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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

#81

Post by mrkeen »

WD-42 wrote: post #37
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…

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?

It's an interesting way to divide up a country's labour.

50% do child rearing, and the other 50% do literally all other professions.

If you did have such a large cohort engaged in that activity, there should probably be some kind of education where one could learn 'the best'.

Of course people with kids would be too busy to attend.

And the ones who did attend wouldn't have any kids to look after.

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

#82

Post by deadbabe »

bertili wrote: post #22

It baffles me (as European) that any politician, or informed voter, would stand up for non free child healthcare. Let alone the moral aspect of denying a child healthcare because she happen to be born into a low income family, it can’t possibly be economically advantageous for any society to ignore child healthy issues and it’s future.

You don’t understand the United States.

The point of the US has always been to make it easy for people to accumulate a lot of money, so that they can independently purchase things like child care if they need it, but if not, they can freely invest their money into other things.

Prioritizing cashflow over social safety nets results in a very liquid lifestyle, that can change quickly according to your own individual desires. Since you are not depending on any government handouts, you can simply take your money to wherever you see fit and live how you want. This appeals to many American individualist values.

If you live in a European society where you don’t earn a lot of money but you have most essential things provided by the government, you typically have to live a specific kind of lifestyle. Moving out of that country becomes infeasible, you can’t take government services with you. Your life will look very similar to people around you, everyone depends on the same government services and few have accumulated enough money to live an order of magnitude more comfortable than others. In a random sample of Americans, you will likely find a range of people from low-key millionaires to people up to their eyeballs in crushing debt.

Unfortunately though in the US, this entire concept collapses when people are no longer able to accumulate a lot of cash. They will live in the worst of both worlds: broke and the government isn’t helping them.

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

#83

Post by monknomo »

sbrother wrote: post #41
monknomo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could sub in universal k-12 schooling and your concern trolling points would not need to be change. I applaud the versatile argument.

+1. That being said, universal k-12 schooling works because it is publicly run. A subsidized private sector model has a lot of bad incentives and issues to work out. As an example, I've sent my kids to a private school for the past five years, and last year our state introduced a voucher program to help subsidize private education. The school responded by raising the prices by almost the amount of the voucher, just f…

I'm not in charge, but if I were, I'd just have the government provide the services. I don't think middlemen, especially for not-very-specialized services, provide a lot of value vs 'just buy/lease some space and hire some folks'

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

#85

Post by delichon »

kccqzy wrote: post #10

I'm very unfamiliar with New Mexico (having only been a tourist in Albuquerque and Santa Fe for a few days), but according to U.S. News it ranks 50 out of 50 for education: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education . Given some level of geographic mobility it doesn't seem like a place I would want to raise a child. Am I mistaken? Thoughts?

50 out of 50, plus the District of Columbia, for 8 consecutive years. I recently spent a few weeks as a instructional assistant in a New Mexico high school classroom. I saw nothing but highly dedicated professional teachers doing their best. But student performance is astonishingly low. I felt like running through the halls screaming like my hair was on fire, but there is very little in the way of alarm or anything but a few changes around the edges.

I went to a school board meeting, where they voted to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a tire alignment machine for the shop class. I would rather have seen it spent on online math instruction, but I could see their point of view: they want to graduate students who have a chance to get a job, and the academic side of the school is not providing it, and not trending in that direction. So they spent the money where they saw some hope.

If you can afford to do better than public school for your children in New Mexico, it's an imperative.

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

#87

Post by pavon »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #50
lp251 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is paid for by the oil and gas boom in Southern NM. The medical situation is getting worse by the year, though. I don’t think it’s just a matter of shoveling more dollars

What I was told, was it was anti-undocumented stuff. People don’t want immigrants getting help that residents pay for, so they turn the spigots off for everyone.

I haven't seen anything like that. The biggest factor you can clearly point to is that NM has some of the lowest salaries for doctors combined with some of the highest medical insurance premiums.

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

#88

Post by ddoolin »

SignalM wrote: post #74

[flagged]

It's $16k for a 1-person household. Here's the rest:

$21,150 (2), $26,650 (3), $32,150 (4), $37,650 (5), $43,150 (6), $48,650 (7), $54,150 (8)

Also the median household income in NM is ~$62,000 according to the Census, which is already under the 400% threshold for just a one person household.

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-fp... https://data.census.gov/profile/New_Mexico?g=040XX00US35

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

#90

Post by WD-42 »

dzink wrote: post #42
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?

And with this option they can have that choice. Right now, many don’t.

Yea and I think that’s great. OP makes it sound like every parent is pining to contribute to the churning of capitalism if only they didn’t have to worry about raising a child. It’s not so.
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