For anyone who expressed shock when I said that my daycare costs were $40K for 2012, this article shows that I actually got off cheap.
2013 isn't going to be much better for me. The tuition for my youngest just went up to $420 per week. Per week! But 2014 will be much better since the public schools are decent so we don't have to splurge on private school.
Should the government subsidize affordable daycare for working families? I say hell yeah.
wow, just wow. I don't know how people do it. Survive those years before the child can go to school when the parents are working. I have friends and family who do it, somehow. They all find a way to make it work.(doesn't make me eager to have kids yet)I am glad you are able to use daycare. I remember reading OldMDgirl's blog about childcare as well. Its a struggle.
ReplyDeleteMust vary in different parts of the country. We pay about $250 a week part time for two kids. We have a pre-taxed benefit through work, so $5K my pay gets taken out and puts toward that. Still that is only $5K and it's not per kid. I would at least double it and make it per kid if they are going to a licensed center.
ReplyDeleteUmm, the US government does allow a tax deduction for child care costs so that the parents can work.
ReplyDeleteYes. $5,000. Not helpful.
DeleteSo you want the government to give money so families who have two full time salaries don't have to spend as much on day care. Who exactly is going to pay for it?
ReplyDelete1) The rich! OK, but those families with 2 incomes are likely going to be in the upper half of income, so basically they will be taxed for a benefit given right back to them.
2) Who cares? We accept ~1 trillion dollar yearly deficits anyway, whats a few more bucks to dump on the future generations! Well, maybe that generation would rather have been raised in a poorer home rather than getting saddled with our debt.
Of course, such a proposal will also work to exacerbate the very problem its trying to solve, namely daycare prices. More cash/demand = rising prices. Just like in health care and education.
Umm... if people had reliable daycare, they could work and help support the economy. Many people quit working because they can't afford paying for daycare with the salary they make. My own friend has a good job and pays more in daycare for two kids than she makes. She works for her sanity and the healthcare benefits.
DeleteProper early child education has been shown to benefit kids. When they having stimulating programs instead of being left in front of the TV all day, they usually end up being more intelligent. Regardless, it puts kids on a more level playing field and will help improve their chances of succeeding in the future.
By the way, our deficit is actually improving. The rich are paying less in taxes than they have in years. Maybe you should check your sources and look at actual numbers.
Exactly what rising prices are in education K through 12? Because everyone gets public education for free, there's not the issues that you see in higher education or healthcare. Those waiver systems to pay private schools are a disaster (way too many for profit crappy schools get money while the kids don't get an education worth beans), but when schools are funded properly, there's no crazy raise in costs and kids get the education they need. You don't fix things with subsidies. You fix things by having a program for everyone in the nation, which then gets funded by a bit of everyone's taxes. This actually benefits the entire society. I know this is a horrible thing to you, but it's what we have with public education and Medicare, and it actually works pretty well. The whole system works really well in Scandinavian countries. It's just slightly harder to get dirty, filthy rich, which is way harder in America than everyone thinks it is anyway (your chances of actually making more than $100,000 a year are less than 1 in a 100, last I checked a few years ago).
PharmGirl
You'd be too rich to qualify for such a subsidy, Fiz. Sorry. I'm also inclined to agree with the people above about the effects on daycare prices.
ReplyDeleteI might be too "rich" but most women aren't. Most women can't afford full time daycare for more than one kid yet aren't poor enough to qualify for any kind of subsidy. If you earn, say, $50K as a teacher, why would you work and spend $40 for daycare, resulting in negative income? This forces women out of the job market and makes it much harder to have a career later.
ReplyDeleteNot having affordable daycare is incredibly anti-women, in my opinion. Yes, we doctors are okay. But most women I know literally cannot afford to work. I think the fact that our government does not support women with small kids being able to work is pathetic.
Spouse is a teacher and, at full time, doesn't make anywhere near $50. More like 2/3 of that.
DeleteYeah, exactly. So how can she/he afford daycare and work?
DeleteI work a higher paid job in healthcare, so it isn't really an issue for us. Plus our kiddo isn't quite born yet.
DeleteHowever, many of our friends have multiple kids in daycare on this kind of income. How do they make it work? They just do. Budgeting, low cost/no vacations, buying the generic brands (wait, we do all of those, too). Plus, as teachers, there isn't as much need for daycare after kids are in school as the days kids aren't in school are the same teachers aren't in school. So, except for some teacher work days (covered by local highschool/college kids), there isn't need for day care after kindy starts -so about 5 years per kid max.
It is a lower cost of living area.
We'll then there is the whole political view point on women's health in general with regards to them having children. I thought it was the strangest thing when you hear about GOP viewpoints were having kids was good, but they didn't want to fund anything that helped parents take care of them properly.
ReplyDeleteFuckin A
DeleteMost of the people that I know that have 2 parents both working are not upper class. They are actually middle class where they both have to work to afford housing but the rest of 1 income is just used for healthcare and childcare. However, if 1 parent stayed at home they wouldn't be able to afford housing and healthcare. So they get stuck. Let's not even talk about the single parent households where non-working isn't an option. I live in part of the country with high housing costs, high gas prices, some of the highest daycare costs, but incomes - not so high. It's frustrating.
ReplyDeleteSo true. Two working parents does not equal rich. I mean, maybe if they're doctors, but most people are not doctors.
DeleteThe government provides free school for kids age 5 through 18. Why not free (or cheap) daycare for the early years?
I'm glad of the system we have hear every time I read things like this. Public (pre)school starts at 2 and a half and more than 95% of kids go even though it's not compulsory. They have the same hours as grade school with the same before and after school care (at most schools from 7 to 18.00). For under threes there are two options: nurseries/daycares and childminders. Both are completely certified etc and most are subsidised meaning that the price depends on parents income, number of children, if there are multiples in the family, number of hours etc. For this year the cost ranges between 1.50 and 27 euros a day for a full day (up to 12 hours).
DeleteI don't have children and don't expect to have any in the foreseable future. But I really don't understand the attitude that because I don't benefit, I shouldn't pay for it.
I was just talking about this tonight. I'm pregnant with my first and am dealing with the craziness known as finding childcare. I live in a relatively expensive city. We have a subsidy program that will help a family out, provided you make less than $58k per year as a family. That's great, but what if you make $60k? You're out of luck. But good luck affording the $1200-1900 a month for infant daycare. My husband is a post-doc. If we were having twins, daycare would be more than his salary.
ReplyDeleteThe other annoying thing is according to my friend with kids in my town, apparently a lot of people get major subsidies to send their kid to daycare full time.... while they don't have jobs. Or school. Or anything. This is incredibly frustrating when I know it's a stretch for anyone making $60-70k per year to afford daycare at all, especially if you have more than one kid.
The truth of the matter is that kids benefit from good early childcare. Plenty of other countries look at early childcare as a right and very important. "Bringing Up Bebe" actually had a good, although brief, commentary about how things are different in France.
I just finished pharmacy school, so I should be able to afford daycare. But I have to find one, and there aren't a lot of open spaces. Also, right now I'm per diem, and if that doesn't change, that's going to be a problem. Most places don't even offer part-time infant care. If I find one, that limits what days I can work. If I can't work enough, I can't pay for childcare, especially since those gigantic loans are coming due.
Really, I think part of the problem is our society still has this idea that women should stay at home and raise their kids, so we can't make early childcare reasonable, even if people have to work multiple jobs just to afford basic expenses. Basically, people who are really poor or well-off or better can get childcare relatively easily, and everyone else suffers. Actually, come to think of it, we have a similar problem with healthcare, too, but that's for another debate.
PharmGirl
Seems a bit like saying "Why won't the government pay for someone to fill up my car with gas?" Caring for kids is a big job. If you intend to do it yourself, great! If you don't intend to do it yourself but will pay someone to do it, great! If you don't intend to do it yourself and don't want to pay someone to do it, maybe don't have kids?
ReplyDeleteIf you earn less than what childcare would cost you, the solution seems very simple - stay home and take care of the kids yourself. If you can't afford that, then you're spending more than you can earn - cut your budget until that situation changes. As far as 'supporting the economy", you produce the most value when you're doing the highest paid job. If your job pays less than another you could be doing, that's an opportunity cost, not a gain.
I'm not sure how this is anti-women, either - two people made the baby, two people are responsible for its care. When I say "you" should stay home, that's not specific to women - it's whichever partner has the lowest income or matches up best with the skills required for childcare.
I understand that it's frustrating paying $420 a week for childcare, but not why other people should have to pay so you can do the job you prefer.
Let's face it, it's almost always the woman who stays home, even if we'd like to pretend otherwise.
DeleteAnd it's not quite as simple as how you're making it out to be. If you are out of the workforce for 5-10 years, while your kids are small, it becomes much harder to get back in. Essentially, it's a HUGE career setback.
And does it benefit society for women with decades of education, much of it at least partially financed by the government, to be forced to stay home with their kids when they could contribute so much more?
Let's use the teacher example. A person goes to a state university for college (govt financed), then gets a teaching degree at a city college (govt financed). But then her teaching salary is far less than what she'd pay to put her kids in daycare, so she can't work. What a waste of taxpayer money, right?
Most first world countries understand things like this and do take care of this situation a lot better.
It's true, it's almost always the woman who stays home. Regrettably, it's also usually the woman who has lower earning potential, even if both partners are doing the same job. That's still a choice the couple ought to make together.
DeleteYou're right, it's a HUGE career setback - but this isn't news to anyone, it should be an anticipated cost of your decision to have kids. Moving to rural Alaska will be a HUGE career setback if you want to become a Fortune 500 CEO or a top-drawer litigator, but you don't get a subsidy for it. We make the choices and we live with their consequences instead of making our neighbours pay because we find grizzlies and glacial water indispensable.
You're right - there's arguably an inefficiency in subsidizing education if it's education that prepares people for low-paying jobs. The govt paying for the teacher's education is part of why she can be paid so little - teachers with 400k in education debt can't take jobs for 30k with minimal growth potential, nor should they. But it still doesn't make sense for the govt to pay, say, $40k for a daycare operator so the teacher can make $30k. You end up paying $70k as a society for the one teaching spot to be filled. The money spent on her education is a sunk cost, and the 200k (40x5 years of childcare) you'd spend could be used to train more teachers to fill the spots. Keep the $40k and tell her to stay home (for a 'raise' of 10k/year) or pay her and all her colleagues the full $70k the job is apparently worth and let inflation lift everyone else's salary accordingly. This is in essence what many of those other first world nations have done, which is part of why their cost of living is generally significantly higher than that of equivalently developed areas of the US.
It's true that most first world countries subsidise the heck out of children. It's also true that they subsidise health care and lots of other social resources. That's not a bad thing in and of itself, but it's a choice that America's still not comfortable with, and arguably there's value in preserving that variety of societies. If you really want to experience those joys firsthand, there's always the option of emigrating! :-)
I hate it when people act like having kids is this weird choice that only a few people make. Procreating is part of what makes us human. It's what the vast majority of human beings do, sometimes in the face of all precautions to the contrary. Blowing it off as a "choice" is not acceptable.
DeleteDaycare at a for-profit center costs $40K. If the govt handled it, the cost would be significantly less... I know this because we have a town-sponsored childcare in our town for slightly older kids and the cost is a fracture of what I pay now (I will be using it when my youngest is old enough in less than a year). And considering there's a shortage of teachers and certain other skilled jobs, I think it is important to encourage women to take a job that best utilizes the education she has.
So... people who don't have kids should pay for yours, and they're not complete humans? Nope, sorry - the vast majority of humans in first world countries own cars, but we don't subsidise new transmissions or brake pads. Having kids is virtually always a choice in a first world nation, no different from getting a second job. If you're one of the tiny minority who were, in fact, taking all precautions and still fell pregnant, it might be reasonable to discuss this, but that's a ridiculously small margin. I'm not suggesting it's a weird choice, or an uncommon choice, but lots of people give to their church or have a pet without feeling that I should pay for their lifestyle, and many of them would say that they felt incomplete without church/Fido in their lives.
ReplyDelete$40k is a lot more than most EMTs make, and more than many paramedics, to pick another example of a career path that's necessary to society but underpaid relative to child care. It's also more than most starting salaries for teachers. I'd say that's a ridiculous cost for caring for a single child when public schools in my former neighborhood ran ~20k/child, but perhaps it reflects how undesirable that role has become compared to parents continuing in their 'professional' roles. Regardless, it absolutely doesn't get cheaper if the govt pays for it, you're just spreading the cost out to everyone who wasn't using that service. If anything, the extra layers of regulation and 'free' money will make it more expensive.
There is a shortage of teachers (and paramedics), but I'd suggest it's not an absolute shortage, but a shortage of people who'll do those demanding jobs for the peanuts they're getting paid. Instead of subsidising the mothers who teach at the expense of their male or childless colleagues, how about paying all the teachers a competitive wage relative to their other options for employment?
The fact that you think having a child is exactly like having a car makes me realize it's pointless to argue this with you.
DeleteLol! I agree with anonymous above that children are a want, not a need, and is the responsibility of the parent to care for during the course of the child's life. Just wanted to let anonymous know he/she is not alone in his/her line of thinking!
Delete-a different anonymous
I'm sorry, Fizzy - it wasn't my intention to demean having a child by the comparison, I just picked something from everyday life. Is there another example you'd prefer? I guess I'm just having trouble with the idea that people without kids should have to pay so that others can have them.
ReplyDeleteHow do you feel about public schools?
DeleteSorry, but there's no inanimate object or animal that you can compare to a human being. This is why we pay for children to go to school and poor children to have medical care, but don't pay for cars to get maintenance or dogs to go to obedience school. Human beings are different.
DeleteAnd you also mentioned church: well, church is tax exempt yet daycare is NOT. I recently read that if churches paid taxes, the revenue would be huge. I don't go to church, so why should I be okay with churches not paying taxes?
Also, living in a society means that you sometimes have to pay taxes for services you don't use with the understanding that other people taxes on services you use but they don't.
Deleteme - I picked my current residence after considering the tax cost, local environment and services provided in several different areas, and one of the taxes was absolutely school tax. My goal was to live in the area with the best balance of taxes, services and conveniences (shops, work/school, entertainment and scenic). If my town council decided to raise taxes significantly, say by enough to provide free daycare to anyone who wished it, I'd vote against the proposal or move to a location better suited to my needs. If I had kids, I'd re-evaluate and add in school quality toward the top of my list. Overall, I think that public schools tend to spend more than private schools to achieve less impressive results, but I don't think there's any database that can capture the utterly unrealistic challenges we've provided for the modern public school system and I readily admit that my experiences of public and private schools may not be universal. How do you feel about public schools?
ReplyDeleteFizzy - I accept that human beings are different than inanimate objects or animals, but examples are rarely perfect. What you seem to be saying is that because children are important to their parents and the continuation of the species, other people should have to pay so the parents can afford to keep the jobs they want instead of raising their kids themselves. That doesn't make sense to me - the parents were happy to have the kids knowing that they'd have to take care of them, there isn't a pressing need to incentivize having kids. As you said, most people will do it anyway! We pay for poor children to go to school and get medical care, but we do it so the children will benefit, not to sponsor their parents' poor financial choices.
You're right, churches are tax exempt and take in billions in the US every year- I don't think you should be okay with that! Saying "they're stealing from you so I can too" is a looter's motto. maybe it would be more effective to fix the problem, instead of contributing to it by demanding your own new personal subsidy which would somehow be more righteous than any of the old unfair ones. Incidentally, their argument for why churches should be tax exempt is pretty much "there's no human need or desire that can compare to the purity of God", which is strikingly similar to your apparent stance on children.
it's true that living in a society is a series of constant compromises between your needs and the needs of others. It also requires some perspective from each member of society, like asking "Is it reasonable for me to compel my male or childless colleagues to pay so I can have kids and keep doing what I love to do?" If there's some return of that along the line (maybe a long service leave/sabbatical type plan that's equally available to all?), then the plan benefits everyone. What's the compromise here? Where's the benefit?
You may not have children, but there's a reasonable chance at some point you'll be in an accident or have a major health condition where you can't work for an extended period of time. Wouldn't it be nice to know that our government won't leave you out in the cold if that happens? You talk big ("why should I pay for you?") but tomorrow you could get hit by an uninsured driver and become a quadriplegic and *I* would be paying for *you*.
DeleteAnd I'd be okay with that, because I think that's how a country ought to work.
I'm actually pretty ok with buying my own disability insurance. Not sure I need the government to bail me out should that happen (god forbid).
DeleteAllow me to suggest that if you really believe that, there are plenty of countries where that IS how it works - you've just happened to pick the one that still retains some measure of individual responsibility. I've chosen (there's that word again) to spend my money on health insurance and car insurance to help protect me against those possibilities. It's not great insurance, but it's the best I can reasonably afford at the moment, and when I can, I'll get more. You can choose to do the same, or not - I promise I won't extort the money from you if you don't decide to buy the same plan!
ReplyDeleteYour example is more like having a child from being raped than one from a consensual relationship - I didn't pick the car that hits me and I'm not walking out into traffic.
When you say "that's how a country ought to work", what's the 'that'? Is the principle just "people should pay for anyone I feel sorry for'? Is it "take care of anyone who can't meet their own basic needs?" On what basis can you equate a quadriplegic with a parent who chooses not to raise their own kids?
Too, there's (roughly) the same chance that you'll be the one hit by the car. As long as we're both paying in up front, you don't get special good person points for paying for *me* - we took the same chances and covered each other. Balancing out a childcare subsidy requires some incentive for people who don't or can't have kids, not offering them the status quo ante.
You DO realize that if you got hit by a car and were permanently disabled, your health insurance would drop you? You'd be on Medicare, like every other person on disability. Which the taxpayers would finance and which you'd be entitled to.
DeleteAnd I don't think you want to get on the slippery slope of only paying for things that result from "choices". A careless jaywalker can get hit by a car, whereas a woman get take every precaution and still get pregnant (I know a woman who had a uterine lining ablation and still got pregnant). To some extent, nearly everything in life results from choices we make.
This country works fine for me, as a person who has a good job and is relatively well off. I just feel empathy for others in less fortunate positions.
Hey, cool - I know a guy who survived being hit by lightning, and another who drowned 3 times and was resuscitated after 47 minutes the 3rd time! Virtually every adult in a developed country has access to excellent contraception. It's one of the things, like vaccines, that medicine actually does really, really well. There are amazing exceptions to everything, people who get shot in the head and live or conceive without a uterus, but virtually everyone who conceives in a developed nation does so by choice a lot more immediate than you seem to be suggesting. The standard here is 'reasonable person', not 'Butterfly effect', and choice is EXACTLY what I'm trying to discuss.
ReplyDeleteEmpathy is great - it's heartwarming and helps promote understanding of the struggles others face. I'm just pointing out that your empathy doesn't give you the right to rob me, and that cloaking it in "it's for the children" or "it's for the benefit of society" is intellectually dishonest. I understand that people who have kids are facing more financial burdens than they would otherwise face. Do you understand why I would have no problem with you donating to a charity to support childcare but have a huge problem with your taking my money for that purpose?
I disagree about having children being a choice, and you can read my post on it here:
Deletehttp://doccartoon.blogspot.com/2013/01/weekly-whine-having-kids-is-choice.html
Also, you can look at this post:
Deletehttp://www.mothersinmedicine.com/2012/09/oops-babies.html
I'm sort of baffled by your comparisons if you think accidental pregnancy is as common as getting hit by lightning.
I read your blog fairly regularly and must have missed that one - a good read, and thanks! I think rem6775's comment on it pretty much sums up how I'd respond to it, and it actually touches on a lot of the things I've already said here. The last paragraph rings particularly true for me:
ReplyDelete"The problems arise if you use children as an "excuse" to work a lower amount and want similar compensation/vacation. I'm not sure the best way to word this, but the other problem can arise if you bring your children up as being a more important reason than someone else's (Oh, I had to miss that week because of my kid's ... but you don't have kids, so you can take that vacation whenever you want). It comes down to accommodating people equally regardless of reason."
I understand your issue with other residents complaining about maternity leave, but it's pretty easy to see why people might not agree with the sheer haughtiness embodied by "My kids are a basic human need, so you should work for me while I take care of them. Whatever you wanted to do with your life can wait because my life plans are important for the survival of the species." Humanity's survived a long time without federal maternity leave, and I think we'll probably eke out one more generation even without my contribution.
If there were good affordable daycare, mothers would have less of an excuse to be unreliable.
DeleteThe comparison was to your anecdote about the woman who got pregnant post endometrial ablation - not precisely an everyday event.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't just listing an example of something rare. I mentioned that to illustrate that if a woman can get pregnant in the face of uterine destruction, mere birth control is definitely going to fail some percentage of the time. No birth control is 100%. Unless you think the woman is being selfish by not aborting her fetus.
DeleteIt's true that good affordable daycare would help mothers be more reliable, but as long as you're asking the same people who are already being imposed upon to pay for the daycare you've just switched to costing them money instead of costing them time.
ReplyDeleteYou can't get blood from a stone. If you don't provide women with an affordable way to take care of her kids and she has a crappy salary than won't pay for childcare, then that's the result, like it or not.
Delete