Originally Posted by
ExtraSlow
Daycare as a social concept is an interesting one. Is it better for society to have one parent work at a relatively high-paying job and have the other parent stay home with the kids, OR is it better to have both parents work at lower wages and send the kids to daycare?
One scenario certainly fits the "socialist" mentality better.
I've been thinking about this daycare proposal a lot, and an alternative would be to pay a wage subsidy to daycare workers of say $5/hr with no cap on their wages and no cap on cost to parents. What this would do is create an abundance of daycare workers and daycare spaces, which would end up bringing costs down. Currently staff turnover in daycares is massive because it's basically fry-cook wages, with more responsibility and stress. Trouble retaining quality employees is part of the reason that there aren't enough daycare spaces and the ones that have a "better" reputation charge $1500/mo to fund the higher wages they pay.