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

There's two things I think you've overlooked. One thing is that politically it's easier for benefits to remain sticky if everyone benefits from it vs a subpopulation. That's why universal income has stronger support than welfare benefits. Additionally, when you don't have means testing, the bureaucracy is a lot more straightforward and politicians can't mess with it by effectively cutting the program by increasing the administrative burden.

> We are lucky that we can afford to do this.

This is the second piece. What about people who are on the margin who aren't wealthy enough to do this and the subsidy would hep them achieve this? The subsidy could help the mom stay home and maybe do part-time work from home even. The thing that's easiest to miss when you're well on one side of a boundary is only looking at the other side of the boundary instead of also looking at where that boundary is drawn.

I dislike the perversity of taxing people than only giving the money back to them if they arrange their life in a way that policy-makers prefer (two income family). I especially dislike it when the subsidized choice of institutional childcare is more inefficient (paying for a lot of overhead), worse for the environment (extra people commuting), and worse for the kids (kids in groups that are classes that are too large for their age, taken care of by a rotating cast of minimum wage workers instead of by their own parent). And yes, I think parents who successfully home-school their children should be given the money that government schools would have cost them.

In most of those other households, it's highly probable that they wish they could have a stay-at-home-parent but can't afford it. A small payment can help nudge people over the line where it suddenly becomes financially viable. A voucher type solution would also work great for families that would also prefer to e.g. hire a private nanny instead of sending their child to daycare.

+1 This whole mentality of voucher system is selfish.

Even if we consider it as an "efficiency" problem, it is far cheaper for a person to be paid to take care of N children (where N is not too large), rather than have the have the mom, who is probably qualified in some other field, take care of just their children.

Good government policies generally avoid step functions otherwise you get perverse incentives.

For example, if you lose too many benefits when you get a job, it can easily make getting a job yield negative expected value, this is bad because often it stunts future career potential.

There may be families that cannot quite afford to be a stay-at-home mom even though they want to. Providing the waiver also increases the overall fairness. In rural areas there are generally far fewer childcare options, so this becomes a benefit that accrues to those that live in cities. Not very fair.

Isn’t the idea that many families want to have a stay at home mom, but can’t afford to and are forced to work.

Therefore a waiver would help with this?

Also, stay at home mums often like to sometimes be able to use child care facilities. I doubt they feel cheated that they don't use it on the majority of days they prefer to spend with their kids...

Right. I agree, but I think you are appealing to generosity when it works just as well if you appeal to greed and selfishness.

If I'm a parent who does not intend to take advantage of the program and therefore not to get any benefit directly, and I assume the program is done well and not rushed, I could reasonably expect:

- More parents able to be in the work force (immediately) - Better metrics for the young children entering. Especially for at risk. - Savings from less crime in the future. - Higher attainment of students when they enter the work force later. - Higher birth rate??? (probably not but this one is interesting regardless)

My understanding so far is that this leads to spending savings in addition to QOL of life improvements. And that's just for me. I want to live with less crime and less tax liability.

Asking for additional waivers imo just increases the cost in areas that will not as directly achieve the benefits of the program as stated. The only reason to ask for it is as a negotiation tactic.

I think the most important thing is to focus on the quality of the program and make sure the resources are there. And to make sure opportunities persist to prevent "fade out". I think that might have been the difference between Oklahoma's success in pre-k vs a program in Tennessee.

> The more broadly you spread the money, the less benefit each person receives.

But this is true in the other direction, too. Means testing costs money, time, and ensures some needy folks fall off the program.

For example, Florida did drug testing as a condition for welfare benefits... and it cost more than they saved. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/us/no-savings-found-in-fl...

> But doing so would not only increase the costs dramatically (by a multiple) it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care.

And while no-strings-attached payouts appeal to rational geeks, they usually lead to public perception problems. If you give a voucher for childcare to a parent struggling with addiction or a gambling habit, they will probably send the kid to childcare. If you give them cash, they probably won't.

It's a minority that might not be worth fixating on from a rational policy-making point of view, you bet it's the minority that will be in the headlines. Selfishly, I'd like cash in lieu of all the convoluted, conditional benefits that are available to me. But I know why policymakers won't let me have it.

In Poland, they have a "universal child benefit" that pays a stipend for every child you have.

They do pay for it and it is expensive, but apparently it made a large reduction in child poverty, so that's a win.

From my understanding, it also reduced women in the workforce and reduced investment in childcare infrastructure since more mothers were then taking care of children at home.

So this is possible, it just depends on what you want to incentivize.

> The more broadly you spread the money, the less benefit each person receives. If you extended an equal benefit to parents who were already okay ...

By your own argument, this policy dilutes the value New Mexico / Feds were prior giving to the poorer parents who met the means testing New Mexico used before, then, no? Because this isn't the beginning of "free" childcare in NM, they are just expanding it beyond the prior poverty-line times 'X" means testing.

Ergo per your logic "real outcome would be reduced benefits" to the poorer parents who already had subsidized childcare.

Edit: accidently switched "childcare" to "healthcare" a few times, flipped back

"But doing so would not only increase the costs dramatically (by a multiple) it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care."

And that's the argument against many of these policies - removal of the needs based testing. Odd to see you defend the policy on the very basis others attack it on.

>Now you’re giving checks to parents who were already doing okay at home but also diminished the childcare benefit for those who needed it, which was the goal in the beginning.

They're the ones who are basically paying the vast majority of the cost of this program, what's the problem with a small fraction of it coming back to them? Especially if it reduces the bureaucratic overhead of running it?

I would very much be considered someone who doesn’t “need” the funding, but when deciding between having a 3rd child or just sticking with 2, I wasn’t comfortable enough to afford 3 in daycare and helping 3 through college. However, I expect my offspring to be significantly greater economic contributors to society than the average. It would have made sense for society to fund my childcare to incentivize me to populate the earth.

"it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care". Looking at data like 77% of US workers would face financial difficulty if a paycheck was delayed by just one week. I would imaging % of people with kids who don’t need it for child care is fairly tiny.

In the book 'Double Entry' the author explains that the guy who created GDP was actually in favor of having family caregiving and household activities accounted for in GDP. If that had happened, different world

More realistically here, there’s a limit to the funding any individual state can come up with to fund benefits. Tradeoffs have to be considered and increased workforce participation increases the tax receipts that fund these programs. It’s not much more complicated than that.

> There are many things that may be better overall, but because they're not financialized, they don't show up on GDP and so are deemed "worthless."

I think you're confusing GDP with a measure of worth or quality. It is not. Just because you can earn money doing double-shifts in a coal mine that doesn't make it better than spending the same time at a beach doing nothing.

You don't subsidize the rich, yet you subsidize rich child care corporations (or high-level bureaucrats in the event it is public) at the expense of not subsidizing stay at home moms.

You don't want people paid for taking care of their children, but it's OK if other people are paid for taking care of their chidlren.

None of this makes sense. Especially not this false dichotomy that either you send your kids to daycare or they don't learn to interact with others early.

and these $12-24k are net dollars so the parents needs more like $20-40k of gross income to pay for it, but now they can have a small job or small business that nets them even as low as $15k and still come out ahead

One of the reasons to care for your own kids is you can give them individual attention. Unless you have so many kids that you are only caring for your own anyway your plan diverts their attention away to other kids (or those other kids get less attention)

I don't know if that's what they had in mind, but "stay at home mom" is probably not just men/women who solely watch their kid all day long. A full remote worker keeping their kid nearby would probably fit the same criteria, especially if the couple is both remote and they can split dealing with the chores.

> With this policy, those who needed childcare but were priced out of the market will be able to access the service they needed.

And the rich parents who can afford childcare are also given a subsidy. A married parent who wants to stay home but can't quite afford it is forced to work. Is this really what you want? If it is the poor your care about why not subsidies just them?

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 potential" so neither my comment or the comment I was replying to would apply Europe. What I have seen in the U.S. is misery resulting from two parents working greedy jobs, like one is a high-powered lawyer, the other is engineer at a startup and then having a baby or 1 year old or two year old in daycare. One is a sales rep, the other is working a political campaign. What do you do when baby is sick and dad has to make sales quota and mom has a deadline for engineering documents that the entire construction project is bottlenecked on? What do you do when both parents need to stay late at the office, one to finish the legal docs big deal, the other to make a product launch deadline? Stress and fights over whose job is the most important results. What if baby is sick and waking up at night every 30 minutes? Who gets to be sleep deprived?

Then you get your kid to preschool which is either paid or free. In this way the mother (who usually has more burden related to breastfeeding etc.) can finally breathe freely. Can she go to work? Yes, and in some Europaen countries she has the right to ask for part work with the current employer, and they can't refuse. A few years later the kid goes to school (again, paid or free) and parents can decide how they organize their lives based on their needs an expectations. If your kid is sick, you can stay with them, and I always assumed this is normal and civilized way, I can't imagine otherwise.

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?

I don't want to optimize for the economy... but if I did ...

Instead of having the second parents work the non-greedy job painting a house or what-not, and then third-parties working in the child care industry ... just have the second parent take care of their own children and the third-parties painting the houses or what not. Your equation leaves out that the parent taking care of their own kid frees up the workers from the daycare industry to do something else. So their is no net loss in output. It only is a net loss if daycare is so much more efficient at taking care of kids that one day-care worker can free up multiple parents to work non-greedy jobs, but when you look at the all-in costs of daycare including administration and facilities and floaters that is not really the case.

If that is what you mean then I seriously doubt your claim that there are few non-greedy jobs that contribute to the economy.

What I said is "that contribute to the economy enough to be of more value than childcare" Picking up trash or painting houses are important jobs that contribute to the economy, but they are not more valuable than caring for children nor do they pay more, so there is little point in a second parent going back to work as a house painter and then paying for daycare, or having the state subsidize daycare.

In a medium cost-of-living city in America, two kids in daycare will cost $40k-$45k. There aren't many non-greedy, non-sinecure/subsidized jobs that will pay enough after taxes and commute costs to make entering the workforce worth it. And I don't see the point in actively subsidizing the childcare versus giving all parents some assistance and then letting them choose the more economically efficient path.

It sounds like she was a poor fit, or the child care center sucked.

Try to find one that has long average tenure (10+ years, if possible).

I feel like unionizing really hasn't done much for teachers. They're paid poorly, the conditions are still poor, they don't seem to get much help.

Yay teacher's union?

- Extra-staffing of floaters to be able to give staff breaks or handle staff sick days or workers quitting - Taxes - Insurance - Administrative staff to handle billing and compliance - Facilities -- Rent, maintenance, HVAC. Adding to this, the facility might have to use expensive first floor space because the regulation requires them to be able to easily evacuate kids who can't down stairs on their own. - Profits/Owner-operator salary (anyone who can own and operate a successful high-quality day-care with five classrooms could command 6 figures salary on the private market)

Most likely profits of the daycare owners + pay for the magagement (the director or whatever) + rent for the location.

Babies, just like adults, are extremely social animals. And they absolutely need to interact with a bunch of other people their age, even more than us. Daily, and for a long period of time. An hour at the park doesn't cut it, and being all day with a sibling doesn't either.

So beyond everyone going back to a Neolithic way of life and living in a bunch of straw teepees all bundled close together, daycare is the best solution I've found to this need.

Just as an example, my oldest has been besties with another kid since they were both 7 months old.

I would expect larger groups of young children to require more even ratios of care takers. I don't know if 3 care takers per 12 children is enough for instance, but I've got a feeling 9 care takers for 36 children is not enough.

what does it mean “fake country”?

What is the test one can use to determine a “real” country?

The USA is barely getting around to banning legal child marriage. Many many countries have not only child marriages, but arranged child marriages which can fall into selling these 'brides'. Not sure the Israel is any worse than other countries.

It turns out that kids raised by their parents still get a lot of time with other kids though. Their parents don’t just keep them at home. They meet with friends. Go out and play. Their parents take them to classes and activities. Your view is “our kids are fine”, but most parents may say that about their own kids without knowing what the alternative could be. I’ve experienced both situations myself and also observed it as an adult. I think most childcare is a lot more of a free for all than parents think, rather than some sort of well designed experience. If you reduce the ratios significantly by having two kids per worker, maybe the quality improves to approach what a parent can provide. But that’s a lot more expensive.

Before having our first child, I made a commitment to my wife that I would provide an 84+ year stipend.

Would 6 years paid stipend also help for the rest of the woman's life as she has to restart her career?

Yeah not to be a downer here but if he's still on chemo in 6 years I don't think it's the lack of a baby sitter that's gonna kill him.

Sixty percent of Americans cannot afford a basic quality of life on their income in the US [1] [2]. Half of American renters are cost burdened [3]. I find it wild someone thinks "Why don't you just stay home with your kids?" looking at the macro. Can't all just live on a farm and homestead to raise kids in an unfavorable, punishing macro. Parents work because they have to work. To work, they need childcare and flexible work arrangements.

> "The economic machine demands sacrifices apparently."

Indeed. Is the solution to sacrifice for it? Or tax it to care for the human? [4] We can make better choices, as New Mexico shows. I'm tired of hearing its impossible. It isn't, it's just a lack of will and collective effort in that direction, based on all available evidence.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-living-income-quality-o...

[2] https://lisep.org/mql

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43119657

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paaen3b44XY

(I am once again asking to think in systems)

I will find time to build an inventory of every example of where subsidized childcare works and reply with said inventory.

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'

Like I always said to my friend complaining you can't reserve a table at the Border Cafe: they don't need a reservation system if there is always a line around the block

Of course they are gone now but point stands. :-)

Is this a for-profit school or something?

Private healthcare is barely a market at all - heavily distorted due to government policy.

Not everything is about the economy, but someone's gotta pay for it.

i’m down but i think there needs to be a recognition that this would require tax increases, not just on the ultra wealthy because there is simply not enough income up there to fund this.

By the time US decides it's a good idea, they would run out of money and the whole world will laugh and point fingers on em.

That is a very common pattern. Probably 90% of poor rural America is like that. And the lucky towns have those stores, others not even.

That sounds amazing. It is now on the travel list!

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.

Hahah. Probably should keep going another 45 minutes to El Paso in my opinion.

I mean... as someone living in rural-lite, the hospitals in my county are crap; going to a big city nearby is a better choice. I don't know about hospitals in Chicago, and I wouldn't think Gary is big enough to be a hospital magnet, but it doesn't seem that out of the norm. Of course, Mr. Willson ruined Gary for me; I'd die if I went to a hospital there.