against them.
Weird to assume people who support an increased child credit aren't also against devoting resources to pointless wars.
Re: New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
#480This is fantastic! I hope they succeed and there is no abuse or other issues, because it will show how much an economy can grow when women are allowed to work to their full potential. Families who were previously in poverty because the mom would struggle to pay for childcare to work can now have assurance kids are ok while the mom can pursue jobs, start her own small business (huge chunk of businesses are small busin…
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.
Norway does this. Kindergartens are nearly free ($120/mo), but with a "cash-for-care" benefit for parents who choose to stay at home with the child ($750/mo).