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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

#541

Post by OkayPhysicist »

SilverElfin wrote: post #500
eirikbakke wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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). https://www.nav.no/kontantstotte/en

I wonder why they don’t have the same allergy to a voucher program that is prevalent in the US on the political left. For some reason, letting people exercise their agency and do things their own way is seen as a threat here.

It's not an allergy to vouchers. It's an allergy to diverting tax payer dollars away from public schools and into subsidizing religious indoctrination centers. There are good religious schools: I've been largely impressed by the Jesuit-run schools I've seen. But most religious private primary and high schools in the US are run by weird little cults that fundamentally fail to meet muster in the whole "not being thinly-veiled excuses for indoctrination" side of things.

Americans are stupid enough without stripping them of what little education we do offer them.

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

#542

Post by ksenzee »

prewett wrote: post #534
dzink wrote: post #12

This 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…

> parents can give the economy their best Surely parents should be giving their child(ren) the best, no? Giving the economy your best only makes sense in Communism, and since that has never gone well, I'll assume that what was meant was "self-fulfillment via work" or "better standard of living". The first just seems like one of these modern lies. I'm neither a mother nor a woman, but I've never understood why women a…

> I’ve never understood why women are so eager to go work. Work has never been particularly fulfilling

Understandable, but the thing is, staying home with kids is work. It’s a vocation. Everyone should get to choose what work is fulfilling for them personally. In the absence of reliable child care, parents don’t get to make that choice freely. It sounds like in a perfect world, you might have enjoyed staying home with kids, if that seems more appealing than the work you ended up doing. I can tell you I tried it for 18 months and I just about went crazy. I am a much better software developer than I am a stay-at-home parent. I feel for women who don’t get to make choices the way I did.

> are the children actually taken care of?

There is a lot of data by now comparing outcomes for children in childcare versus with stay-at-home parents. Both groups do fine.

> I’m really thankful my mother stayed home with us

It sounds like she did a good job of it; it was probably a vocation for her. You do need to understand that not every woman is cut out for that.

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

#543

Post by magicalist »

eirikbakke wrote: post #480
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.

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). https://www.nav.no/kontantstotte/en

> You can receive cash-for-care benefit for children between 13 and 19 months, starting the month the child turns 13 months, up until and including the month the child turns 19 months. You can receive cash-for-care benefits for a maximum of 7 months.

so, no, extremely limited compared to what's being discussed.

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

#544

Post by xboxnolifes »

KetoManx64 wrote: post #364
ericfr11 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just use my bike: why should I pay taxes for roads maintenance. Unfortunately, a society is not just about economics

You wouldn't have to if the government didn't own the roads. Plenty of examples of this, private companies creating their own roads and charging people a small fee to use them so they can maintain them. Wouldn't be that hard give people a little device that tracks the roads they use and charges them $0.05 per mile that they drive and then have the company be a co-op that's owned by the people living in that town.

Perfect way to introduce new national road middlemen: the tracking device manufacturer, the road geolabeling software company, and each road owner.

A local co-op would never last. If it could, we'd see far more local co-ops.

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

#545

Post by seizethecheese »

declan_roberts wrote: post #122

I'm going to take the reverse position. I don't like this policy. I think it would be much better to provide a one year paid stipend so that a parent can be home with the children during their tender years. This entire structure is set up to keep the boss happy while a stranger raises your child during their most formative and vulnerable years.

The most formative year is not 0-1. My daughter is 2 and it’s just now starting to be formative.

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

#546

Post by coffeemug »

declan_roberts wrote: post #122

I'm going to take the reverse position. I don't like this policy. I think it would be much better to provide a one year paid stipend so that a parent can be home with the children during their tender years. This entire structure is set up to keep the boss happy while a stranger raises your child during their most formative and vulnerable years.

More importantly it would give parents options: - stay home with your child and take the income - hire a babysitter - hire a better babysitter by adding a little cash - take your child to daycare - take your child to better daycare by adding a little cash

If the government also runs daycare centers that adds another option of taking your child to gov daycare. It also forces the gov and private daycares to compete.

The current policy penalizes people on the margin-- maybe an extra $500/mo would get your child much better daycare, but you're stuck between (likely) low quality government care, or losing a huge chunk of income to solve the problem yourself.

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

#547

Post by ndriscoll »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #501
ndriscoll wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird to assume people who support an increased child credit aren't also against devoting resources to pointless wars.

That's clearly not the assumption at all. The idea that we can pick and choose what we pay taxes for is not a reality. That's not how this works. There are tons of subsidies, pork, and other ways my tax dollars get used that don't benefit me at all. Just because you don't have a kid or choose not to use the new system, doesn't mean you shouldn't pay your share of taxes, just like everything else in this country.

No one said they're not going to pay taxes. They advocated for what they consider to be a better policy. What you're saying is like responding to someone who thinks we shouldn't start random wars with "we don't get to choose what we pay taxes for". Uh, yeah, we do get to advocate for and vote on how the government spends our money. We can and should point out that starting pointless wars is bad and we should encourage others to support a policy where we stop doing it. Arguing against specific uses and for other uses of taxes to build consensus for your point of view is exactly what people are supposed to do in a democracy.

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

#548

Post by somenameforme »

jjk166 wrote: post #306
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you are providing significantly less to society than those caring for many kids And getting paid considerably less. You're almost certainly providing proportionally more for your pay. A childcare provider can register and only look after 1 child, usually, but wouldn't because they want/need more income. Presumably nannies (careworker for children from a single family) are registered childcare providers where you are…

It is cheaper per child to care for multiple children at the same time. It's basic economies of scale. Nannies and childcare providers that only look after a single child ought not to be subsidized, at least not nearly to the same extent as those who provide care more efficiently.

In an economy of scale, the quality of your product does not decrease. But when one person is looking after ever more children, their quality of care does decrease. So you're not incentivizing more efficient care, but simply worse care.

It's akin to education - the general goal is to minimize the number of students per teacher, not maximize it.

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

#549

Post by hellojesus »

pempem wrote: post #450
jtbayly wrote: post #407

Earlier 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.

No. Are men "leaving their children and working all day"? Should we not pay them to stay home? This view is either fully gendered or assumes that all families are made up of two people and one person's wages should support a family. Neither are the conversation on this table. The conversation on this table is: Our current economy, in nearly every state and for every metro requires more than minimum wage to rent not o…

> Childcare has gone up 30% in the last few years alone and wages, as you have likely experienced, have not.

This is a major statement, and I don't think it's fully qualified.

Why have childcare expenses imcreased by 30% in the past few years? There should be an arbitrage opportunity if costs have stayed fixed. If costs have increased, is it due to general economic pressures or increased regulatory burden? If the former, wages should catch up (and flooding the market with additional labor likely will exert downward pressue market wages). If the latter, then why on earth are we passing such nonsense regulation?

In either case, moving out of a major metro is always an option.

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

#550

Post by mothballed »

lillecarl wrote: post #537
mothballed wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be wrong, but I believe in Sweden salaries are able to be publicly found. Find some high level people in the public or private childcares in your nation who are beneficiaries of these subsidies and then tell me how rich they are compared to the average stay at home mom.

There are barely any stay at home moms because it's socially detrimental, the ones who are are either social outcasts by lack of capability or religious oppression. We should not subsidize stay at home moms or dad's because it's bad for society, if they can afford to do it or stretch their economy to do it for other reasons it's their bad choice, and we allow free choice even if it's bad, that's why cigarettes are st…

I appreciate your honesty, there are not many willing to admit it's really about viewing stay-at-home parents as morally deficient. I have no interest in refuting the argument, it might be true, merely to point out I think why we're having so much trouble getting straight answers is that the underlying motivation is going unspoken.
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