5 ms·

Third world resident here. $5k a month income would get you living like a king here (with in house nanny) so to hear you have to spend that on daycare alone is

Third world resident here. $5k a month income would get you living like a king here (with in house nanny) so to hear you have to spend that on daycare alone is insane. If i may ask, What is it about daycare that makes it this expensive? It seems demand is high and the business is profitable if they can charge that much so why isn't competition driving price to be affordable?

jimbokun 6y ago
I'm not who you asked, but will add my thoughts anyway. Fundamentally, it is a business that does not scale, as you need a set number of providers per n children, and low values for n are probably going to be associated as better value. There's really no way to get efficiencies or scale, as the personal interaction and attention is what parents are really paying for. So it come down to a question of local real estate prices and prevailing wages for the area, so I'm assuming mindvirus lives in a city with a very high cost of living and real estate costs.
- ilstormcloud 6y ago
  Makes perfect sense when you put it like that. I didn't realize x kids per carer would mean it can't scale. Thank you.
mindvirus 6y ago
Minimum wage is $15/hr (teachers make more), daycare is open 8am-6pm. Law has 4-5 kids per teacher, so that's $1000-$1250/kid minimum, plus floating teachers (can't close a class if one teacher is sick), and there's rent and administrators. So the $2.5k/kid is reasonable given all of that - I doubt the school makes a lot of money. To be fair, you can also get a nanny for about that (going rate is $20/hr or so) which works out with two kids. Still though, my point is that high costs of child care in the city are a wedge that furthers the gap between rich and everyone else.
- ilstormcloud 6y ago
  Ah, I didn't realize the children per teacher. It makes sense now. Thank you.
- rukittenme 6y ago
  > Law has 4-5 kids per teacher Is this true? When I was a kid my daycare was like 30 kids per teacher. It was called "Mother's Day Out". I can't remember the cost but judging by the amount of time I spent there it was basically free.
econcon 6y ago
> $5k a month income would get you living like a king here (with in house nanny) Comparing just dollar value of services is not of much use across countries. It's like saying, interest rate in India is 6% while in US it's 1% why Americans are not putting their money in India. The info you are missing is inflation. 5k is not a lot in mega US cities and these guys will not move to some cheap city because they'll not find a job that pays that well and gives them ability to support such a high quality of life in smaller/cheaper cities.
geodel 6y ago
> Third world resident here. $5k a month income would get you living like a king here Unsurprising, because only king would be earning this kind of income per month.
- ilstormcloud 6y ago
  A king and people who work for NGOs :)

jimbokun 6y ago

I'm not who you asked, but will add my thoughts anyway. Fundamentally, it is a business that does not scale, as you need a set number of providers per n children, and low values for n are probably going to be associated as better value. There's really no way to get efficiencies or scale, as the personal interaction and attention is what parents are really paying for. So it come down to a question of local real estate prices and prevailing wages for the area, so I'm assuming mindvirus lives in a city with a very high cost of living and real estate costs.

ilstormcloud 6y ago
Makes perfect sense when you put it like that. I didn't realize x kids per carer would mean it can't scale. Thank you.

mindvirus 6y ago

Minimum wage is $15/hr (teachers make more), daycare is open 8am-6pm. Law has 4-5 kids per teacher, so that's $1000-$1250/kid minimum, plus floating teachers (can't close a class if one teacher is sick), and there's rent and administrators. So the $2.5k/kid is reasonable given all of that - I doubt the school makes a lot of money. To be fair, you can also get a nanny for about that (going rate is $20/hr or so) which works out with two kids. Still though, my point is that high costs of child care in the city are a wedge that furthers the gap between rich and everyone else.

ilstormcloud 6y ago
Ah, I didn't realize the children per teacher. It makes sense now. Thank you.
rukittenme 6y ago
> Law has 4-5 kids per teacher Is this true? When I was a kid my daycare was like 30 kids per teacher. It was called "Mother's Day Out". I can't remember the cost but judging by the amount of time I spent there it was basically free.

econcon 6y ago

> $5k a month income would get you living like a king here (with in house nanny) Comparing just dollar value of services is not of much use across countries. It's like saying, interest rate in India is 6% while in US it's 1% why Americans are not putting their money in India. The info you are missing is inflation. 5k is not a lot in mega US cities and these guys will not move to some cheap city because they'll not find a job that pays that well and gives them ability to support such a high quality of life in smaller/cheaper cities.

geodel 6y ago

> Third world resident here. $5k a month income would get you living like a king here Unsurprising, because only king would be earning this kind of income per month.

ilstormcloud 6y ago
A king and people who work for NGOs :)