From "Our child-care system has been failing women (and men and kids). That may soon change" by Catherine Rampell (WaPo).
The "one-time infusion" under consideration is $450 billion. The author is saying that's a boost that might help a bit in recovering from the covid lockdown, but there is a much larger problem, and it will take far more money — spent continually — to solve what is a problem isn't going to go away.
I'm sure some readers are about to tell me that the solution is to have a stay-at-home parent for every child. If that's your idea, tell me, do you think Americans should choose to avoid having children unless they are living in a 2-adult home where one adult's income is enough for the family? It's hard to understand how Americans with children can get by. The second earner in the family must bring in substantially more than childcare costs and childcare workers only exist because they are individuals who are accepting working for low pay. And then there are the single parents. If you'd like them to have a choice to be a stay-at-home parent, how would you make that happen? Pay them?
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৯৭টি মন্তব্য:
Sure is hard for a liberal to swallow the idea that people who can’t afford children shouldn’t have them.
The problem is paying people for not working. That raises the costs to all businesses and the weaker ones fail. How the working workers reshuffle themselves in response to wage increase lures is beside the point.
It also gives you inflation by reducing supply at a given price without reducing demand.
Get rid of the illegal immigrants who take ALL the jobs lower-skilled and blue collar skilled men used to have to support their families.
Eliminate welfare fraud and reduce benefits that include vast waste.
Go back to 1996 and include fathers in the welfare reform act Clinton and Gingrich passed — which raised so many women out of poverty but did nothing to similarly assist men who had fallen out of the job market.
Lacking a time machine, do that now; strictly enforce DNA identified child care payments, encourage marriage, and remove the incentives for both men and women to not marry but subsist on (her) welfare and scores of other freebies. Because these daddy fathers aren’t living on the streets: they’re living with the women they impregnated, in subsidized housing, but only the females have to show they are seeking work or are working. Make the men just as responsible from the very first child they father, and home lives will stabilize.
All this will encourage marriage and will presumably raise a large percentage of men into the workforce, just like it did women in the 90’s. And if it costs too much to do this in a city, move like the rest of us have to do.
Ann asked, "If you'd like them to have a choice to be a stay-at-home parent, how would you make that happen?"
I vote that we regress to the early 1950s when (I paraphrase) "all the stay-at-home women were strong, all the men were good looking and all the children were above average." And when there was no polio vaccine or internet.
This goes way back. The nanny state it its hubris decided that you needed one worker per 5 children. The first babysitter my children had was the best of the lot, and she had 10+ per worker....and managed fine. The number of children allowed per worker drives the price up and the wages down if you reduce it to silly amounts. If a teacher can handle 20 kids, and manage to teach them while she is doing it, then anyone with any aptitude can handle 10 preschoolers.
"[Do] you think Americans should choose to avoid having children unless they are living in a 2-adult home where one adult's income is enough for the family?"
No, they should not have to, and they typically do not, but that is one option that worked well for centuries. Men once did not consider proposing marriage until they could support a wife and family.
There are other options, of course, including the one that our esteemed hostess chose. I know successful, multi-child families with a mom breadwinner and stay at home dad. I know single moms who have grandma or other family member watch the kid(s) during the workday.
What never works (in the long run, for a society) is a massive government program that will purport to have a government employee raise your child for you.
Raising the kids is about 4th or 5th down the list of goals for this program. Enlarging government, enlarging their bailiwick, getting control over more and more people's lives- that is the goal. If a kids gets raised better that he otherwise would, nobody will object, but the administrators will give themselves raises and trophies and certificates no matter what the outcome.
The WaPo article blames business, but it was Biden that bragged about forcing businesses to raise pay by infusing money to get people to stay home for COVID and beyond. Now with a faltering economy that produces far less, we want a workforce that we are paying to stay home. And here is Althouse acting like it is the 1950’s with people thinking the wife should stay home. Nope. The solution is simple, quit taking money from earners and giving it to people to stay home and do nothing. Don’t blame business for doing what the government is manipulating them to do. Get government out of the way.
The law of supply and demand is, well, a law of reality. Accept reality. It's very freeing.
Life... For most of history has been very difficult to maintain. I have lived near the federal poverty level for 13 years and 5 children because my wife and I chose to homeschool our children... The current American myth seems to be that we have a right to have someone else bear our difficulties- we really lack a concept of how difficult life is most everywhere else in the world. The real question is not want to do about child care, but what will lead to the greatest stability and prosperity... "Stability for today - Prosperity for tomorrow" works for short lived contagious events like Covid, Getting vaccinated will bring stability sooner. However, raising children is not an infinitely flexible and reconfigurable process. Universal childcare would work great if people actually took responsibility for their selves and human aptitude did not follow a bell curve... Pay child care workers $300k a year and you will end up with a fry- cook as your doctor. At some point we have to face the pain of reality - life is hard. I assert that responsibility is the key to prolonged stability and long term prosperity, and these will not happen if the government continues infusing cash to prop up that for which we will not take resownership and bear responsibility.
Most urban public middle and high schools are glorified teenage day care centers. Free breakfast, lunch accompanied by an attendance diploma at the end of their senior year. What's not to like?
Do you think Americans should choose to avoid having children unless they are living in a 2-adult home where one adult's income is enough for the family?
I have long felt that the real problem isn't being able to afford all the extra stuff that people want, the real problem is to be able to afford to live in a safe neighborhood, and that crime is the real problem. I say this because I grew up in a safe neighborhood in Upstate New York, while eating USDA cheese, powdered eggs, and milk, etc, but because the neighborhood was safe, I never felt poor. I wouldn't walk in my old neighborhood alone at night now. There is no quick fix for the culture, no government program that is going to fix this. Get out of the cities is my only advice to a young couple.
The yenta-net used to do a lot to keep neighborhoods safe.
Virtually every industry is short on help, supplies, and materials today. Restaurants and retailers are not poaching child care workers. Everyone is desperate for help. Everyone is poaching from everyone else. The solution is NOT to install a permanent government spending program. Not unless you are prepared to help every single industry. Why support only child care? Government created this mess in the first place.
Artificially raised wages coupled with covid shut downs, government payouts (both state and federal) which in many places is still going on, has created a mess of the labor market, incentivizing people to stay home and not work. Small businesses are barely hanging on with covid restrictions and/or shut downs. Add in enormously raised costs of goods, lack of supplies, and shortages of help, it makes it very hard to justify hiring less qualified people at higher wages.
So literally every industry is short of help, very short of quality help. Which is funny because we have more people in our country than ever before, yet...we make fewer babies than ever before- as a replacement rate percentage. And we have more businesses than recent memory scrambling for people, materials, and supplies.
What could have caused this upheaval in the market? What unnatural catastrophe or great event could cause this?
If the markets were left to themselves, without government's clumsy meddling, these businesses could survive. That 'gap' that Catherine Rampell talks about goes against the natural free market. It is a never ending, always raising cost. This 'one time' payout that is now going to be a new Social Security-like feature will keep going up in cost. And though the Biden administration thinks this costs nothing, I have a tip for you on who will pay for this costless benefit.
The same people working at the day care will be paying for it. As will you and anyone else working. Nothing is free, people. All of it comes from you in the form of some sort of tax. It may, or may not come out of your paycheck, but you'll pay it. In state sales taxes, or gas, or some other sort of tax. This is how 'free' works.
tell me, do you think Americans should choose to avoid having children unless they are living in a 2-adult home where one adult's income is enough for the family
Professor? I realize, that you're not good at math; so i'll go Slowly...
IF the child care costs, are LARGER than one of the parent's take home pay;
THEN, it's kinda stupid for that parent to be working
I'm SURE, that makes No Sense to you... and that just makes me Sad
"The only solution is the one Congress is now considering: using [government] resources — generously, reliably, permanently — to bridge the gap between what families can afford, and what providers need to pay."
That's not how reality works. Government spending is not unlimited and 'permanent'. Resources are FINITE. Having the Biden administration tell people $3.5 trillion in government spending will 'cost' zero dollars doesn't mean it's true.
No matter how much you hate Trump...
Governments always and everywhere eventually run out of spending power, people lose confidence in the system, private capital flees.
History, not economics. You can pull your rolled eyes back out of your head, now...
Go West TX!
"The only solution is the one" that I happen to like.
---under consideration is $450 billion.... but there is a much larger problem, and it will take far more money — spent continually — to solve what is a problem isn't going to go away. [AA}
That kind of problem is so annoying.
The buried lede is that the best way to raise the wages of workers at the bottom is to restrict supply, not to command higher wages be paid, and that the most harmful policy for low wage workers is untrammeled immigration of more low wage workers.
Hidden assumption in your poser, you ask? It is that we should only care about couples who can afford to hire child care workers, and not about the class of workers who provide the child care. The untouchable class of Americans must be kept in their place!
For those who claim to loathe finance- if you want subsidized child care what are you willing to give up to get it?
Maybe we should try spending less on Pakistani transgender education abroad, stop allowing millions to illegally enter our country, end this shower of Federal money keeping productive people out of the workforce, and generally scale back this intrusive leviathan with taxes on activities and income that only serve to depress growth. Some areas of the country people spend more on taxes than food or rent. Talk about unsustainable!
When Joe lies about the “free” goodies he and Nancy want to give away he is talking about stealing more from the most oppressed minorities in America: taxpayers. We few, in contrast to the special people like Joe who can be president while owing more in taxes than 98% of us make annually, will keep paying more so that one half the country can pay nothing because they earn less than 300% of the “poverty line” and the top 1% can play with their billions and pay zero taxes as well. Us 49%ers will have a bigger burden until we end the unbridled growth of the Federal Leviathan. In the meantime families will rely on each other for child care and form co-ops with friends to cover needs, same way wary parents are now taking charge of education because the Leviathan monopoly there has fucked up government schools.
Complicated issue, but one that has always been with us. The federal government has no business getting into this with a top-down, throw-money-at-it non-solution.
Children are SO inconvenient!
But without them, it's the end of the world as we know it.
Of course any time you read "the only solution is..." what you should hear in your head is "the LAST thing we should do is," especially if it is additional spending by the Feds. Our whole energy sector is in turmoil and becoming unreliable solely because of the distortion caused by government subsidies. A subsidy is just a rich person's way of getting the government to pay for an investment that otherwise the rich guy would not waste his money on, which if you have any capacity for logic you will recognize as extremely inefficient.
And yet, that is how we are running MOST of our affairs right now, chasing ghosts of global warming while the literal foundations of the country crumble. Again, that word unsustainable is being overused elsewhere so people will be too tired to see how well it fits here. This system is literally unsustainable, which is why inflation is spiking like a mother. It's just another of those many indicators with the needle pointing to a red zone. Joe might just be waking up a lot of people to just how awful the future could be under socialist rule.
"Pay child care workers $300k a year and...."
Just pay the stay-at-home parent a living wage. That's what we will need to do if and when women and other uterus-havers decide, economically rationally, to avoid having children, and the birth rate goes completely to hell. Maybe get out in front of the problem, which will be very hard to reverse.
"I'm sure some readers are about to tell me that the solution is to have a stay-at-home parent for every child."
No, the solution is for parents to find their own child care solutions, which will undoubtedly require some sacrifices for most parents. When I was growing up in the late 40's and 50's, both of my parents worked in a grocery store a block away. My mother took that job so she could be nearby when we came home from school. My grandmother, who lived a block away watched my older brother and I after school, and eventually my older brother and I watched my younger brother. There was also a retired couple and a stay at home mom on my block who kept an eye out for all of the children in the neighborhood. No money exchanged hands for child care that I can remember, and I'll guarantee none came from the state. As a general rule, my attitude is "not my circus, not my monkeys." Sometimes people need help, but setting up a government system for everyone whether they need help or not is a sure way to create government dependency. Better to let people put on their big girl panties and find their own way where possible. Worked for us.
If you're going to intervene here at all, pay the parents and let them decide whether to stay home or pay someone else for child care, rather than directly subsidizing one of those choices.
It's the classic bullshit argument: my thing is important but I'm not willing to make tradeoffs to pay for it so other people need to pay for my thing because it's soooooo important...to everyone, not just 'me'...
Maybe get out in front of the problem, which will be very hard to reverse.
Government is never "out in front" of a problem pay paying people to not work. Few government acts prevent problems. One big one that did was the border wall. Nope! Can't have it. Also actually enforcing existing laws works better than thinking up new ones. But the opportunities for graft and the Big Guy's ten percent are very few in an agenda of enforcing the laws on the books. I'm amazed at how far down the other path we are already, where the FBI and party in power gang up to try and manufacture life terms for people who trespassed on our precious Capitol Hill yet are moving heaven and earth to accommodate people trespassing all over the southern border. This bifurcated application of law is egregious and must be addressed or child care will literally be the least of our worries.
"That's what we will need to do if and when women and other uterus-havers decide, economically rationally, to avoid having children, and the birth rate goes completely to hell."
We're already there, Ann. We, and the rest of the Western World, plus Japan and Russia are all below replacement rate. We continue to be so sophisticated we're sophisticating ourselves out of existence. Not as humans, but as specific peoples. The US birthrate will grow only with the influx of Hispanic and Muslim immigrants- both legal and illegal. But they'd have to pour over the border in numbers as they are today, for another 5-10 years. Europe's only growth is in North African and Middle Eastern immigrants- few of whom came to Europe for 'the culture'. They are instead, installing their old country into Europe.
Another government program seems so foolish and futile in light of this. Such a nonsensical action. Like wiping a light rain off of your face as a tsunami is approaching from offshore.
Baumol's Cost Disease explains why some sectors of the economy, like restaurants, retail and childcare are less able to cope with changes in wages.
Baumol's cost disease (or the Baumol effect) is the rise of salaries in jobs that have experienced no or low increase of labor productivity, in response to rising salaries in other jobs that have experienced higher labor productivity growth. The phenomenon was described by William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen in the 1960s and is an example of cross elasticity of demand.
The rise of wages in jobs without productivity gains derives from the requirement to compete for employees with jobs that have experienced gains and so can naturally pay higher salaries, just as classical economics predicts. For instance, if the retail sector pays its managers 19th-century-style salaries, the managers may decide to quit to get a job at an automobile factory, where salaries are higher because of high labor productivity. Thus, managers' salaries are increased not by labor productivity increases in the retail sector but by productivity and corresponding wage increases in other industries.
The original study was conducted for the performing arts sector. Baumol and Bowen pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. On the other hand, the real wages of musicians (as in all other professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century.
Baumol's cost disease is often used to describe consequences of the lack of growth in productivity in the quaternary sector of the economy and public services, such as public hospitals and state colleges. Labor-intensive sectors that rely heavily on non-routine human interaction or activities, such as health care, education, or the performing arts, have had less growth in productivity over time. As with the string quartet example, it takes nurses the same amount of time to change a bandage or college professors the same amount of time to mark an essay today as it did in 1966, as those types of activities rely on the movements of the human body, which cannot yet be engineered to perform more quickly, accurately, or efficiently in the same way that a machine, such as a computer, have. In contrast, goods-producing industries, such as the car manufacturing sector and other activities that involve routine tasks, workers are continually becoming more productive by technological innovations to their tools and equipment.
You get the birth rate up by banning abortions, which is what I predict will happen. Think of it as the draft for women. They have to do their part too.
When doing the math as to the actual net "take home pay" of an employed spouse,in addition to daycare expenses,income/payroll taxes and commuting expenses play a major part in deciding to "stay at home". In my experience as a Tax Preparer and CFP, unless the second income is significant, the loss of the net "take home pay" is not of crucial value. In fact, taking in other children, can more than make up the difference!
The elephant in the room is the indisputable fact that the crime and violence rampant in the Black community can be traced directly to the prevalence of fatherless homes.
Althouse, I feel particularly qualified to comment here because I'm one of your younger readers. I know a few single moms, stay at home moms, and even people who work at daycares.
It is still possible to have a one income family, even with working class wages. But it requires a complete mindset change. Your cars must be old, discretionary spending is low, cell phone bills are low (mint mobile anyone).
The single moms I know have the baby daddies pay for day care using child support. The smart ones get that amount and use it for household expenses and pay a friend or family member to watch their children for cheaper. Honestly, in my experience, the lower one is on the socioeconomic scale, the more likely children are being watched in someone else's home. That's how my mom did it with me. That's how I did it when I worked briefly after my first was born.
I do know some genuine working class single moms who use daycare. Her shift is from is from like 2pm to 10pm every night, but her kid goes to daycare every day at 7am. Even on her days off. Think on that.
There are scales and choices involved for most of these things. But they work out well for those who are proactive and have long-term goals.
I guarantee if the government starts guaranteeing child care subsidies, being a child care worker will then require a BA and a membership in the NEA. Maybe their wages will go up a bit, but that money will be funnelled right back to the Democratic party. How's that going to help my working class friends who have worked in the industry for years?
“Uterus-havers”
I understand the term is now “birthing person”.
This wasn’t a problem when we had a less intrusive government. Perhaps we simply notice the trend and reverse the actions that created the trend.
"Just pay the stay-at-home parent a living wage. That's what we will need to do if".
And reward for performance! My wife homeschooled all 5, too of their class in group education! In SC, she could have been making $40k+ for our children's academic performance.
Just pay the stay-at-home parent a living wage.
How much is a living wage?
Who gets to decide?
Is a living wage the same in New York as it is in Iowa as it is in California?
Where does the money to pay for this come from?
Won't the childless complain and file court cases about being discriminated against?
How about illegals? Cross the border with a kid and get a check in the mail every month?
Why should I bust my balls working so the government can take my money to give it to someone else so they can stay at home?
Why isn't grandma doing the babysitting?
"Just pay the stay-at-home parent a living wage."
Now that we have accepted the notion of conjuring money out of nothing, it seems to be the default solution to everything. Do you know how many great ideas are lined up in the minds of government fabulists, just waiting for the non-existent money to come through? I guarantee it is greater than the economic output of the world. But what's another hundred gollapazillion dollars when we have all these Good Ideas? Like Uncle Joe says, it doesn't cost anything!
Ann I'm not sure paying people to stay home is the answer. The few European countries (France, Scandinavians) that have managed to stave off steep fertility decline below replacement, or have managed to increase it a bit, have done so through gender equality, free or low costs for college, greater flexibility in the workplace (part time options, flexible hours, substantial leave for all though some don't take because it inevitably hurts career progress) and free or low cost child care options. In other words, you need real systemic change to reduce the social and economic costs of having and raising a child. I don't think we are anywhere close, or that parents want to trade their careers for a lifetime of taking care of their kids. (And what happens after 18 years, when you're say 45 years old and have lost your stay at home job but have limited applicable skills to get a different job??). Free or low cost daycare is most definitely part of the package, and will need to come with other things to really change the calculation for people.
Also, for those who think this is all about the laziness and lack of responsibility among the poor: being poor is not in your DNA. People move in and out of poverty, lose jobs, etc, even sometimes after having children. The safety net is a net to prevent you from death when you fall, not a bed anyone wants to sleep in, whatever Reagan might have said.
"What never works (in the long run, for a society) is a massive government program that will purport to have a government employee raise your child for you."
Whatever you think about the quality of free public education through high school, it's precisely this and has in every way improved the lives of everyone in this country.
It takes one two people to conceive a child...
...and impose a tax burden on the other hundreds of millions of people in the village.
"[Do] you think Americans should choose to avoid having children unless they are living in a 2-adult home where one adult's income is enough for the family?"
drew the response:
I have lived near the federal poverty level for 13 years and 5 children because my wife and I chose to homeschool our children...
Well, I think that to whatever extent the cost of educating children is a SOCIAL cost rather than a burden on the family, the society and it's government (and taxpayers) ought to pay for results not inputs and efforts. Set up some sort of standards and tests (to vary by locale) and pay the child-custodian (we used to say parents but it is now
more than the plural that is in question) when the child-student passes that test. Pay a LOT. Pay comparably to the present cost of keeping a kid's butt in a seat regardless of results.
Some parents will find it better to invest in a tutor or a teacher in a classroom, then take the harvest pay-out of results at the end of a season. (Just as some families subsist on take out and frozen dinners -- factory production of education is no more
intrinsically bad than factory food.) Some will homeschool in the same way they might choose to sew their own clothes or raise their own livestock. Some students may master the level in the expected season -- semester, year, whatever -- and others may move exceptionally fast, or slowly. Some may master 12 or so levels and some may move on to other, non academic, pursuits at some intermediate level.
IF educating children resulted in a net income to families rather than a drain on family resources, a LOT of Americans would be making choices more in line with traditional norms.
Life is about choices and, unless you are super rich, you can’t have everything. As a society we want people to have children, ideally in the most stable family environment possible. It cannot be the role of the Federal government to support the having or raising of children for the key reason tanta government does a lousy job. We should strive to reduce the cost of having children and through private means support families who choose to have them. Employers now have incentives to provide childcare and/or flexible work schedules. Change the tax laws to reduce taxes for the truly working poor (Payroll taxes for instance); support school choice and home schooling. Do not support single parent families by promoting single motherhood through welfare.
Our policies created all these problems. Now YOU come up with a solution that fixes them or we'll go with our default plan of taking more of your money.
AA said: "Maybe get out in front of the problem, which will be very hard to reverse."
This is not getting out in front of the problem. The problem already is here and was caused by progressive social engineering.
Have you checked lately the data on the change in happiness of women over time? Have you seen the studies about self-sorting in high egalitarian societies? Stop fighting nature and follow the science!
I don't think it's a question of paying the stay-at-home parents. Couples in poor countries manage to have lots of kids despite much tighter finances. Even in this country, lower-class families have always been two-income; the wife would traditionally go out to be a nurse or a nanny (and take care of someone else's family) while an elderly relative or neighbor watched her kids.
The issue is cultural: no one in the middle class wants to stay home, and their extended families aren't willing or available to pick up the child care. It's an unexamined foundational element of modern feminism -- for middle-class women to work outside the home, there has to be a pool of really cheap labor available to support their families and make that work economically viable.
The economic situation is all due to the billionaire destruction of labor unions and subsequent squeeze on wages that began in the mid-70s. However let's blame this on ordinary people and poor immigrants because it will boost your morbidly obese self-esteem that you can keep above the decline. Keep pulling the crabs back into the pot, that's exactly what the davos elite I want you tools to do.
One solution would be for daycare providers to offer free tuition to the children of parents they hire.
One problem here is that it's hard for the so-called "second" parent (stereotypically, the wife), even with a college degree, to earn a salary that's significantly in excess of what it costs to have people babysit her children during the day. But why is that true? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that too many people fail to come out of college with skills that are all that much in demand in the economy. They're often being taught a worldview -- learning about society's many injustices -- rather than practical stuff like engineering, business, and the hard sciences. Subsidizing bad educational choices, or bad choices in general, is not the way out of this mess.
D: Here's a great idea. Single mothers are having a hard time, so let's subsidize them!
R: Wait, won't that lead to more single mothers, which isn't what we want?
D: Of course.
R: Then shouldn't we end the subsidies?
D: Noooo. We need to INCREASE the subsidies.
R: ...
So now panicking over hypothetical under-population is the next excuse for socialism?
Let’s “just” start with Ann’s money to “just pay” a “living wage” to a stay-at-home parent. She must be willing to volunteer, right? It’s For The Children!
The idea that the second worker must earn "substantially" more than you pay in child care is wrong. If you are interested in a career, even if you lose money the first few years, it is beneficial to work. As your career advances, you get more skills, paid more, promotions, etc, which are a benefit for the rest of your life (especially as compared to a 5 year for 1 kid or 8 year for 2 kids hole in your resume). If you have no interest in a career and just have a job, then yeah, take time off instead of pay for child care.
Actually, it was extremely easy and successful to change behaviors in 1996. We just didn’t do enough of it. But women found they could get a job, be respected at it, and even start a career. They brought these habits home to their children, and countless lives were improved.
The policy just left out the needs and responsibilities of the men. People with children are already vastly subsidized by those without — especially women without children. Check out The Baby Boon by Elinor Burkett.
Following up on this, see the implications of worldwide demographics as outlined by folks like Peter Zeihan. Compared to China, Japan, and most of western Europe, the USA is in far better shape in terms of actually giving birth to people in the present. Incentives matter.
This is where we are today. Tomorrow will look different. The trend does not make me optimistic. Raising a child is difficult and pretty much all-consuming, as well as the most rewarding thing you can do, for many. It would be nice to think that this government as it currently exists would be able to effectively address this. The problem is that most of us seem to have no confidence whatsoever in the people tasked with devising and applying the solutions.
The various and sundry bell curves exist independent of their acknowledgement in the culture. Their impact can be seen in the reality of life as it is observed. Wishing does not make it so, as my Mother used to say...
Just pay the stay-at-home parent a living wage. That's what we will need to do if and when women and other uterus-havers decide, economically rationally, to avoid having children, and the birth rate goes completely to hell. Maybe get out in front of the problem, which will be very hard to reverse.
I agree about getting out in front of the problem. I disagree about adding on more government incentives to correct a problem caused by previous government incentives.
Get rid of Social Security and Medicare. If you want security in your old age, have children and raise them to be productive adults.
So Ann, how many billions in taxpayer funds must we pay to support this 'living wage', and who determines how much that is, all to make sure that men and women have no responsibility for their career choices? Sorry, but if the second job does not pay enough to justify child care expense, or you can't convince grandma to provide it for free (my mom would have paid US to get unfettered time with her grandchildren!), then if working is that important to you, resolve to bear the financial pain until you grow enough in your career to make that change!
So Ann, how many billions in taxpayer funds must we pay to support this 'living wage', and who determines how much that is, all to make sure that men and women have no responsibility for their career choices? Sorry, but if the second job does not pay enough to justify child care expense, or you can't convince grandma to provide it for free (my mom would have paid US to get unfettered time with her grandchildren!), then if working is that important to you, resolve to bear the financial pain until you grow enough in your career to make that change!
“Just pay the stay-at-home parent a living wage. That's what we will need to do if and when women and other uterus-havers decide, economically rationally, to avoid having children, and the birth rate goes completely to hell. Maybe get out in front of the problem, which will be very hard to reverse.”
The basic problem is that the government, through its policies, including tax rates, welfare, etc incentivizes women (Ann’s “uterus-havers”) to have children out of wedlock. That was a really bad idea, stemming from LBJ’s War on Poverty, but not surprising given their long term plan to destroy this country. The better solution is to remove the subsidizes for single parenting, and instead, moving them to two parent families. For example, treat single parents as Single in the tax code. Only pay them welfare if married (instead of excluding single parents from welfare work requirements), etc.
And, Ann, we have a very good word already for “uterus havers”: It is “Women”. That word has thousands of years of history behind it. You should be proud of it. Men (“born penis havers”) are trying to appropriate the honor and deference belonging to the gender who bear children for them.
Look at an itemized list of the "average 2 working parent" monthly expenditures and the problem will become glaringly obvious.
No longer any self discipline. In order to have me stay home until our 5 were school age, we did without a lot. Had Only one car, no cable, no multiple phones, only took family to restaurants for special occasions, etc. Every family now thinks they HAVE to have all this STUFF, and therefore that they both have to work to have it. Our culture is a mess and I see no fix.
“Just!”
Econ 101 homework assignment for a (retired) university professor. Why is your comment at 7:30 a really, really bad idea?
The issue at the root of childcare cost concerns is related to a lifetime income cycle. The most expensive time to care for kids is when they are youngest and need the most assistance. Younger kids belong to necessarily younger parents. Younger parents have not had enough time in the labor force to command skilled/experience wages, but will likely do so in the future.
One solution is to not work when the cost of childcare is more than the wages earned, but this is short sighted. The best way to earn more is to gain specialized experience. Unless you work in childcare yourself, then time spent at home out of the labor force does nothing to accrue experience in your field.
The best thing to do is to allow everyone to specialize and create the most value they can. For some people, that means taking care of kids. For others, it means continuing to learn how to run CNC production machines or trying to understand people and markets well enough to manage a store or study hvac systems or how to contribute to the work of an office or whatever it is they do when they aren't taking care of their kids.
Not sure why this comment thread is hung up on the idea of single mothers benefitting disproportionally - every current proposal I've seen has been a subsidy tied to a child, which is split by the identified parents no matter their household configuration.
We don't need to increase the size of government to do this - there are no serious current proposals for an expansion of government managed day care programs. The only thing on the table is a subsidy for parents of young children. Each parent can continue to make the decision they think is best for their child, but a subsidy allows them to remove the temporary constraint imposed by the lifetime income cycle mismatch, and society benefits from a more experienced workforce with more healthy children in the long run.
Blogger Howard said...
The economic situation is all due to the billionaire destruction of labor unions and subsequent squeeze on wages that began in the mid-70s. However let's blame this on ordinary people and poor immigrants because it will boost your morbidly obese self-esteem that you can keep above the decline.
Howard forgets to mention offshoring of industry and China. Coincidence ? Industrial unions self destructed in the 60s.
Maybe get out in front of the problem, which will be very hard to reverse.
I'll pile on here a little bit more. We failed to get in front of the problem a ling time ago when the moral hazard of empowering the single parent resulted in a whole lot more single parents. Additionally, when you promote all lifestyles as equal, the two parent family stops being ideal and becomes just another choice. We are paying societal costs for not promoting that as a social good so that we don't make other people feel bad.
What I cannot understand is the idea that one would have children to be raised primarily by strangers. It's almost like having children was a bucket list item, something to check off. When the blogger spouse and I decided to start a family one of us would stay home. Period. It was our family, it was our responsibility, it was our commitment. In this case the husband was the stay at home. This lasted 10 years until the 2008 crash when Mrs blogger got laid off. Mr blogger worked odd jobs to supplement unemployment. Eventually about 4 years later both parents were working. Luckily, we are able to do jobs that can be done at home and now we can afford to assist with college expenses. We have 6 special needs kids, adopted from another country (which means no government cheese like domestic adopters get.)
So I think it is totally doable. We had older cars, no "cell phone for everyone", we don't go out to eat, and no huge cable bill, just one netflix account, etc. We made our priorities and didn't expect others to pay for our choices.
If you want to do something, do it, but don't expect others to make sacrifices for you.
Anyone who has not already had Covid and/or has not been immunized or has not very recently tested negative for Covid is a potential spreader. If you don't mind being sick that's up to you. If you don't mind being a spreader, that's a problem for the rest of us.
"do you think Americans should choose to avoid having children unless they are living in a 2-adult home where one adult's income is enough for the family?"
That's one excellent solution.
Here's another. My wife and I lived with her parents rent free when I entered the work force and was paid only a starting wage, after our first child was born. We saved our money and moved to our own home after five years and two more children. After we moved, they moved in with us, rent free.
My wife entered the paid work force when our youngest was ten. At that point we began to build our wealth.
The larger problem these days is that it takes too long to progress to the point of having a decent income, and by that time one may be too old to have children.
"If that's your idea, tell me, do you think Americans should choose to avoid having children unless they are living in a 2-adult home where one adult's income is enough for the family?"
No. But any potential parents should only have a kid, or have protected sex, if s/he/they can afford it. Outrageous, I know.
"And then there are the single parents. If you'd like them to have a choice to be a stay-at-home parent, how would you make that happen?"
See above. If they were single before becoming a parent, they ought to save up for the cost of the kid. If they are not single, they ought to save up for the possible cost of being single. Personal responsibility. Parental responsibility. Planning ahead. Living within your means. Outrageous, I know.
Better to vote for a share of either people's money. "For the children."
There's a lot of contradiction built into present social arrangements and, as a result, the whole is spiraling downward. Socialists want the government to step in and resolve the contradictions with "cash infusion." "Cash infusion" (aka borrowing), doesn't stop the downward spiral; it accelerates it. Socialism doesn't stop the spiral, socialism accelerates it. In actual fact, the family and a community built on the family is irreplaceable.
Take an example. Suppose we say that child care workers will be paid well so as to eliminate the shortage of workers in that field. Then really we are saying that the person who works has to provide a salary as large as her own or we are saying that the child care worker is taking care of several children which divides the amount the mother has to come up with but also divides the care her child gets. So we say the government will pay part of the salary but now taxes go up on both the Mom and the child care worker or else prices go up as companies are taxed, or both. And who is looking after the childcare worker's children?
But suppose we worked all that out. There are countries with excellent child care facilities, they say. Yes, but those countries have birth rates far below replacement level. The two go together. Social reliance on Child care leads directly to the decision not to have children. Then next, we have aging populations and the children are putting their parents in old people's homes. Why not? Those parents put them in child care. And so the countries with supposedly excellent child care have introduced euthanasia because there aren't enough parent-care workers.
But suppose parent care got cash infusions from the government?
Cash infusions start but now the workers, continually decreasing in numbers, are paying increasing amounts for parent care. (This was a problem China in particular faced. Covid would have reduced its severity since it targets the sick old but the Chinese initiated programs such as lockdowns so that the disease was not severe at all there. But then of course, the problem of the aging population remains.) And child care costs start to increase because the government is trying to persuade people to have children.
Under this stress, the nanny state is turning into the nanny-bully state on its way to being the bully state. I'm not obliged to try to make a failing social model work. All it is, I can only say: right now, individuals have to understand the state, the individual and the family in a different way to get into a way of life that works. Do it on your own, now. Because the possibility for mass social reform is the same as the possibility than people will get out of a rising market, knowing it is bound to crash.
Merny11 said...
No longer any self discipline. In order to have me stay home until our 5 were school age, we did without a lot. Had Only one car, no cable, no multiple phones, only took family to restaurants for special occasions, etc. Every family now thinks they HAVE to have all this STUFF, and therefore that they both have to work to have it. Our culture is a mess and I see no fix.
9/28/21, 9:21 AM
THIS^^^^^^
We make a good amount of money, and I see families in my neighborhood, that EVERY one of them have the newest I-phones, new cars, designer clothes and bags....ect. I didn't grow up like that, and worked for everything I have. I am pretty frugal, because I do not expect that Social Security will be there when I come of age to retire. I have a good savings account, but with the way this government is spending, I am not sure what it will be worth in a few years.
"Let’s “just” start with Ann’s money to “just pay” a “living wage” to a stay-at-home parent. She must be willing to volunteer, right?"
You're asking me if I'm willing to volunteer? I'm 70 years old!
Would I have volunteered to stay home with children and get paid a living wage when I was in my 20s? Absolutely and eagerly.
Eliminate social security and let seniors get jobs as daycare providers.
Social security is just theft by the old from the young. People can work until they either die or have enough money from private sources to support themselves. And all those old women are clamoring for grandchildren anyway. Give 'em a roomful and see how they like it.
Old people have no business cluttering up our interstates with RVs, pestering waitresses for senior discounts, or, worst of all, writing blogs. Be productive, or trot on over to the euthanasia clinic to be reprocessed into Soylent Green. Go out with a little dignity and style, at least!
"Big Mike said...
“Just!”
Econ 101 homework assignment for a (retired) university professor. Why is your comment at 7:30 a really, really bad idea?"
I think the chances of gettin Ann to engage with this are just about zero but just in case I'll start with an answer to get the ball rolling: cross subsidies...
...and if I can take a moment to discuss a charity I've been involved with for over 20 years - Horizons for Homeless Children. They're part of the Amazon charity program and the reason I don't use the Althouse portal...I'm sure somewhere they have a high falutin' mission statement but basically they provide child care and educational services to families with young children caught in the adult education/child care catch-22. Everyone in our office contributes money to the organization and time at the day care for these homeless families that want to better themselves and are willing to work at it. So in return for housing subsidies and child care the parents go to school and also take 'life' classes including....da da DA!!! ECONOMICS!!!
Unfortunately you have to pay some people to take economics. People loathe finance...
Let me just add to my post above. My family is actually an outlier with most of my circle of friends. Almost all of them are single income families. This is still doable and we live in a high cost of housing/living area. I can't even imagine the idea of someone saying they would gladly stay home and take care of their own kids only if they got paid, and paid well. Inconceivable.
Just another case of the low tier democrat voters getting help while the middle ( 30-60 k ) family gets screwed having to pay for theirs. It’s all up and down our welfare system.
"The economic situation is all due to the billionaire destruction of labor unions and subsequent squeeze on wages that began in the mid-70s."
Massive immigration was one of the ways they accomplished this. The law of supply and demand applies to labor as well as goods. Those low skill workers we are importing from the third world tend to be more interested in actually having a job at any wage than joining a union. Those billionaires you hate (and rightfully so in many cases) were some of the biggest opponents (along with their GOPe lap dogs) of Trump's approach to immigration.
Let's start with refusing to accept the feminist premise of the article that having fewer women in the work force is a problem. Seeing women and men as primarily economic beings as feminists do (having internalized Marx) makes this a "problem". But that's self-serving nonsense for the clerisy and their ruling oligarchs.
The easiest way to make this a non-problem is not to throw money at child care workers or stay-at-home parents but to reduce the tax burden on all citizens such that the economic choice to have a care giver at home makes mathematical sense.
Removing the government incentives to have non-parent workers sit out of the labor market would also go a long way to solving the problem the government created in setting up economic incentives for non-productive activity for potentially productive workers.
Reducing government intervention in the formal child care market would also go a long way to reducing the costs to operate such businesses. Just like all levels of education and health care, government regulation and "investment" (in reality, it's just spending) have caused increase costs just to keep the doors open and to encourage price increases to capture more of the socialist largesse.
Ann Althouse said...
"Let’s “just” start with Ann’s money to “just pay” a “living wage” to a stay-at-home parent. She must be willing to volunteer, right?"
You're asking me if I'm willing to volunteer? I'm 70 years old!
Would I have volunteered to stay home with children and get paid a living wage when I was in my 20s? Absolutely and eagerly.
You know darn well that is not what he was asking you to do! How about volunteering some of that Althouse wealth to fund that living wage? You are not too old to do THAT!
Ann Althouse said...
"Let’s “just” start with Ann’s money..."
You're asking me if I'm willing to volunteer? I'm 70 years old!
If you read that, you'll see he's (snarkily) suggesting that you volunteer YOUR Money pay for it. You Are RICH* IF you would pay YOUR FAIR SHARE, you'd see that it costs A Lot to "just pay" a "living wage". Put, DO IT! Impress us! Donate YOUR money to the government!!
i said that Ann is RICH* because, she IS... There's not a person here, that's Not RICH
This is an enormous problem in rural communities. I helped a community organization in our small town in Montana try to solve the lack of child care. We met with local businesses, community leaders & members, non-profits, and state agencies to help us. This was before the pandemic.
In a small community, the pool of workers is extremely small. Businesses told us they tried recruiting outside the community and couldn't find workers and that one of the most common reason cited was lack of child care.
Some of the challenges we faced included finding a suitable daycare facility that met state regulations. For example, the facility had to have a certain amount of "green space" (nearby parks don't count!) based on the square footage of the indoor space. We finally found something that we thought could work. We even secured all the funding for the facility and the staff. We made sure the rates were affordable (lower than the costs, meaning heavily subsidized) for parents.
Then, we set out to hire a daycare director/manager. No takers. Remember that this is pre-COVID. We offered higher wages than other day care centers in this part of the state. Still, not one person expressed interest.
We learned that the daycare business is simply awful. You have to be there very early and very late every day. No matter what time you ask people to pick up their kids, there are always late people. People drop off their sick kids. You are required to obtain continuous education/certification after work and on weekends throughout the year. You spend your weekends driving to the warehouse stores that are 60 - 90 miles away to purchase the meals for feeding the kids. Many parents don't pay on time, or at all. So, you also spend time as a bill collector. Staff are unreliable, get sick, etc.
After a year of trying to solve the child care problem, we gave up.
As an aside, I have heard that many larger businesses in the bigger towns across Montana are building their own in-house daycare centers for employees. These are extremely popular because parents are often in the same building as their children. This is a great solution, but it doesn't help those people who work for small business, have low-skill jobs, or live in rural areas.
Oh, here's a FUN FACT i dug up, while listening to my browser read all your comments.
as we ALL KNOW, the (ultra) Rich; don't pay Their Fair Share... which raises the
Serious Question
How Much does Warren Buffet pay in Income Taxes?
According to Reuters, the world's third-richest man paid only $6.9 million in federal income taxes. (this is from several years ago, but was all i could find)
Of those of you, that think Warren Buffet (and the other ultra Rich) don't pay taxes...
Please let me know; if YOU paid More than 6 MILLION Dollars in taxes last year?
Personally; last year i paid $1,312 dollars in federal taxes (on $29,877 income)
I KNOW that, Math is Hard... But $6,900,000 is LARGER than $1,312
In Fact, it's MORE than an order of magnitude larger
government paying for child care is going to make child care (a) more expensive (b) less expensive, (c) the same.
Now replace child care with anything and the answer is (a) and it is the same with child care. When the government subsidizes something it gets more expensive, and it will get more expensive for the middle class folks who earn too much to get a subsidy and too little not to need one.
TestTube said...
Eliminate social security and let seniors get jobs as daycare providers.
Social security is just theft by the old from the young.
Old people have no business cluttering up our interstates with RVs
Especially, those RV's with the bumper sticker that Proudly Proclaims
WE'RE SPENDING YOUR CHILDREN'S INHERITANCE
Offshoring is implied, Doc.
BTW, I supported my stay at home wife and two brats on my modest middle class income. We have all transplanted to New England, including 3 grandkids.
I'm sure our family is still tight because my woman sacrificed a stimulating career for a loving career as Suzy Homemaker.
I think the pay the wages to mom to stay home is a great idea as long as it isn't based on being divorced or having a destitute husband.
Wince @7:53 a.m.,
You know, Baumol's Cost Disease has always irritated me. Not the idea, but the specific example used in the paper introducing the phenomenon. Baumol said that it took four people to play a late Beethoven quartet in the late 1820s when it was written, and it still takes four people to play it, but now they're paid much more: Pay has outpaced productivity.
Except it's all wrong. In the first place, there were only a handful of professional, full-time string quartets in the world when the late Beethoven quartets were written, and it took decades for an appreciable fraction even of these to introduce these difficult works to their concerts. And they played them possibly a few times a year, no more. Now playing at least some late Beethoven is an absolute job requirement for any quartet not specializing in very early or very recent music, and a good professional quartet will play any given piece dozens of times to audiences all over the country -- or Europe, or Japan, or China.
Second, most of the concerts that did take place were in small, private halls or rooms; now they take place everywhere, but mainly in concert halls holding several hundred people. The "productivity" of the quartet isn't in producing the sounds notated on the page, but in getting the sounds into the ears of listeners. Early quartet audiences were small and generally aristocratic. Today's audiences might feel aristocratic, but a ticket to a quartet performance is generally a lot cheaper than one to a rock concert.
Third, and related: Beethoven had never heard of radio. Or sound recording. Or streaming. The same four people might be required to play the quartet, but if the performance is broadcast or recorded, there's really no upper limit to the number of people who can hear it. You've gone from a dozen people listening in a drawing room to millions who may be of any class and live anywhere on the planet. It's flat-out nonsense to say that the quartet's productivity hasn't increased.
NB I'm not saying that Baumol's Cost Disease isn't real, only that he chose a singularly lousy example to illustrate it. I imagine he thought of a classical violin or piano soloist, but realized that such rock-star-like personalities got top dollar wherever they appeared. But a string quartet! Any four schlubs will do, right?
FWIW, playing in a full-time quartet is an amazingly sucky job when it's not an amazingly fulfilling one. Imagine being cooped up with three other people for hours a day, trying all to agree on every detail of a performance, and practicing collectively until there are no bugs anywhere. A quadruple marriage, one in which it's each member's duty to point out each of the other's flaws and shortcomings. Fun, right?
"Just pay the stay-at-home parent a living wage."
A wage that one is able to live on. A wage that enables one to have a home, food, clothing, health insurance, maybe a car, and something extra for frivolities.
Isn't that what the working parent provides to the stay-at-home parent?
My partner owns commercial property - main tenant is a daycare. She recently expanded and established a second location. Most clients are paying for her services via state aid, courtesy of the state of Washington.
I do not have kids but the comments here that speak to modern spending habits catch my eye. Can't help but notice how middle class material expectations have ballooned since I grew up - with a stay at home mom (2 kids, dad had a physics degree and one employer his entire career). No wonder it gets financially tough.
Like other posters here have said: one parent can stay home if frugal habits are adopted. Take the concept of a nursery for a newborn. I recall my baby sister and I sharing a bedroom for some time. Does that even happen anymore - same sex siblings sharing a room growing up? If TV is any guide - no, the baby must be housed in its own room designed to Instagram worthy standards. Every child must have their own space that expresses their individuality! Birthday parties used to be humble affairs with mom's input only. Today hundreds must be spent to outdo other parents! Our travel growing up was a road trip to the next state over visiting relatives - I did not board a plane until adulthood. I was shocked to learn that kids in middle school now expect Spring Break trips! They expect big 'graduation' parties for getting through 6th grade.
If you expect more you are going to have to spend more.
When I first got my accounting degree I worked part time for a YWCA in a small city in upstate NY. The Y had a volunteer operated day care center than ran basically on the cost of juice and graham crackers. Toys and sleep pads were donated. It was a drop in center not providing routine care but it provided a back stop that made arrangements with relatives and similarly situated mothers possible. It was shut down due to state regulations requiring day care facilities to have facilities to provide hot meals. They tried to negotiate since there were kitchen facilities at the Y but were not able to meet a standard that the facilities be exclusive to the day care center. In my next job, I happened to work on financial reports for a grant to study day care requirements. The cost of the study was more than 5 times than the annual cost of operating the volunteer drop off site and it recommended requiring annual education credits for day care providers.
Living wage is an interesting concept. Sometime around 1973 I was at a gathering of arts administrators where one man suggested that no one could live in NYC on less than $50,000 a year. At the time I and my husband had a combined income of about $16,000 and were able to afford an apartment and a car. I suggested that he ask his admin assistant or the guy who emptied his trash baskets about how they did it. I believe that Florida is the only state where combined welfare, WIC and housing subsidies work out to less than a full time minimum wage for two earners. Add in Medicaid and your single mother is doing better than the hypothetical two parent high school graduate household (before counting her under the table jobs and any money the baby daddy provides). It's not sustainable and it's not moral to subsidize bad choices.
I would suggest that housing and zoning regulations be relaxed. That guy who said the rent is too damn high had the right diagnosis.
My mother-in-law was widowed at the age of 37 with a 12 year old girl (now my wife) and a 10 year old boy. She took a secretarial job at a prep school (free tuition for her children and subsidized housing off campus). She got life insurance proceeds($50,000, I believe) that provided an emergency cash cushion. When the children were done with high school, she took other administrative positions and worked her way up to become the business manager at a law firm. Her children got scholarships at a liberal arts college as well as college loans totaling about one-year's pay at a starting salary. I believe she got modest dependent children benefits from social security (less than $50 per month per child, I think) until the children were 18. She never had much money, but as my father said, she was never poor. She was one of the most cultured women I have ever known, and the few things she had were of the highest quality. She had a deep religious faith that saw her through difficult times.
The resources we need are spiritual and moral. She had them.
The issue at hand is the unrealistic expectations that young adults have for their lifestyles, across society. When we had our kids, we lived on a single (very small salary), and I stayed home. We bought inexpensive houses that were not fancy (living in medium cost cities, it wasn’t New York, but it wasn’t super low cost of living either), drove old cars, and didn’t buy expensive things. So long as the working parent has a job with decent health care, this is really not difficult. We always had money for things we actually needed, and generally had money for things we wanted too, we just kept our expectations modest. I sometimes supplemented our income by doing childcare, obviously bringing my kids along. Once they were old enough, I entered the workforce, and I make excellent money now, and I’m the one who raised my kids, not some stranger.
The notion that young parents should be living in a fancy house, driving two nice cars, eating out all the time, and buying expensive clothes is what prevents families from being able to live on one income.
Also, get off my lawn.
��
Just pay the stay-at-home parent a living wage. That's what we will need to do if and when women and other uterus-havers decide, economically rationally, to avoid having children, and the birth rate goes completely to hell.
That is a good solution if 80% of those benefitting from the program were as honest and self motivated as you AA. They can then pay for the freeloaders who are just looking for another handout.
Of course, the 80% number more likely to be on the other side of the equation.
I was furloughed last August as a COVID response, and haven't been able to land a job since. Right now, I'm the daycare provider for my family, so they can work and pay their bills. It literally is the difference between making it and not.
"being poor is not in your DNA."
It is in my neighborhood; it's in the social DNA. Years ago I lost count of how many times I have seen how a significant number of folks in my neighborhood are raising their kids and thought, in ten years that kid's gonna either be dead or in jail. If you are teaching your three-year-old to shout, "Back, Back, Motherfucker! Back, Back!" and, "Give Me My Shit!" on a crowded commuter bus, your kid's chances in life are pretty much over.
If that's your idea, tell me, do you think Americans should choose to avoid having children unless they are living in a 2-adult home where one adult's income is enough for the family? It's hard to understand how Americans with children can get by. The second earner in the family must bring in substantially more than childcare costs and childcare workers only exist because they are individuals who are accepting working for low pay.
So much to unpack. One adult's income is enough--like that's just impossible. Food and clothing and shelter are at historically low proportions of income. Much of what people in 2021 think they cannot get by without did not exist 30 years ago.
The second earner in the family must bring in substantially more than childcare costs
and taxes, and the expenses of another commute. But people sustain their lifestyle with credit, and credit has to be paid for with income.
As for my family, we do without the latest and greatest to get by on one income and keep our debt low. And our children are not raised by low-paid strangers. We're not particularly virtuous but we've carefully examined our priorities for time and money.
Ann: only from what I’ve read here, you are a comfortable government pensioner whose sons were presumably supported by your and your husband’s generous salary and benefits for what Is frankly a half- time job at best. And now you call mothers people with uteruses?
Are you kidding or willfully obtuse and obedient to the party power line?
If it’s the second, you’re dishonest and not worth reading anymore.
Once you factor in the extra commute costs, extra car costs, the tax hit from the extra income, child care costs, living on one income with a SAH mom is actually not that unobtainable.
And now you call mothers people with uteruses?
Are you kidding or willfully obtuse and obedient to the party power line?
If it’s the second, you’re dishonest and not worth reading anymore.
I can be pretty critical of Althouse, but I read that as sarcasm at the Left.
Tax dad and give the money to mom to look after the kids.
That sound like something the underpants gnomes of South Park would come up with.
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