[mbreese]

The devil is in the details. The crux of the article is in these two lines:

> Across the U.S., the average annual cost of care for an infant and a 4-year-old is $28,190, according to Child Care Aware of America. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) considers child care affordable when it accounts for no more than 7% of a household’s income.

It’s been awhile, but the $28k number seems reasonable. It’s more expensive in different areas and the article goes into the numbers by state. But the part where it gets difficult to see is the 7% number. You only require $400k/year if you cap child care costs at 7%. When my kids were in daycare, it cost significantly more than 7% of our income.

[silisili]

With all due respect, why in the world does 28k sound like a reasonable number for care of a single child? That's more than many people make at a full time job.

[redbluered]

Cost of living for staff and lawful child to caregiver ratios. If you assume 1:4 or 1:5, that's around 100-125k per caregiver in tuition.

With reasonable overhead numbers (space, management, compliance, licensing, taxes, etc.), that's a poverty-level income for preschool teachers.

There is a strong argument for subsidies, at least in countries which have low birth rates and care about longterm social outcomes.

[tayo42]

Day care and pre schools charge like 2k/mo for full time care and 5 days a week.

[mbreese]

I didn’t mean that it was a reasonable cost, only a reasonable estimate of the cost.

Childcare in the US is way more expensive than it should be. The costs are also highly location dependent with the coasts being much more expensive than the Midwest etc…

[senordevnyc]

Isn't that the cost for two kids?

[ggggffggggg]

If you pick 3% you need 800k/yr! Oh no!

Sadly most of us pay far more than 7%. Fortunately mostly that’s ok and it all works out.

(Except we will work until we die, but hey! Capitalism!)

[freefaler]

In every system from hunter-gather society, feudalism, socialism and capitalism you need to exchange your work for the products of the work of other people. No system will give you the ability to not work and get what you want.

The capitalism is the least bad one where there the correlation between "making something that people want" to the value you can keep to feed yourself.