Summary

Child care costs for many U.S. families during peak inflation in 2022 ranged from $6,552 to $15,600 per child, comparable to rent, according to Labor Department data.

These high costs strained household budgets, disproportionately impacted women’s workforce participation, and fueled economic dissatisfaction among voters.

While Kamala Harris proposed policies to reduce child care costs, Donald Trump capitalized on broader economic grievances to expand his voter base, despite offering few specifics on addressing the issue.

Pandemic-era federal aid helped stabilize costs but left parents bearing much of the financial burden.

  • Cyrus Draegur
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    21 day ago

    And yet the childcare WORKERS can barely afford to live.

    You know, I’m starting to wonder if maybe families should form some sort of social club and hire childcare workers directly???

  • @Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    102 days ago

    The rest of the 1st World is way ahead of the USA. I like it when the American politicians and business leaders say family values are important. In reality, that is last thing on their fucking minds and the US Labor Laws and paternity leave proves it. If you want to have a family, move to Norway, Sweden, Finland or Denmark.

  • Jake Farm
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    613 days ago

    Aren’t staff at daycares way under paid? Where is all the money going?

    • ✺roguetrick✺
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      283 days ago

      Some of it is skimmed off, sure, but most of it is because it’s fucking expensive to employ people to just watch kids.

      • @psivchaz@reddthat.com
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        223 days ago

        I just picked a state. Average infant daycare cost is $1172/mo. Maximum of 4 infants per caregiver, so a maximum of $4.688.

        Health insurance here averages $400/mo, for an individual (some often paid by the employer).

        Assuming they are employed, the employer is paying for federal unemployment insurance, workers compensation insurance, state unemployment insurance. It was really hard to get solid numbers but based on my reading, we can estimate about 2% will go to that.

        So we have $4296 left over. Assuming payroll and supplies and everything else costs nothing at all (which is definitely not accurate), and assuming we give the rest straight to the employee… Their gross would be $51,000 roughly.

        The average daycare worker in this state makes about $33k/year.

        • million
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          42 days ago

          The 4 to 1 ratio gets aged out of real quickly. In fact I am not sure we ever got that ratio with our daycare.

        • @Blackmist@feddit.uk
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          22 days ago

          Rent of the daycare facility is likely sky high as well.

          Honestly the number of kids per staff member is almost entirely to blame.

        • Bakkoda
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          93 days ago

          There’s tons and tons of federal and state funds for individual daycares, group centers etc. Some of it specifically to help boost payroll. Still doesn’t help because it gets eaten away by the bureaucracy.

      • Jake Farm
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        43 days ago

        I was thinking it would be 1 adult for every 8-10 kids but others are saying it is legally mandated to be 1 adult to 2-5 kids which means you are paying half a persons salary.

          • @bitchkat@lemmy.world
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            42 days ago

            Daycare got cheaper as my son got older. Always loved him moving up to a, new room. Of course, 30 years ago, were talking about $125/week or so when he was an infant.

        • ✺roguetrick✺
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          3 days ago

          Yeah and not just pure take home. Also any benefits(though in this industry they’d be the worst of they’re even offered), making sure you have a correct staffing matrix, and taxes/unemployment insurance. It’s pretty cost prohibitive, depending on age. And once it’s not, the kid really can stay home alone.

    • SeaJ
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      2 days ago

      A senior teacher at the KinderCare that my kid to makes $25/hr. Minimum wage here is $20/hr. The cost per month was about $2500 per child.

    • @Paddzr@lemmy.world
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      143 days ago

      The owners.

      It’s not regulated and generally it’s hired as “low skill” (it really fucking isn’t) so they’re very replaceable.

      The easiest money is made on old farts and new farts. Nursing homes care assistants are basically on minimum wage while the owners rake in the money.

      It’s priced, what are you going to do? Not go to work and stay with your gran or child?

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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        193 days ago

        Really awesome that we as a society consider people watching our children at the most important part of their lives “low skill.”

        Imagine what our test scores would be like if we considered them as important as hedge fund managers and marketing executives.

      • @Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.world
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        143 days ago

        I am in the northeast and it is heavily regulated down to how many hours staff can be on duty and levels of staffing, the simple fact is that especially for those under twelve (where the rules are generally at least two people at all times for a group of ten, under three is literally 1 person per two children), ensuring that you have 10-12 hours of sufficient coverage (most ppl work 8-9 hours plus travel time to work) from background checked and fingerprinted persons while also feeding the children and keep a commercial building open is expensive.

        • Jake Farm
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          23 days ago

          Do public schools even have that ratio of adults to children?

          • @Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.world
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            33 days ago

            Not in my neck of the woods, they are aiming for 25 kids per teacher eventually in NYC 🙄, and meanwhile some older NY folks say we baby the young cause they were upto 50 to a teacher when they went to school, like we shouldn’t try to progress.

  • @Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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    102 days ago

    All my coworkers by 1200 to 1600 in usd per per month per kid. This is unsustainable. Unless you have 2 people with no college debt making bank.

  • Flying Squid
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    403 days ago

    Hey that’s fine, JD Vance says grandparents can take care of the kids!

    Grandparents never have jobs themselves, right?

    • @burrito@sh.itjust.works
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      333 days ago

      And some grandparents are child molesters, or are abusive in other ways, who will never be allowed to see their grandchildren.

      • @HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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        293 days ago

        Or dead, or too old to handle them, or don’t live near you, or just don’t want to be bothered. My parents are great, but they did tell me straight up that they wouldn’t be a substitute for daycare. They do a lot but just don’t want to be responsible like that, and I honestly don’t blame them. They watch them whenever we need a babysitter or have to travel for events which is great. My wife’s parents are dead.

        • Flying Squid
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          52 days ago

          I love my mom, but I know how she raised me and I know how she was with my daughter when she stayed the night on occasion and I wouldn’t have let her watch my daughter long term when she was little. She’s not abusive, but she’s on the narcissistic side with a temper and she can’t handle a small child violating her unwritten rules.

          I remember there was a wicker wastebasket in the room she had set up for my daughter and, being a small child, she had picked it apart while left alone up there. The fit my mom threw at me was not fun. At least she didn’t throw it at her… but I knew she would eventually.

      • Flying Squid
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        103 days ago

        That’s a plus to Vance, not a minus. And they’ll be allowed to now.

  • @Cavemanfreak@lemm.ee
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    112 days ago

    Jesus fucking christ! I’m so happy I live in a sane country, we pay $250 for two children, and it’s only going down the older they get.

  • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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    273 days ago

    Sure is great how Manchin killed the childcare provision of BBB.

    Centrists made this happen. Now tell us again how we’re imagining not being able to afford to live.

    • @spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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      -353 days ago

      Good thing too, its not my responsibility to care for or support anyone else’s crotch goblin bastards.

        • @spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Small-l libertarian, classical liberal, minarchist, or maybe even an Ancap, I’m not quite sure, but whichever gets the government to go away and leave people alone to live their lives as they seem fit. All the parties today are trash, compromised by foreign interests, corporations, billionaires, grifters, or worse, and I want nothing to do with them.

          • teft
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            92 days ago

            What’s your plan for when the government isn’t there and your local warlords…i mean amazon service representatives come to your house and take all your shit or enslave you? Not like you’ll be able to call the police or anything since you don’t want government.

            Or hell, whats your plan to get rid of your garbage when there is no government? Throw it into your neighbors yard?

            • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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              32 days ago

              Or hell, whats your plan to get rid of your garbage when there is no government?

              The bears will take care of it.

            • @spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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              -22 days ago

              Garbage, uhmm, you pay a monthly fee (about $30) and they take it away weekly, or if its burnable, it goes on the brush pile until the pile gets tall enough that you need a bigger tractor to pile it any higher.

              Police… Definitely wouldn’t waste time calling them, the action would be over before they even finished their donuts.

          • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            42 days ago

            Right. Greedy and callous and serving the corpos and billionaires you unconvincingly claim to oppose.

            How does childcare benefit anyone but children and parents?

            • Are you kidding? Childcare benefits the economy. More people in the workforce full time rather than needing to stay home and watch kids, more money in the system than spent on childcare, and a more skilled workforce as people are able to stay in careers longer. It also benefits society as kids are able to have earlier socialization and learning opportunities and have better outcomes growing up.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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        93 days ago

        I hate society as much as you do but as long as I’m forced to live in it I’d like to hear fewer people complaining.

  • The Pantser
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    233 days ago

    Yep 10 years ago when my wife was the full time worker and I wanted to work. I would have to have been making $23 per hour to make a profit on working. The cheapest childcare we could find would have me paying childcare costs that exceeded a 40 hour per week check. I would have to pay to have a job. Best I could find at the time was $16.50 so I just elected to save money by not working.

  • Snot Flickerman
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    3 days ago

    Nobody wants to work anymore! Nobody wants to have kids anymore!

    Fuck me, I wonder why? Every inch of all of it sucks and costs too much.

    People don’t want to work so much because they want quality time with their kids. People don’t want to work jobs that don’t pay them enough to even have kids, let alone not have enough free time to actually build a life with those kids.

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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    73 days ago

    Childcare? Y’all don’t just leave your kids unsupervised at home?

    /s Don’t do that, but like thats reality tho. Some people do that.