this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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Summary

Child care costs for many U.S. families during peak inflation in 2022 ranged from $6,552 to $15,600 per child, comparable to rent, according to Labor Department data.

These high costs strained household budgets, disproportionately impacted women’s workforce participation, and fueled economic dissatisfaction among voters.

While Kamala Harris proposed policies to reduce child care costs, Donald Trump capitalized on broader economic grievances to expand his voter base, despite offering few specifics on addressing the issue.

Pandemic-era federal aid helped stabilize costs but left parents bearing much of the financial burden.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

And yet the childcare WORKERS can barely afford to live.

You know, I'm starting to wonder if maybe families should form some sort of social club and hire childcare workers directly???

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

I pay 200 bucks for kindergarten in Norway, and most of it is tax refundable

[–] [email protected] 8 points 20 hours ago

The rest of the 1st World is way ahead of the USA. I like it when the American politicians and business leaders say family values are important. In reality, that is last thing on their fucking minds and the US Labor Laws and paternity leave proves it. If you want to have a family, move to Norway, Sweden, Finland or Denmark.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

All my coworkers by 1200 to 1600 in usd per per month per kid. This is unsustainable. Unless you have 2 people with no college debt making bank.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Jesus fucking christ! I'm so happy I live in a sane country, we pay $250 for two children, and it's only going down the older they get.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Wait it's supposed to go down? It increases the older they are at mine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

For us it does, since bigger kids are easier to take care of than babies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Makes sense. The US is backwards lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

That it is, and it's not looking like it's getting better any time soon 🙃

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

A vasectomy is a hell of a deal.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

Oklahoma paid for mine for free. Thanks to Plan Parenthood.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

rip my balls off

All I could afford.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago

And people wonder why I don’t want to have kids.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Aren't staff at daycares way under paid? Where is all the money going?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

A senior teacher at the KinderCare that my kid to makes $25/hr. Minimum wage here is $20/hr. The cost per month was about $2500 per child.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

My friend shared how he was able to get a deal of $2500 a month for two kids.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Rent is a factor probably.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The owners.

It's not regulated and generally it's hired as "low skill" (it really fucking isn't) so they're very replaceable.

The easiest money is made on old farts and new farts. Nursing homes care assistants are basically on minimum wage while the owners rake in the money.

It's priced, what are you going to do? Not go to work and stay with your gran or child?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

Really awesome that we as a society consider people watching our children at the most important part of their lives “low skill.”

Imagine what our test scores would be like if we considered them as important as hedge fund managers and marketing executives.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I am in the northeast and it is heavily regulated down to how many hours staff can be on duty and levels of staffing, the simple fact is that especially for those under twelve (where the rules are generally at least two people at all times for a group of ten, under three is literally 1 person per two children), ensuring that you have 10-12 hours of sufficient coverage (most ppl work 8-9 hours plus travel time to work) from background checked and fingerprinted persons while also feeding the children and keep a commercial building open is expensive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do public schools even have that ratio of adults to children?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Not in my neck of the woods, they are aiming for 25 kids per teacher eventually in NYC 🙄, and meanwhile some older NY folks say we baby the young cause they were upto 50 to a teacher when they went to school, like we shouldn't try to progress.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

I'm glad some places do it right!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I’m pretty sure they are underpaid.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Some of it is skimmed off, sure, but most of it is because it's fucking expensive to employ people to just watch kids.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I just picked a state. Average infant daycare cost is $1172/mo. Maximum of 4 infants per caregiver, so a maximum of $4.688.

Health insurance here averages $400/mo, for an individual (some often paid by the employer).

Assuming they are employed, the employer is paying for federal unemployment insurance, workers compensation insurance, state unemployment insurance. It was really hard to get solid numbers but based on my reading, we can estimate about 2% will go to that.

So we have $4296 left over. Assuming payroll and supplies and everything else costs nothing at all (which is definitely not accurate), and assuming we give the rest straight to the employee... Their gross would be $51,000 roughly.

The average daycare worker in this state makes about $33k/year.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

Rent of the daycare facility is likely sky high as well.

Honestly the number of kids per staff member is almost entirely to blame.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

The 4 to 1 ratio gets aged out of real quickly. In fact I am not sure we ever got that ratio with our daycare.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

There's tons and tons of federal and state funds for individual daycares, group centers etc. Some of it specifically to help boost payroll. Still doesn't help because it gets eaten away by the bureaucracy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I was thinking it would be 1 adult for every 8-10 kids but others are saying it is legally mandated to be 1 adult to 2-5 kids which means you are paying half a persons salary.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It depends on the age of the kids. Infants have fewer kids per adult than Pre-K does.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Daycare got cheaper as my son got older. Always loved him moving up to a, new room. Of course, 30 years ago, were talking about $125/week or so when he was an infant.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yeah and not just pure take home. Also any benefits(though in this industry they'd be the worst of they're even offered), making sure you have a correct staffing matrix, and taxes/unemployment insurance. It's pretty cost prohibitive, depending on age. And once it's not, the kid really can stay home alone.

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