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People seem to think that a single income home only means sacrificing on vacations or a large house. What it really means for many families is sacrificing on home ownership period (and related housing insecurity with rent), fully funded retirement/college savings, and medical care in the best of situations - not to mention the opportunity cost of one parent losing career momentum and years of any kind of retirement savings/matching. In the worst of situations, it can mean not being able to afford food or clothing. My partner and I both grew up in single earner households and for that reason would never, ever put our kids through it short of one of those dream scenarios making 6 figures in a small town. That's just not reality for our careers.
I'm very concerned about this problem - daycare is expensive enough as it is where I live ($3000+ for bare minimum infant care) and hard to find (year long waitlists). Grandparents still work or don't live nearby, and there aren't many stay-at-home parents in neighborhoods anymore to split childcare with. Lots of people in my life are scrambling right now to find nanny-shares because they're nervous about maintaining a spot in their child's daycare. With 2 bedroom rents at 3-4K in the burbs and mortgages even more than that for a small starter home, being forced to drop out of the workforce due to lack of daycare spots is absolutely devastating.
Is that $3,000 per month for one infant? If so, why are caregivers not flocking in from other parts of the country if you can just open a home daycare and make $72k/year (minus expenses) for taking care of two babies?
We all know that living from one salary is not possible for a very long time now.
But it seems that instead to help working families, their struggle is going to be even worse. There are long waiting lists for day and kindergarten care, and the fees are going up and up. What options families with kids have?
How to keep our children safe and nurtured, and their parents working?
Nationwide, more than 70,000 child care programs are projected to close, and about 3.2 million children could lose their spots due to the end of the child care stabilization grant program on September 30, according to an analysis by The Century Foundation.
Child care in America has long had issues: The costs are steep for both providers and parents, leaving it both in short supply and unaffordable for many families. Last year, the average annual price nationwide was nearly $11,000, according to Child Care Aware of America, though the rates can be much higher depending on the location.
Less and less parents can afford that. Work two jobs, you could say - then when are they going to see their children? Do their parenting duties?
And working two jobs isn't even an answer. Nowadays everyone wish to work from home and demand high salaries (plus tips, if possible).
Desperate parents take any chance they get, and often end up placing their kids in unsafe environments, where kids get abused or even killed (the fentanyl case in Bronx)
We all know that living from one salary is not possible for a very long time now.
But it seems that instead to help working families, their struggle is going to be even worse. There are long waiting lists for day and kindergarten care, and the fees are going up and up. What options families with kids have?
How to keep our children safe and nurtured, and their parents working?
Nationwide, more than 70,000 child care programs are projected to close, and about 3.2 million children could lose their spots due to the end of the child care stabilization grant program on September 30, according to an analysis by The Century Foundation.
Child care in America has long had issues: The costs are steep for both providers and parents, leaving it both in short supply and unaffordable for many families. Last year, the average annual price nationwide was nearly $11,000, according to Child Care Aware of America, though the rates can be much higher depending on the location.
Less and less parents can afford that. Work two jobs, you could say - then when are they going to see their children? Do their parenting duties?
And working two jobs isn't even an answer. Nowadays everyone wish to work from home and demand high salaries (plus tips, if possible).
Desperate parents take any chance they get, and often end up placing their kids in unsafe environments, where kids get abused or even killed (the fentanyl case in Bronx)
Until the day comes that America adopts a social benefits system similar to that of Scandinavia then the costs of childcare will only get worse. That also applies to the costs of homecare for the elderly. Both of these issues should be getting top priority bearing in mind that there is an ever increasing population of elderly baby boomers
It's not likely that the US will ever adopt such a system. It's too alien a concept for Americans to understand. America taxpayers believe in having their cake and eating it and added to that mentality is the fact that billions of dollars in handouts are are given away every year to countries all over the world. That's why the world's richest nation is in the situation it is
Until the day comes that America adopts a social benefits system similar to that of Scandinavia then the costs of childcare will only get worse. That also applies to the costs of homecare for the elderly. Both of these issues should be getting top priority bearing in mind that there is an ever increasing population of elderly baby boomers
It's not likely that the US will ever adopt such a system. It's too alien a concept for Americans to understand. America taxpayers believe in having their cake and eating it and added to that mentality is the fact that billions of dollars in handouts are are given away every year to countries all over the world. That's why the world's richest nation is in the situation it is
The government thinks its simply cheaper to let immigrants in and let them be the replacement to the problem for citizens not having children. Problem solved. The US just added to it's youth population in just 2 years by repopulating with migrants. Taking a page from Europe that let in 10 million migrants from Africa. The elites will always want cheap labor than have a social system that take care of it's existing citizens.
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