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

#661

Post by mothballed » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:00 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #654

kortilla wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, if there is some stay at home parent that finds looking after their own children during the daytime such a burden they "need" an extra $1k per child per month to do it... they should probably just use the free childcare. The fact that you argue for daycare workers to be paid but not parents is honestly astonishing. “No, we will not give you $100/day for your kid but we will happily give $100/day to BabyCorp…

> The fact that you argue for daycare workers to be paid but not parents is honestly astonishing. I think it's even more astonishing that you are arguing that it's normal for parents to have so little love for their own child they should bill the government for time spent with them. If my stay-at-home mum was like that, I'd definitely have preferred the full time daycare. It was even possible for her to send me to da…

They are arguing the exact opposite, that parents love their kids enough they might move mountains to take care of the kids themselves if only they get get a bit of the taxes the state is sucking dry from their family back, enabling it to economically happen.

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

#662

Post by mothballed » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:13 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #658

mothballed wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nope, I'm the one explicitly not ignoring the major rationale behind providing universal free childcare, which is that it removes a massive disincentive to using childcare (it's expensive), with the result that parents are less likely to work or take on other responsibilities some of the time and less likely to take their kids to nurseries to help socialise them. The major incentive for providing childcare subsidies…

> The major incentive for providing childcare subsidies to everyone but stay at home parents (who now have net negative in this whole scenario post-tax) is to disincentive stay at home parents. If the idea was just to aid with childcare the aid with go with the child. You're purposefully excluding stay-at-homes from the definition of childcare, which is false and disingenuous. The objective of providing free childcar…

>The objective of providing free childcare to anyone that wants it is to enable people to avail themselves of free childcare.

The objective of excluding the parent from that has been made pretty clear at this point, which is a deliberate choice to destroy the family unit.

>Value is also determined by the fact that stay-at-home mums are willing to look after their own kids for free, and childcare professionals are not.

The free market value of taking care of 1 child under some arbitrary standard of care is not meaningfully impacted by the fact an arbitrary person might do it for free, anymore than the fact I might be willing to search for gold for free reduces the value of gold. It will have some effect in aggregate, but that effect would impact the whole market so is meaningless in the context of differentiating a universal payment.

>Makes it easier for parents to decide to work if they want to, but I thought ancaps liked that sort of thing...

It indeed does make it easier to decide to work if you're now getting taxed to cover $12K per child of every child in the whole state going to daycare, and you get none of that for your own kid unless you put them into daycare yourself because magically your own childcare doesn't count.

>The absolute best thing we could do for children is to ensure that those of them who have low-earning parents stay at home on their own with no daycare and no education?

I said from the beginning I wanted a waiver. i.e. reduction of taxes. I would put taxes at 0% and free up lots of jobs and returned tax money to low-earning families so they could afford more for their children, which I think is the best thing possible for them. With the added effect they can spend that money freely rather than having a state lord over them what one public school they can spend it on or lording over them with their own stolen money what childcare provider they can use.

The reason why I would argue for equal subsidies if they're provided is I believe either no tax, or equal subsidies is the most liberty minded solution. The solution where the state forcibly taxes and then lords the money over you depending on whom provides the childcare is the lowest-liberty solution of all of them. That is why I'm a temporary ally of the policy alternative I reference.

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

#663

Post by chlodwig » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #653

chlodwig wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post I was replying to said that free parental leave would allow parents to "give their best to the economy" and reach their "full potential" at the career. To me that implied American work culture and "greedy jobs." (Google the term, there has been a lot of commentary on it). From what I understand, most European countries optimize for something like "cozy economic conditions" rather than "maximizing economic po…

> Who gets to be sleep deprived? The live-in nanny. A high-paid lawyer and a sr software engineer together make, let's presume they make $500k/yr combined. They should take some of that money and hire someone else to do it for them. The question shouldn't be to compare one mom's job vs taking care of two children, there should be a team of professional adults taking care of a cadre of children. Amortized over that, t…

> there should be a team of professional adults

Look up how much housing costs, and how much professional nannies cost, in a location where the software engineer and lawyer are making $500k combined. And you'll need at least two nannies, one overnight, one during the day. I don't think the math is going to work out very well. Also, there are a lot of greedy jobs that don't pay nearly as well as $250k, especially early in career.

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

#664

Post by chlodwig » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

benterix wrote: post #660

chlodwig wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post I was replying to said that free parental leave would allow parents to "give their best to the economy" and reach their "full potential" at the career. To me that implied American work culture and "greedy jobs." (Google the term, there has been a lot of commentary on it). From what I understand, most European countries optimize for something like "cozy economic conditions" rather than "maximizing economic po…

> I am curious though, would this job that mom goes back to actually be more "productive" than taking care of a four year-old and two-year old human child? Actually, any job she likes? In this case, it's not for the baby, it's for her. Being with a child 24/7 has its toll, and people are social animals, they like being with others. In this case, work - especially white collar - is a kind of rest for parents. At least…

Taking care of a baby can be very social ... as long as the other mother's aren't all at work.

And what exactly are these jobs that are a rest compared to taking care of a baby? Are they actually economically productive or are they bureaucratic fake jobs?

I have noticed that many of my peer parents make parenting more stressful than it needs to be, and don't invest enough in learning techniques to make it less stressful. Like, some parents don't even invest in baby-proofing and then they are constantly chasing their toddler around. But, the first year of baby is always going to be stressful because everything is so new, just as the first year at a brand new job is always going to be more stressful than a job one is highly experienced at.

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

#665

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #287

no_wizard wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers union(s) are some of the highest profile anti union targets in the US as well. There’s also issues on a structural level that leads to poor compensation for teachers vs other government positions. Really school funding and public education in the US in general is in a very strange place across the board and has been for decades

Maybe I'm missing something but I haven't seen a lot of teacher unions being broken so I'm not sure what you mean. The results for a given teacher are poor no matter what the reasons, it's a bad "hey get a union" rallying cry IMO.

[deleted]

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

#666

Post by notahacker » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 2:53 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #662

notahacker wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The major incentive for providing childcare subsidies to everyone but stay at home parents (who now have net negative in this whole scenario post-tax) is to disincentive stay at home parents. If the idea was just to aid with childcare the aid with go with the child. You're purposefully excluding stay-at-homes from the definition of childcare, which is false and disingenuous. The objective of providing free childcar…

>The objective of providing free childcare to anyone that wants it is to enable people to avail themselves of free childcare. The objective of excluding the parent from that has been made pretty clear at this point, which is a deliberate choice to destroy the family unit. >Value is also determined by the fact that stay-at-home mums are willing to look after their own kids for free, and childcare professionals are not…

Got it, family units are destroyed by kids spending some time at nurseries. Free market values aren't determined by what the free market actually pays for services (absolutely nothing for parenting your own kid, potentially a lot more for looking after someone else's) but by weird analogies to gold (children of course also being a commodity). Parents are of course, famously transactional in their relationships with children, with the key priority being maximising how much the government spends on their care. If daycare is subsidised absolutely everyone will claim the maximum amount (just like the alternative you propose!) because otherwise all the burden of paying for it will fall upon stay-at-home mums (I dunno, maybe the income tax on their massive parenting salaries?) and not spread across the wider taxpaying base, the highest paying segments of which generally aren't parents of infants. Putting up taxes is bad, but putting up everyone's taxes much more to subsidise -checks notes- people who enjoy looking after children so much they'd prefer it to free daycare is better. But the best possible thing for low-earning families is for them to have to lose all benefits and pay for care, schooling, medical bills etc, because if there's anyone that pays more into the system than they get out of it, it's low income families...

Not gonna lie, if it requires this much compounded nonsense to construct an argument against childcare vouchers, the case for it is much better than I thought :)

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

#667

Post by jtbayly » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 6:07 PM UTC

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…

Sorry if I wasn’t clear initially. The point is that women should not stay home. Yes, this is “fully gendered” because reality is fully gendered. Far and away the majority of childcare is performed by women. Always has been. Always will be.

The emphasis on jobs over children as where we want women’s energy, time, and attention to go is what is being demonstrated by this policy. We will pay you to leave your children with others. We will not pay you to take care of your children.

Why anybody thinks this will result in more children being born is beyond me. Sure, it might make it “easier” in some sense to have children, but what it teaches is job > children, and that is going to result in people learning to deprioritize children. As intended.

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

#668

Post by jtbayly » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 6:17 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #522

mothballed wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you are missing the inputs. Social security requires two inputs 1) "Paying in" 2) Raising up the next generation to pay it back out. Without both, the entire system collapses and goes insolvent. If I do (1) but barely do (2) I am subsidized by the people that do both (1) and (2), if my payout isn't linked to (2). The genius of social security argument about the childless "paying in" is they rightly identify their…

As long as population holds constant, it doesn't matter who does/doesn't have kids. Some people have more, some people have fewer, some people immigrate. It all works out in the end. Childless people pay into the system like everyone else. They aren't freeloaders. As a parent myself I find this kind of savior complex incredibly embarrassing. We have kids, great. I'm glad our government offers tax benefits, services,…

Why do you expect the population to hold constant? That unsupported assumption is what you base everything on.

Furthermore, if the population stays the same but ages, there will be major ramifications to SS.

Furthermore, if the population remains constant but fewer and fewer people have children, then those who do have children bear more and more of the burden of providing for everybody else’s retirement. Responding with “so what, SS will cover me whether I have children or not” is kind of missing the point. And leads straight back to the first point. In a world that requires people to have a substantial number of children to survive (like our world with SS), economically disadvantaging people who prioritize having children is a huge risk.

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

#669

Post by alchemical_piss » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 6:26 PM UTC

qgin wrote: post #643

Nifty3929 wrote: post #15

It's easy to promise things, but hard to deliver them. How can the state "guarantee no-cost universal child?" Will the state provide the child care itself? Or will the attempt to provide funding, relying on the private market to provide the service. Are there a bunch of underworked child care providers just waiting around for new customers? Or would they expect the child care industry to go on a hiring spree? Regardl…

We're likely 5-10 years out from a world where tappy-tap computer keyboard jobs are in a death spiral and caregiving jobs are one of the only fields untouched by automation.

Enjoy living on $14/h for the rest of your life.

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

#670

Post by alchemical_piss » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 6:36 PM UTC

Muromec wrote: post #250

outside1234 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no principles here, no moral compass, only power. It is important to understand this.

And once you do understand -- then what? You stop complaining and decide to put up with whatever the powers to be are up to, right?

Incorrect, you keep complaining and decide to put up with the powers that be.