• Wertheimer [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The problem with the temporary programs is that they're going to be too pathetic for anyone to want to prolong them. The latest iteration of the child care funding has the most economically and politically inept means-testing known to humankind:

    https://jacobinmag.com/2021/10/democrats-biden-childcare-plan-cost-prices-wages

    But in the first three years of the program, families with incomes that are just $1 over 100 percent of the median income (year one), 115 percent of the median income (year two), or 130 percent of the median income (year three) will be eligible for zero subsidies, meaning that they will be on the hook for the entire unsubsidized price, which as discussed above will now be at least $13,000 per year higher than before.

    Under this scenario, there will be many dual-earning couples who cannot afford childcare if both of them continue to work but could afford childcare if one of them quit their job and thereby brought their family income below the eligibility cutoff. Normally, people who quit jobs to take care of their kids do so in order to save the money they’d have to spend on childcare. Under this plan, they would have to quit their job in order to afford childcare!