It is crazy esp since it seems like most daycare workers don't make that much. Not as much as they should. I guess it's mostly going towards insurance and overhead?
Anyway if subsidizing it through taxes is not politically feasible yet they should at least raise the amount you can deduct off your taxes. It's like 5k a year? Sounds like be at least double that right?
Our childcare costs for two kids are close to twice our mortgage payment (which, granted, is low at $950). The oldest is going to first grade in public school and will only be in aftercare, and that will reduce the cost by about $400 a month. I'm giddy thinking about having that money to put away.
Universal pre-k would help, at least with reducing the time that full time care is needed.
This is why family leave should be important. Most of the countries in Europe give every parent paid family leave at the birth of each child...in some places up to a year. This family leave is in addition to vacation and sick time. If each parent had four months of paid family leave, we could use some of it to delay sending each baby to daycare for several months and reduce the cost of daycare for each family. Infant care at a day usually has the highest price, so delaying sending a baby to daycare for several months could seriously benefit families.
I'm curious who you think would pay for this paid leave for a year. The government? Private employers? If the government is paying, taxes would need to go up. And I don't quite know how this would work if private employers would be expected to pay. I'm guessing it would become much harder to get a job under 40. I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but this can't happen with no cost to someone. The European countries you point to, for example, have much higher taxes.
This is why family leave should be important. Most of the countries in Europe give every parent paid family leave at the birth of each child...in some places up to a year. This family leave is in addition to vacation and sick time. If each parent had four months of paid family leave, we could use some of it to delay sending each baby to daycare for several months and reduce the cost of daycare for each family. Infant care at a day usually has the highest price, so delaying sending a baby to daycare for several months could seriously benefit families.
I'm curious who you think would pay for this paid leave for a year. The government? Private employers? If the government is paying, taxes would need to go up. And I don't quite know how this would work if private employers would be expected to pay. I'm guessing it would become much harder to get a job under 40. I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but this can't happen with no cost to someone. The European countries you point to, for example, have much higher taxes.
Four months does not equal a year. Similar arguments were made about unemployment insurance and temporary disability when they were first introduced. Neither destroyed jobs or made it harder for qualified individuals to get jobs.
I think that there are too many loopholes in our tax code. Closing the loopholes and raising employment taxes slightly would be able to cover the cost of parental leave. Raising children is very important and very expensive for families.
When I was out of work and newly pregnant with #2 I crunched the numbers and realized it wasn't worth it for me to take a job making less than 75k. I don't know how people with lower incomes do it.
This is why family leave should be important. Most of the countries in Europe give every parent paid family leave at the birth of each child...in some places up to a year. This family leave is in addition to vacation and sick time. If each parent had four months of paid family leave, we could use some of it to delay sending each baby to daycare for several months and reduce the cost of daycare for each family. Infant care at a day usually has the highest price, so delaying sending a baby to daycare for several months could seriously benefit families.
I'm curious who you think would pay for this paid leave for a year. The government? Private employers? If the government is paying, taxes would need to go up. And I don't quite know how this would work if private employers would be expected to pay. I'm guessing it would become much harder to get a job under 40. I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but this can't happen with no cost to someone. The European countries you point to, for example, have much higher taxes.
Well to be fair, taxes could go higher. They're much lower now than they were in the middle of the previous century when there was less wealth inequality. We could also reinstate a high tax on people making more than a million a year. Not that there's that many of them relative to the population but it's a start. In addition, I bet we could pay for a lot of it by getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction. I wonder why that one is never on the table.
I'm curious who you think would pay for this paid leave for a year. The government? Private employers? If the government is paying, taxes would need to go up. And I don't quite know how this would work if private employers would be expected to pay. I'm guessing it would become much harder to get a job under 40. I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but this can't happen with no cost to someone. The European countries you point to, for example, have much higher taxes.
Well to be fair, taxes could go higher. They're much lower now than they were in the middle of the previous century when there was less wealth inequality. We could also reinstate a high tax on people making more than a million a year. Not that there's that many of them relative to the population but it's a start. In addition, I bet we could pay for a lot of it by getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction. I wonder why that one is never on the table.
Getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction would affect the same families who would benefit from the child care/family leave benefits. There is also zero chance I would own a home if it weren't for the mortgage deduction. Zero.
Well to be fair, taxes could go higher. They're much lower now than they were in the middle of the previous century when there was less wealth inequality. We could also reinstate a high tax on people making more than a million a year. Not that there's that many of them relative to the population but it's a start. In addition, I bet we could pay for a lot of it by getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction. I wonder why that one is never on the table.
Getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction would affect the same families who would benefit from the child care/family leave benefits. There is also zero chance I would own a home if it weren't for the mortgage deduction. Zero.
Really? Wouldn't you just buy a less expensive home?
Nope. I would rent. The only thing that makes our house a somewhen tenable investment for us is the mortgage deduction. Otherwise, renting is a far better financial decision.
We pay more in daycare then our mortgage, too. Hopefully soon we'll get in a nice, cheaper daycare though. Two in daycare would be insane at our current level.