Yep, it’s a sick, sad situation, with no easy answers…
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How do we charge people with no kids for childcare for everyone else?
Thus the appeal of school voucher programs. But ultimately it’s not so different from property taxes going to fund local schools regardless of if you have kids or not.
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We’re not charging them for childcare for everyone else. We’re charging them for a better-functioning society, which includes making it so poor people are able to remain part of the workforce even if they end up with a child.
I wonder how it is that they happened to know so many details of what that parent does once they have left.
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So… my dad is a leading expert on the economics of childcare… and my mum is a leading policy consultant on childcare… and because of that I’ve been kind of steeped in all of these arguments my entire life, even though I don’t have kids of my own.
Basically, their research shows that tax credits are pretty much the most inequitable way of funding childcare. Federal tax credits alongside state or local subsidies sounds to me like a complete disaster of a ‘child care plan’ with the worst of both worlds.
Quality, non-profit, universal childcare is the ideal we should be aiming for as a society because good early childhood education improves the entire economy. But it’s not definitely not going to happen with Trump, and not likely even with Trudeau here in Canada.
My dad wrote a slightly more accessible (with no math!) booklet about why universal childcare programs are the best solution and why arguments against them don’t really stack up. It’s a bit dated and aimed towards Canadians but is applicable generally. It’s available here: http://www.childcarepolicy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/FactandFantasy.pdf
"The argument that “it costs too much” exploits the fear that many Canadians have about the size of the public sector and the potential for a return to deficit spending. But although good child care is expensive, it will strengthen the Canadian economy rather than weaken it. Our arguments in this chapter can be summarized as follows: * Spending on child care is an investment rather than a consumption expenditure. The test of any investment is whether the rate of return justifies the expense. * Good child care generates two types of returns. The first is the productivity of the parents freed to enter the labour force. The second is the increase in future productivity of children who receive early educational experiences. * When benefits and costs are both accounted for, public expenditures on good child care generate at least a 2-for-1 return, producing $2 in benefits for every $1 in new spending. * Competitiveness is enhanced rather than compromised because good child care makes Canada a better place for companies and their executives to locate."
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I nominate you for Secretary of Education!
Wait, you’re Canadian, aren’t you. Oh, and nominations for cabinet positions don’t really work like that, do they.
Oh well. Maybe I’ll just send a copy of your dad’s book to DeVos and I’m sure she’ll give it a serious read.
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… as long as Americans continue to think that democratic socialism is the boogeyman and the “free market” will cure all of society’s ills.
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Most of the have-nots I know personally don’t actually believe that.
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‘But these people have worked hard to get to where we are. Why should we reward lazy motherfuckrrs that just arne’t working hard enough?’
- Said during a ‘debate’ with family.
Hard to argue work ethics with a guy that literally started at a warehouse hand loading trucks and managed to get up to plant manager (nolonger working there. some office politics thing caused some things involving hiring practices got him fired… after working there sixteen years.)when you yourself both failed college, and don’t have a work history.
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Same here, but apparently enough voters do.
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Ha! I’m probably more qualified for the position than DeVos is… but that’s not saying much.
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Its an absurd interpretation of what I said, but you seem to be on a roll with that. Carry on!
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Possibly. That depends upon the location and the people allowed to cast votes; gerrymandering is a real thing.
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Same. I had a friendship with someone who had almost nothing and who I cared very very much about. I (naively) tried to find solutions to their problems but everything required them already having e.g. money, a car, several stable friends. Unless someone came in and literally sponsored their life for a year, they just had no way out of the bullshit. In the end I couldn’t do anything and ended up feeling suicidal for my effort.
Ours is an extremely inhumane society.
ETA: And the most frustrating thing is there’s absolutely no reason for it to be. People aren’t naturally this shit. It has been poisoned.
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Ours is a failing society.
We don’t revere our elderly, or defend our weakest factions. We don’t invest in our youth’s future. We don’t provide quality education to our masses, and we don’t reward those who work the hardest. We don’t live sustainably and we don’t plan for future generations.
Unless…
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Yeah, I “paid less” out of pocket for my childcare. Because I had to get a government subsidy just to keep working. It was that or not work at all. I couldn’t get any government assistance on my rent, because the waiting list for subsidized housing was 5 years long in my county. I was just above the cutoff for food stamps. We had no health insurance; my kid got her vaccinations at free clinics.
It’s not like you just show up and the government gives you free stuff. The childcare subsidy required me to meet with a social worker every 6 months to show them I still needed the benefits. I had to take an unpaid day off work to do that; my (full time) job didn’t offer PTO.
So I mean, you can bitch about how your taxes supported my “lazy lifestyle”, but would you have preferred I didn’t work at all? Because that would have been easier than my hour commute.
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You seem to have basic human empathy, which disqualifies you from serving in the current administration, unfortunately.
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If that’s what you drew from this article, perhaps you should go better yourself.
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Isn’t it fortunate that you almost certainly won’t be in your current economic bind for very long? Maybe a year, or two, or at most five? Then your kid is in full-day public school, you’ve got that many more years of seniority at your job (and probably even a promotion or two at that point) so your salary will be higher.
I forget the exact numbers, but I believe the average time on welfare (in the U.S.) is well under 2 years over an entire lifetime.
Isn’t it great there’s a safety net for children who have it much worse off at home than yours does?
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True, but 50K in those cities is even less.
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You’re implying paying for daycare isn’t just teaching parents how to save for college. If you can make it without that extra $10k a year, well just keep socking it back and your kid will have a decent egg for college…
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