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You can’t just magically have enough childcare workers willing to staff that abundance of childcare centers. It’s a free job market, and wages have to be compet

by ericd 3y ago

You can’t just magically have enough childcare workers willing to staff that abundance of childcare centers. It’s a free job market, and wages have to be competitive, given a tight labor market. We help run a preschool at the moment, and salaries are the vast majority of the budget, the facility is a very small part. It’s extremely hard to keep it staffed without blowing the budget. If you want childcare to be cheaper for parents it must be subsidized, or we need higher unemployment to make childcare a more attractive field (though I’d argue you don’t want people caring for your kids out of desperation for a job), or we must make housing cheaper/less competitive so that people can afford to do this out of passion.

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
Personally I’d be more than happy to have my taxes go up to subsidize childcare. It’s probably what, max 10-20$ for me individually? I’d even happily pay 100$ annually. Probably way more is used to fund my government’s surveillance program :(
- ericd 3y ago
  Hm I’m not sure if the numbers pencil out there, daycare can be $2k/mo or more, especially in cities. If we wanted parents to have 80% subsidized daycare, assuming $1k/mo cost and $20/mo per adult, we’re looking at 40 adults per young kid. Not sure if that’s enough. Maybe not too far off, though? And could play with the percentage subsidy, even much less would be far better than it is now. I think it’s worth it from a societal standpoint, though.
  - immibis 3y ago
    How many children to a carer, 15? I don't think their salary is $360,000 so obviously most of that money is going somewhere other than what you'd expect to be the largest single expense. It's probably going to landlords and shareholders, because that's where most excess money goes.
    - ericd 3y ago
      I used to know these ratios better when I was reworking staffing, but I’m pretty sure state mandated child:teacher ratios are lower than that for preschool, lower still for toddler care, and something like 4:1 for infant care, and they must be met at all times to function, so you need backup/slack for eg teacher sickness. And in preschool, the teachers typically need non-licensed assistants to help with eg potty accidents that would otherwise pull them away from the main group. There is also a surprisingly significant administrative burden, so you typically need administrators to handle things like state licensing compliance (including surprise inspections), parent communication, teacher scheduling, billing, payroll and all that entails, cleaners, scheduling and contracts for photographers and activities, new enrollment, tours, marketing efforts, insurance, etc. These are typically older teachers, so they’re not the most technically savvy group, and perhaps less productive when tech is involved than you might think. And parents expect to be able to text them, pay online, etc nowadays, so they have to use some tech. But the upshot is sometimes they can pinch-hit to meet your ratios. SaaS has gotten surprisingly expensive, too, that was sucking a big hole in our budget when I first started helping out, and while I’ve trimmed it significantly, it’s still surprising how greedy they are compared to eg 5 years ago (looking at you, Gusto). Ditto thinks like online payments with credit cards, had to put a stop to that asap. The school I help with is a nonprofit, so there are no shareholders, and the building is a little more than 10% of our operating budget, so it’s not landlords. There is no “excess money” for us, but maybe there is in one of the corporate operations.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Human labor isn’t going to be more affordable, and child care is the one field where productivity is mandated to not improve via required student/teacher ratios. In fact productivity has gone down since regulatory agencies keep lowering those minimum required ratios.
- ericd 3y ago
  Yeah, bureaucratic requirements on schools and childcare centers are pretty onerous, and the increased costs, fewer childcare workers, and stressed parental budgets aren’t a good combo. I generally think early childhood care should be better subsidized in the US.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    I think we will need to make it more productive, we don’t have the people who will do it (eventually we run out of saints and immigrants). Some ideas: intelligent automated surveillance (to help a provider take care of more kids at a time), diaper changing robots (you know this is coming in the next 20 years), child labor (kids aide in taking care of younger kids, like it was in the 1950s). Creativity is needed to achieve safety and avoid excessive screen time (we already know screens can pretty much take care of most kids over 2, but the opportunity cost is huge).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by ericd 3y ago

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago

Personally I’d be more than happy to have my taxes go up to subsidize childcare. It’s probably what, max 10-20$ for me individually? I’d even happily pay 100$ annually. Probably way more is used to fund my government’s surveillance program :(

ericd 3y ago
Hm I’m not sure if the numbers pencil out there, daycare can be $2k/mo or more, especially in cities. If we wanted parents to have 80% subsidized daycare, assuming $1k/mo cost and $20/mo per adult, we’re looking at 40 adults per young kid. Not sure if that’s enough. Maybe not too far off, though? And could play with the percentage subsidy, even much less would be far better than it is now. I think it’s worth it from a societal standpoint, though.
- immibis 3y ago
  How many children to a carer, 15? I don't think their salary is $360,000 so obviously most of that money is going somewhere other than what you'd expect to be the largest single expense. It's probably going to landlords and shareholders, because that's where most excess money goes.
  - ericd 3y ago
    I used to know these ratios better when I was reworking staffing, but I’m pretty sure state mandated child:teacher ratios are lower than that for preschool, lower still for toddler care, and something like 4:1 for infant care, and they must be met at all times to function, so you need backup/slack for eg teacher sickness. And in preschool, the teachers typically need non-licensed assistants to help with eg potty accidents that would otherwise pull them away from the main group. There is also a surprisingly significant administrative burden, so you typically need administrators to handle things like state licensing compliance (including surprise inspections), parent communication, teacher scheduling, billing, payroll and all that entails, cleaners, scheduling and contracts for photographers and activities, new enrollment, tours, marketing efforts, insurance, etc. These are typically older teachers, so they’re not the most technically savvy group, and perhaps less productive when tech is involved than you might think. And parents expect to be able to text them, pay online, etc nowadays, so they have to use some tech. But the upshot is sometimes they can pinch-hit to meet your ratios. SaaS has gotten surprisingly expensive, too, that was sucking a big hole in our budget when I first started helping out, and while I’ve trimmed it significantly, it’s still surprising how greedy they are compared to eg 5 years ago (looking at you, Gusto). Ditto thinks like online payments with credit cards, had to put a stop to that asap. The school I help with is a nonprofit, so there are no shareholders, and the building is a little more than 10% of our operating budget, so it’s not landlords. There is no “excess money” for us, but maybe there is in one of the corporate operations.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

Human labor isn’t going to be more affordable, and child care is the one field where productivity is mandated to not improve via required student/teacher ratios. In fact productivity has gone down since regulatory agencies keep lowering those minimum required ratios.

ericd 3y ago
Yeah, bureaucratic requirements on schools and childcare centers are pretty onerous, and the increased costs, fewer childcare workers, and stressed parental budgets aren’t a good combo. I generally think early childhood care should be better subsidized in the US.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I think we will need to make it more productive, we don’t have the people who will do it (eventually we run out of saints and immigrants). Some ideas: intelligent automated surveillance (to help a provider take care of more kids at a time), diaper changing robots (you know this is coming in the next 20 years), child labor (kids aide in taking care of younger kids, like it was in the 1950s). Creativity is needed to achieve safety and avoid excessive screen time (we already know screens can pretty much take care of most kids over 2, but the opportunity cost is huge).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]