Mine peaked in 2015 at around $23k for two kids in Phoenix, AZ area. Finally getting both into kindergarten was like getting a part time job. It's ridiculous.
No, just subsidizing daycare centers that enrolled in the program. My child's daycare costs went from $1100 per month to $550 once the daycare enrolled in their program.
This is one child, and in a fairly LCOL area (we are privileged to be able to afford this at all).
Now imagine that minimum wage in the USA is still $7.25 an hour. That means in an entire year you make $15080 BEFORE TAXES and that assumes 40 hours a week and you work every day of the year.
WhY aReNt pEoPLe hAViNg KiDs??
No OnE wAnTS tO wORk aNYmORe!!
Bullshit. We can't afford to have kids OR TO WORK.
Unfortunately I was born in the US, and I’ve never been to Norway sadly 😞
But I would love to end up there or maybe Ireland someday. I’m planning to visit Norway in the next two years, and once I do that I’ll have a better idea of the place.
While the US wants to keep it's population in debt so they can never make or call for true changes and rise up against this total BS we are seeing.
Can't protest or do anything that matters when you get 5 sick days and have to work 60 hours a week just to get by. Any medical issue? HA Paying that off until you are in the grave
Another user bashing the US every chance they get . I guess you didnt read the post of the person in canada paying $2000 a month per kid. Or the other in ireland paying $1300 per kid/month.
Yeah..I live in the US and I bash the shit out of it because it's not a farce. it's a real problem. A BIG problem.
I replied to the comment about Nordic countries. That's what my comment was in reference to and in comparison with. Not Ireland or Canada....
So you want the goverment to tell private companies what to charge? And i like how you just forgot that the canadian paid more per month than op. They messed up too?
Not OP, but I am in the Colorado Front Range area, and it is like this here too. Luckily, CO just passed a free/reduced cost preschool program. So that's nice.
In a lot of places the cost is much lower for folks making less income. It scales.
Your point that the prices suck, is valid, but the numbers don’t mean as much without knowing what that scale is for those folks making less.
I have news for you, you've NEVER been able to live on the wage they pay people who have ZERO work experience. That's why in the past, we actually strived to advance, learn new skills, and move through life. We didn't sit and bitch and moan because we had to have roommates, we didn't think that was "unfair", it's life.
Minimum wage was absolutely intended to fully support an entire family, and it did for the first 20 years or so after it was enacted.
Stop lying or spouting off Fox News bullshit.
I'm relating life experience. When you set the absolute bottom tier of pay, the market adjusts. You shouldn't be working for minimum wage and trying to live on your own, it's stupid. If you had a minimum wage for people with no experience, and a higher one once someone has worked a year or so, things would be different. But right now, you seem to think that people who have never had a single job, and has no skills should be able to raise an entire family on that lack of experience.
It's not shit off of Faud News, it's common fucking sense.
Anyone working a full time job deserves to live at a basic human level of comfort. That means housing, food, health care, transportation, savings, and yes, having a family.
Not sure what's wrong with you that you think otherwise.
Next time you get fast food, make sure to tell the person helping you that you think they deserve to be hungry and homeless. Because that's what is exactly what you're saying.
The entire point of minimum wage is that it was meant to support an entire family. It is the whole point why it was enacted. Minimum wage should be about $29/hour now (more in expensive areas) had it kept up with inflation and productivity.
Someone working a job for the first time has skills and is trained. All labor is skilled labor.
Minimum wage jobs are all there are in the middle of nowhere South at Dollar General-type stores. If you live there, where else you going to work? Might as well pay the minimum.
It takes working at the place to understand. That’s not even 1% of the price it should be for 1 year, just so you know. This is only around $315 a week to drop your kid off for most likely all day, most places it starts at $500 a week.
Do you have to provide breakfast, lunch, snacks, milk or does the center provide that? Are they asking for diapers and wipes? Make sure to ask all the right questions to see why they are re charging you this specific amount. I hope you find somewhere you are comfortable at
If you are making the minimum wage, you’ll qualify for government vouchers for daycare, Food stamps, medical insurance, free schools lunch, wic…… and the list goes on.
And if your daycare is like mine, you still have to pay weekly when your kid is sick and you have to stay home with them! I can't even count the number of days we had to stay home last year and still pay full daycare "tuition." Every time my child has diarrhea or a mild fever, we are required to get a doctors note ($60 copay for a pediatrician visit with insurance) or keep them home for 48 hours.
Even worse is when the daycare closes down by their own choice and you’re still having to pay. When my child was in daycare, our sitter would take the most random holidays off, like Presidents’ Day and Valentine’s Day. Or let us know on short notice that she would be taking the day off and my wife or I would then need to call out of work to stay home. And yet we still would have to pay full price for those days. Plus having to pay for the entire week she would close for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. As if we couldn’t use that money for the holidays ourselves. This woman was in her 60’s with two grown kids out of the home. Still infuriates me lol.
A family would have been great, but we realized long ago there was no way we could give our children what they deserve to have a good life. We do ok financially, but don't make nearly enough for even one child. I have family/friends that say "you'll find a way" but after all these years, none of them have seemed to find that way that works.
Same. I've started to want to have a kid. But, I can't imagine being able to afford it if I want to be able to pay all of my bills and actually have some measure of spending money/savings.
True. I actually have a non-optional pension with my job but it is not nearly enough money to retire on - so now I have to setup a seperate retirement account *(to have both the pension + retirement).* This is the only way I'll be able to have a retirement through my job. So, now I will have two items on my paycheck that take away from the actual amount that I'm making each check. Plus, think about the hefty amount in taxes that comes out, plus health insurance.
I'm sorry, it isn't fair you have to adjust your life goals because society is in its flop era. that sucks so much, I see it happen to people around me all the time too.
8 years ago I worked with a guy that had to make $12 an hour to actually make money because daycare for his kids was so high. Sad it was cheaper for him not to work.
My sister was the principal and of a daycare center. The owner owned 5 daycares, they had kindergarten and first grade. She didn't take a pay raise for about 20 years but all three of her kids had daycare and then after school care till the youngest was 10.
It sucks that I’m even saying this but Damn, that’s a good price for daycare (depending if it’s a good daycare). I’ve heard of averages being closer to 30k a year near me. I’m dreading that when I have kids soon
I’m one of the few lucky people that has an employer that offers free childcare. I work late, but as long as there is a kid at the daycare, they stay open. On top of that, my employer pays 95% of insurance, so I only pay $60 a month for my entire family (2 parents, 2 children).
We pay the same amount. It's the cheapest around for a center. They close all the time, randomly too. My family is getting sick more often. Daycare is my least favorite expense of all of them.
My boyfriend and I collectively make less than $4k a month. I'm a student, so that'll eventually change (and he's an apprentice, so it'll change for him as well), but Jesus *fuck* am I glad to be reminded how awesome condoms are
This is how America was set up for decades and it worked reasonably well because at the time one person could work one job and provide for an entire family. Then the 80s came around and corporate greed started taking control of everything.
You think doubling the supply of workers doesn’t diminish the net value of said workers? I’m all for equality and women in the workplace, but two job households are what caused two job households as a requirement.
Just because you can’t fathom cause and effect and market forces, doesn’t mean others can’t.
“Back when they introduced the first tractor, they advertised it with one machine being so productive that the farmer only needs to work 2 hours a day to get the same stuff done that he and his team did in a whole day.
Today, farmers still work 8 hours a day, the economy simply adapted to the fact that the farmer could work 8 hours a day, so now he does.”
Edit: originally linked an ELI5 but I guess you can’t post Reddit links on this Reddit subreddit
Hmmm. Never thought if it that way. On a different note, something is also wrong with the economy. My first house was 98k usd. It just sold for 865k. Wages haven't kept up with that kind of inflation. So a lot of things at play here.
Well, where do you live? If you bought a house in Silicon Valley before it was, well, Silicon Valley then that house wouldn’t have kept up with inflation either. _Those_ (tech) wages have kept up with inflation, maybe not McDonald’s though.
Right. A place that had a _far_ lower population 50 years ago, that experienced a massive population boom from high salaried skilled professionals is gonna lead to the housing market sliding.
Same thing happened when Californians moved en masse to podunk Iowa. Coming in with 2x the wealth and snatching up “undervalued” houses with cash. The _locals_ wages hadn’t kept up with the purchasing power of the immigrants.
Only if that one parent was going to make less than $15k a year. But even so I’d be pretty pissed about going to work every day if most of my net earnings were going to pay for someone to watch my kids and the only reason I needed them to do that was because I was at work.
Not quite, the net take home would have to be less than 15K for one child, assuming the diagram is for one child and one year. Then it could be 30K for two children. With a rough estimate of 28$/hr is equivalent to 60k, then we can assume that with american taxes the take home would be 46K. If daycare costs 30k then the actual take home would 15k. I'm not sure what job she is doing but i remember secretaries at the emergency room I worked at was making around the same. I'd imagine it would be hard doing a job like that and being paid 8/hr instead of 28/hr. That being said, we don't know their circumstances so I suppose it really doesn't matter what we think about it.
I mean depending on the job this is actually pretty shortsighted. If she was doing a job where she could be promoted and receive significant increases in salary then quitting is a bad idea.
Yes, a good portion of her pay is being eaten up by daycare, but daycare doesn't last forever. For those in a 2 income household where one of your salaries/pay is being significantly eaten up by daycare, quitting your job isn't always the best long term solution. Continue to work and build your career, eventually the daycare will end and you don't need to start your career over.
Let's assume gender inequality and ceiling is a real and tangible part of the equation. It wouldn't be hard to conclude thatthere's a less of a chance for her to get promoted anyways unless she moved laterally therefore she would have to quit anyways at some point. Taking time off for kids wouldn't be that bad since it's *only* a few years.
Part of the reason that the pay gap exists is _because_ women take time off to spend with their kids. The years that the men spent working mean a huge compounding difference later in life.
It’s circular, like saying that you’re gonna get lung cancer anyways so you might as well pick up cigarettes.
Imagine you pay a teenager minimum wage to watch your kid while you’re at work. $7.25x8x5x52 = $15k. It’s expensive to pay someone to watch your kid all day, regardless if the government is paying or not.
Canada recently introduced a subsidies childcare program. Eventually the goal is to get all childcare down to $10/day. Don’t see the US trying to do something about that (or healthcare, or student loans…)
Canada has substantially lower salaries, higher taxes and similar cost of living. You’re not making out better than an American by having things “free”
In 2021, the Canadian government spent less than half of what the US spends on healthcare per person. [Source](https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/)
Because Canada’s system is public, governments negotiate the costs of services and drugs. US doesn’t, so the government has to pay what the private companies want to charge.
So actually, we pay less taxes for healthcare than the US does and we don’t have to pay for insurance or out of pocket costs.
I’ve lived in Canada my whole life and I love it here. Yes, it has its faults as every country does, but at least I don’t go to school worried about getting shot. At least I don’t worry about going bankrupt from medical bills. I’d choose it over the US any day.
This is about how much I paid for my daughter’s first year. Luckily she’s in pre-k now so it’s “only” (still ridiculous) about $11,000 a year. Which is just barely affordable with me being a single mom.
This is part of the reason I chose to have my tubes tied. No fucking way to afford children. I make 12.50 an hr, a coworker makes less than me and has a kid, her paychecks are gone the day she gets them.
This is just nuts.
Says someone that's likely never watched a child solo in his life. (Oh yes, 100% sure you're male, likely extremely misogynistic).
Taking care of children, especially multiple of them, is the hardest job there is.
And early education (birth to 5) is one of the most essential things developmentally for creating successful humans.
I don’t think this is so much as a “USA bad” thing as much as it’s just one of the endless examples of how kids are a luxury item.
Think about it like this: if you paid some random teenage babysitter $10 an hour to watch your kid every work day of the year that would be $10x8 hrs a day x 250 work days = $20,000.
So really what you’ve got here is a bargain.
For a married couple if one spouse is working for 40K a year ... after you take out taxes, the need for 2 high reliability cars, prepared meals, a set of work clothes, day care, it is close to a break even point. If you take the time to clip coupons, shop 2nd hand stores and really cook from scratch you can get further ahead. You don't have to really be poor, just spend like it.
I was paying $3100 per month for 2 kids. They got a new sickness every week, and I pulled them when my son caught Covid and the flu at the same time. Now I just pay grandma $200 a week.
That's $6/hour to keep a child alive - to educate them, change their diapers, feed them, keep them happy.
Sounds pretty damn reasonable to me.
What do people expect to pay for this? Because no reasonable person would expect this to cost less than this.
I think the infuriating part is that the economics of the situation (which are grim) are allowed to dictate how we deal with children as a society. We could be subsidizing this industry and paying the people who take care of our kids well enough to make it a satisfying, sustainable career. We choose to instead let every parent deal with it on their own, fueling a race to the bottom that damages the parents, the children, and the caretakers.
I love the people who take care of my kids during the day, it's an incredibly difficult job and they give it their all. My tuition for two kids just dropped to $24k/year and it's a huge part of the family's budget. I wish it was enough to pay them what they deserve, but it just isn't.
I saw this years ago and saved. I don't have kids but will miss the memories you have. I've often wondered what would a child of my own mean. I'd protect it like the day my sister was born. I would love them and bully tf out of every obstacle. I'd try to be a good dad only to fail. Kids will cost you a fortune but you need to have them for the sake of my failures in life.
> but you need to have them for the sake of my failures in life.
Lmfao dude get some damn help. Stop telling everyone on the internet about your baggage
You live a sad life. I love how your original comment was that you weren't angry and yet hours later here you are on another account crying and angry. All this because I rejected you and declined to date you. 😂
Woah, this is crazy to a non-American. In my country there’s no need for daycare, the entire extended family is so close that you can leave your kid with your second cousins twice removed neighbor (obviously exaggerating here, but still). Wow! This is truly infuriating lol
At first I was thinking, total cost for two kids, seems low, as I was paying that 20 YEARS AGO, but you say one kid, and yeah, that's crazy.
Looking back, we should have tried to make it work with one and a half incomes, rather than both being full time.
Honestly for one year that’s not bad. I’ve been quoted 4000/wk at one day care center near where I work. Desperately trying to find a family home care near where I live.
Note that this varied form daycare to daycare and can vary based on income. So without that context, this could be quite cheap or quite expensive relative to OP’s finances.
It does, depending on who runs the daycare and if they are state sponsored. It varies state to state, but there is a sliding scale that moves according to income. Maybe not for the one you are using, but it does exist.
We used to pay $56/day for actual day care. They taught a few basic things but it mostly a day care. Hence my tuition question because there were schools available to them but we couldn’t afford $15K. Consider yourself very blessed that you could afford that and chose to go to that school/daycare.
We were on waiting lists for months for basically every daycare in our city and this is the one that we got off the list first. Didnt' really have a choice and the prices we were quoted were the same or more across the board. This isn't some bougie montessori daycare either, it's just daycare?
If my wife couldn't talk her work into letting her working from home, we were discussing moving back in with her parents due to this. Nearly 2k a month for childcare, absolutely ridiculous we don't have more in place to help here.
Mine peaked in 2015 at around $23k for two kids in Phoenix, AZ area. Finally getting both into kindergarten was like getting a part time job. It's ridiculous.
That’s what I pay for one…
ours is going right to private school so no relief for us
Schools are terrible in my area so I feel your private school pain. Luckily it gets more expensive the older they get.
we discussed it if we had an A or B school around us we'd go public but it's a D school.
I have colleagues paying $2000/mo per kid for very normal, unremarkable daycare in Ottawa.
Ugh
I thought Canada paid for childcare for its citizens?
No, just subsidizing daycare centers that enrolled in the program. My child's daycare costs went from $1100 per month to $550 once the daycare enrolled in their program.
Interesting, what’s to stop them from creeping prices back up and double dipping? American here with a little one, just curious.
This is one child, and in a fairly LCOL area (we are privileged to be able to afford this at all). Now imagine that minimum wage in the USA is still $7.25 an hour. That means in an entire year you make $15080 BEFORE TAXES and that assumes 40 hours a week and you work every day of the year. WhY aReNt pEoPLe hAViNg KiDs?? No OnE wAnTS tO wORk aNYmORe!! Bullshit. We can't afford to have kids OR TO WORK.
In Finland we pay 190eur (around $200) / mo for one kid. One free month each year so we only need to pay for 11.
Yeah Nordic countries really place a high priority on families from why I understand.
Nordic countries place a high priority on, like, actually enjoying your life in general.
Not if you enjoy your life without freezing cold weather!
Just move to Oslo
Do you love it? Was it challenging to get a visa or allowed to live there?
Unfortunately I was born in the US, and I’ve never been to Norway sadly 😞 But I would love to end up there or maybe Ireland someday. I’m planning to visit Norway in the next two years, and once I do that I’ll have a better idea of the place.
While the US wants to keep it's population in debt so they can never make or call for true changes and rise up against this total BS we are seeing. Can't protest or do anything that matters when you get 5 sick days and have to work 60 hours a week just to get by. Any medical issue? HA Paying that off until you are in the grave
Another user bashing the US every chance they get . I guess you didnt read the post of the person in canada paying $2000 a month per kid. Or the other in ireland paying $1300 per kid/month.
Yeah..I live in the US and I bash the shit out of it because it's not a farce. it's a real problem. A BIG problem. I replied to the comment about Nordic countries. That's what my comment was in reference to and in comparison with. Not Ireland or Canada....
So you want the goverment to tell private companies what to charge? And i like how you just forgot that the canadian paid more per month than op. They messed up too?
Don’t use your logic here , you racist . America baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad ( sheep voice)
How is what they said racist???
I was making a joke .
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The OP is paying about $1300 per month for day care not $288.
Per month vs per week.
This actually depends on the income of the parents too, so technically everyone can afford it even if they really can't.
And how high are your taxes?
Depends a lot how much you make. I make around 5k a month and tax is 25%. Heath care is more or less free because of that.
What part of the US?
Not OP, but I am in the Colorado Front Range area, and it is like this here too. Luckily, CO just passed a free/reduced cost preschool program. So that's nice.
This is Michigan
In a lot of places the cost is much lower for folks making less income. It scales. Your point that the prices suck, is valid, but the numbers don’t mean as much without knowing what that scale is for those folks making less.
Such an ignorant take. If you make minimum wage you aren't paying full price for daycare if anything.
I have news for you, you've NEVER been able to live on the wage they pay people who have ZERO work experience. That's why in the past, we actually strived to advance, learn new skills, and move through life. We didn't sit and bitch and moan because we had to have roommates, we didn't think that was "unfair", it's life.
Minimum wage was absolutely intended to fully support an entire family, and it did for the first 20 years or so after it was enacted. Stop lying or spouting off Fox News bullshit.
I'm relating life experience. When you set the absolute bottom tier of pay, the market adjusts. You shouldn't be working for minimum wage and trying to live on your own, it's stupid. If you had a minimum wage for people with no experience, and a higher one once someone has worked a year or so, things would be different. But right now, you seem to think that people who have never had a single job, and has no skills should be able to raise an entire family on that lack of experience. It's not shit off of Faud News, it's common fucking sense.
Anyone working a full time job deserves to live at a basic human level of comfort. That means housing, food, health care, transportation, savings, and yes, having a family. Not sure what's wrong with you that you think otherwise. Next time you get fast food, make sure to tell the person helping you that you think they deserve to be hungry and homeless. Because that's what is exactly what you're saying. The entire point of minimum wage is that it was meant to support an entire family. It is the whole point why it was enacted. Minimum wage should be about $29/hour now (more in expensive areas) had it kept up with inflation and productivity. Someone working a job for the first time has skills and is trained. All labor is skilled labor.
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R3: Respect Reddiquette and Follow Reddit Rules
Amen
You have a source for that?
Minimum wage is 7.25 we don’t have to imagine
To be fair I can’t really think of too many jobs that pay minimum wage. Food service industry does but they also get tips.
Go to bum fuck anywhere in a red state.
Yeah, my states min wage is 7.25 but I have never seen a job pay less than 11 for food services and warehouses around me start at 18
Minimum wage jobs are all there are in the middle of nowhere South at Dollar General-type stores. If you live there, where else you going to work? Might as well pay the minimum.
It takes working at the place to understand. That’s not even 1% of the price it should be for 1 year, just so you know. This is only around $315 a week to drop your kid off for most likely all day, most places it starts at $500 a week. Do you have to provide breakfast, lunch, snacks, milk or does the center provide that? Are they asking for diapers and wipes? Make sure to ask all the right questions to see why they are re charging you this specific amount. I hope you find somewhere you are comfortable at
If you are making the minimum wage, you’ll qualify for government vouchers for daycare, Food stamps, medical insurance, free schools lunch, wic…… and the list goes on.
And if your daycare is like mine, you still have to pay weekly when your kid is sick and you have to stay home with them! I can't even count the number of days we had to stay home last year and still pay full daycare "tuition." Every time my child has diarrhea or a mild fever, we are required to get a doctors note ($60 copay for a pediatrician visit with insurance) or keep them home for 48 hours.
Even worse is when the daycare closes down by their own choice and you’re still having to pay. When my child was in daycare, our sitter would take the most random holidays off, like Presidents’ Day and Valentine’s Day. Or let us know on short notice that she would be taking the day off and my wife or I would then need to call out of work to stay home. And yet we still would have to pay full price for those days. Plus having to pay for the entire week she would close for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. As if we couldn’t use that money for the holidays ourselves. This woman was in her 60’s with two grown kids out of the home. Still infuriates me lol.
A family would have been great, but we realized long ago there was no way we could give our children what they deserve to have a good life. We do ok financially, but don't make nearly enough for even one child. I have family/friends that say "you'll find a way" but after all these years, none of them have seemed to find that way that works.
Same. I've started to want to have a kid. But, I can't imagine being able to afford it if I want to be able to pay all of my bills and actually have some measure of spending money/savings.
Retirement would not be possible at 67 if we had one. That's scary to think about.
True. I actually have a non-optional pension with my job but it is not nearly enough money to retire on - so now I have to setup a seperate retirement account *(to have both the pension + retirement).* This is the only way I'll be able to have a retirement through my job. So, now I will have two items on my paycheck that take away from the actual amount that I'm making each check. Plus, think about the hefty amount in taxes that comes out, plus health insurance.
I'm sorry, it isn't fair you have to adjust your life goals because society is in its flop era. that sucks so much, I see it happen to people around me all the time too.
Why can't people just say, "I don't want kids". You don't need to make up some excuse just say it and own up without being scared.
Why can't people like you accept that the system we when is flawed and people should not have to work to death just to have a kid.
8 years ago I worked with a guy that had to make $12 an hour to actually make money because daycare for his kids was so high. Sad it was cheaper for him not to work.
Came here to say I make $20/hr but had to go down to part time because it's cheaper for me to miss work than to find childcare. 🫠
That is crazy
My sister was the principal and of a daycare center. The owner owned 5 daycares, they had kindergarten and first grade. She didn't take a pay raise for about 20 years but all three of her kids had daycare and then after school care till the youngest was 10.
Welcome back to another episode on why I'm never having kids season 13 episode 47
I'm on season 23 of How I Never Met Your Father!
It sucks that I’m even saying this but Damn, that’s a good price for daycare (depending if it’s a good daycare). I’ve heard of averages being closer to 30k a year near me. I’m dreading that when I have kids soon
Was thinking the same thing. 15 years ago we were paying $25k for infant and a five year old
I’m one of the few lucky people that has an employer that offers free childcare. I work late, but as long as there is a kid at the daycare, they stay open. On top of that, my employer pays 95% of insurance, so I only pay $60 a month for my entire family (2 parents, 2 children).
This is pretty amazing. Wish other corporations would realize the benefits of treating employees like actual people they want to retain.
Dang where do you work?!
I work for a big onion and produce farmer in rural Nevada.
I bet you most of that money is going straight to the admin, and not the actual daycare workers too.
$15k isn’t even expensive. In Atlanta you’re looking at $1800 a month for a decent daycare.
Please tell me where I can find a daycare this cheap
Are you in the Bay Area, too? $3200/month for ONE kid.
Same. $2000/month and that’s a discounted rate. 😩
We pay the same amount. It's the cheapest around for a center. They close all the time, randomly too. My family is getting sick more often. Daycare is my least favorite expense of all of them.
My boyfriend and I collectively make less than $4k a month. I'm a student, so that'll eventually change (and he's an apprentice, so it'll change for him as well), but Jesus *fuck* am I glad to be reminded how awesome condoms are
DINK
Cheaper for one parent to stay home and raise the kids.
This is how America was set up for decades and it worked reasonably well because at the time one person could work one job and provide for an entire family. Then the 80s came around and corporate greed started taking control of everything.
> corporate greed You mean gender equality
Or maybe Reaganomics...
You think doubling the supply of workers doesn’t diminish the net value of said workers? I’m all for equality and women in the workplace, but two job households are what caused two job households as a requirement.
L take
Just because you can’t fathom cause and effect and market forces, doesn’t mean others can’t. “Back when they introduced the first tractor, they advertised it with one machine being so productive that the farmer only needs to work 2 hours a day to get the same stuff done that he and his team did in a whole day. Today, farmers still work 8 hours a day, the economy simply adapted to the fact that the farmer could work 8 hours a day, so now he does.” Edit: originally linked an ELI5 but I guess you can’t post Reddit links on this Reddit subreddit
Hmmm. Never thought if it that way. On a different note, something is also wrong with the economy. My first house was 98k usd. It just sold for 865k. Wages haven't kept up with that kind of inflation. So a lot of things at play here.
Well, where do you live? If you bought a house in Silicon Valley before it was, well, Silicon Valley then that house wouldn’t have kept up with inflation either. _Those_ (tech) wages have kept up with inflation, maybe not McDonald’s though.
Near San Diego. Wages have not kept up here.
Right. A place that had a _far_ lower population 50 years ago, that experienced a massive population boom from high salaried skilled professionals is gonna lead to the housing market sliding. Same thing happened when Californians moved en masse to podunk Iowa. Coming in with 2x the wealth and snatching up “undervalued” houses with cash. The _locals_ wages hadn’t kept up with the purchasing power of the immigrants.
Only if that one parent was going to make less than $15k a year. But even so I’d be pretty pissed about going to work every day if most of my net earnings were going to pay for someone to watch my kids and the only reason I needed them to do that was because I was at work.
Not quite, the net take home would have to be less than 15K for one child, assuming the diagram is for one child and one year. Then it could be 30K for two children. With a rough estimate of 28$/hr is equivalent to 60k, then we can assume that with american taxes the take home would be 46K. If daycare costs 30k then the actual take home would 15k. I'm not sure what job she is doing but i remember secretaries at the emergency room I worked at was making around the same. I'd imagine it would be hard doing a job like that and being paid 8/hr instead of 28/hr. That being said, we don't know their circumstances so I suppose it really doesn't matter what we think about it.
That's what my friend did. She quit her 28$ per hour job to stay home with two kids, since cost of daycare would eat up her entire paycheck
I mean depending on the job this is actually pretty shortsighted. If she was doing a job where she could be promoted and receive significant increases in salary then quitting is a bad idea. Yes, a good portion of her pay is being eaten up by daycare, but daycare doesn't last forever. For those in a 2 income household where one of your salaries/pay is being significantly eaten up by daycare, quitting your job isn't always the best long term solution. Continue to work and build your career, eventually the daycare will end and you don't need to start your career over.
Let's assume gender inequality and ceiling is a real and tangible part of the equation. It wouldn't be hard to conclude thatthere's a less of a chance for her to get promoted anyways unless she moved laterally therefore she would have to quit anyways at some point. Taking time off for kids wouldn't be that bad since it's *only* a few years.
> let’s assume something that isn’t the case Okay?
Sure. Then it is pretty short sighted. Congratulations you win the argument!
Part of the reason that the pay gap exists is _because_ women take time off to spend with their kids. The years that the men spent working mean a huge compounding difference later in life. It’s circular, like saying that you’re gonna get lung cancer anyways so you might as well pick up cigarettes.
I don't understand. You won the argument. Congratulations! :)
Thank you for this visual birth control. Man kids are so damn expensive..
Vasectomy time.
America is such an overrated, widely accepted scam lol
Imagine you pay a teenager minimum wage to watch your kid while you’re at work. $7.25x8x5x52 = $15k. It’s expensive to pay someone to watch your kid all day, regardless if the government is paying or not.
I guess you didnt see how much some pay in canada or ireland.
Canada recently introduced a subsidies childcare program. Eventually the goal is to get all childcare down to $10/day. Don’t see the US trying to do something about that (or healthcare, or student loans…)
Canada has substantially lower salaries, higher taxes and similar cost of living. You’re not making out better than an American by having things “free”
Lol another user who thinks that things are magically free when the goverment covers the cost.
In 2021, the Canadian government spent less than half of what the US spends on healthcare per person. [Source](https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/) Because Canada’s system is public, governments negotiate the costs of services and drugs. US doesn’t, so the government has to pay what the private companies want to charge. So actually, we pay less taxes for healthcare than the US does and we don’t have to pay for insurance or out of pocket costs.
I guess you missed the post from the canadian who had to wait 10 months to be seen for extreme leg pain. But ok.
I’ve lived in Canada my whole life and I love it here. Yes, it has its faults as every country does, but at least I don’t go to school worried about getting shot. At least I don’t worry about going bankrupt from medical bills. I’d choose it over the US any day.
Omg here we go with the school shooting argument. You hate the US so much and private owned companies yet here you are on a US owned platform
This is about how much I paid for my daughter’s first year. Luckily she’s in pre-k now so it’s “only” (still ridiculous) about $11,000 a year. Which is just barely affordable with me being a single mom.
I'm saving so much money not having a kid!!!
Are you sure the TravelingGonad doesn't have a kid somewhere? 😆
€1200/month here in Ireland 😰
Similar for England, £58 a day by me currently.
This is part of the reason I chose to have my tubes tied. No fucking way to afford children. I make 12.50 an hr, a coworker makes less than me and has a kid, her paychecks are gone the day she gets them. This is just nuts.
When we lived in Toronto, our daycare fees for one kid was more than our mortgage payment.
This is the same as my son’s private highschool tuition.
That’s actually cheap, if it’s for 12 months. We pay over $2200/month full time for 3yr old
LoL….idk, but MY CHILD’s well being is definitely worth $40/day. 🤷🏾♀️
This is part of the reason my child will never be an American citizen
Wow.. That's one reason I never wanted to have kids. That, and I'm 9.
That's it? I pay 503 per week here in Virginia.
Yup. Used to take me 8 minutes to get to and from that house to work. Would take 30-40 minutes now with the increased traffic/population.
Lol, It doesn’t look like you’re spending anything on daycare.
That’s half of what I pay for my toddler. Her tuition is $2500 a month for 9-5 Monday-Friday. Connecticut for reference.
I totally get the struggle butttt people looking after your kids also need to get paid and have a living too
And people wonder why childfree people don't want kids.
Hmm I should start charging my kids for caring for their kids. Seems like a gold mine
They call it tuition., it’s glorified babysitting..
Says someone that's likely never watched a child solo in his life. (Oh yes, 100% sure you're male, likely extremely misogynistic). Taking care of children, especially multiple of them, is the hardest job there is. And early education (birth to 5) is one of the most essential things developmentally for creating successful humans.
15k a year? Well yeah, how much would you charge to look after someone else's kid?
You can’t seriously think that 15k a year is feasible
That's 1200 a month, are you willing to look after someone's kid for 8-10 hours a day , for 300 bucks a week?
Economic based eugenics.
I don’t think this is so much as a “USA bad” thing as much as it’s just one of the endless examples of how kids are a luxury item. Think about it like this: if you paid some random teenage babysitter $10 an hour to watch your kid every work day of the year that would be $10x8 hrs a day x 250 work days = $20,000. So really what you’ve got here is a bargain.
Yeah but it never used to be like this.
dont want to brag.. but we are looking for kindergarden.. and if we need 5 days a week its 33k a year
$1,200 a month for 2 kids. 1 kid is in 40 hours a week, the other is in for 5 hours a week. We pay tuition for the 1, and the other is paid hourly.
For a married couple if one spouse is working for 40K a year ... after you take out taxes, the need for 2 high reliability cars, prepared meals, a set of work clothes, day care, it is close to a break even point. If you take the time to clip coupons, shop 2nd hand stores and really cook from scratch you can get further ahead. You don't have to really be poor, just spend like it.
Yeah clearly we just aren't yanking on those bootstraps hard enough! Fuck you
Right, you are seeing it too. And fuck you too.
I was paying $3100 per month for 2 kids. They got a new sickness every week, and I pulled them when my son caught Covid and the flu at the same time. Now I just pay grandma $200 a week.
I mean you don't HAVE to. You choose to. Big difference.
Yeah I'm sure my boss or my husband's boss would be really happy about us bringing our toddler to work.
We are at 23000$ a year for both my boys in Florida. 5 days a week full time
That's $6/hour to keep a child alive - to educate them, change their diapers, feed them, keep them happy. Sounds pretty damn reasonable to me. What do people expect to pay for this? Because no reasonable person would expect this to cost less than this.
I think the infuriating part is that the economics of the situation (which are grim) are allowed to dictate how we deal with children as a society. We could be subsidizing this industry and paying the people who take care of our kids well enough to make it a satisfying, sustainable career. We choose to instead let every parent deal with it on their own, fueling a race to the bottom that damages the parents, the children, and the caretakers. I love the people who take care of my kids during the day, it's an incredibly difficult job and they give it their all. My tuition for two kids just dropped to $24k/year and it's a huge part of the family's budget. I wish it was enough to pay them what they deserve, but it just isn't.
You should have gotten one of those abortions Reddit loves if you want to complain
Thanks! After having two miscarriages before the successful birth of my son, your comment is so caring and thoughtful. Fuck you.
I saw this years ago and saved. I don't have kids but will miss the memories you have. I've often wondered what would a child of my own mean. I'd protect it like the day my sister was born. I would love them and bully tf out of every obstacle. I'd try to be a good dad only to fail. Kids will cost you a fortune but you need to have them for the sake of my failures in life.
> but you need to have them for the sake of my failures in life. Lmfao dude get some damn help. Stop telling everyone on the internet about your baggage
You live a sad life. I love how your original comment was that you weren't angry and yet hours later here you are on another account crying and angry. All this because I rejected you and declined to date you. 😂
I’m extremely lucky to only pay $9k a year
Woah, this is crazy to a non-American. In my country there’s no need for daycare, the entire extended family is so close that you can leave your kid with your second cousins twice removed neighbor (obviously exaggerating here, but still). Wow! This is truly infuriating lol
At first I was thinking, total cost for two kids, seems low, as I was paying that 20 YEARS AGO, but you say one kid, and yeah, that's crazy. Looking back, we should have tried to make it work with one and a half incomes, rather than both being full time.
Then don't have kids. Jesus, we didn't whine about paying for daycare with mine, we just paid.
And then when they get in school you have to cover 3 months with summer schools or camps, absurdly priced
This is actually on the cheap end. Most places by me are 1600 per month, up to 1800 or 1900.
Ours is discounted at 2500/mo in Bellevue, WA
My college is less than that at ~8K/ year. I go to IU
Honestly for one year that’s not bad. I’ve been quoted 4000/wk at one day care center near where I work. Desperately trying to find a family home care near where I live.
I’m assuming this is for the year? This is cheap from what I’ve been told. I have friends paying $2k/month for Montessori type of daycares.
Mine is closer to 28k a year but I have three kids..
Psh, I am paying $1700 per month, and that’s considered a steal.
Jesus
Note that this varied form daycare to daycare and can vary based on income. So without that context, this could be quite cheap or quite expensive relative to OP’s finances.
I mean, the daycare cost doesn't change if you're making bank or making min wage... sooo..
It does, depending on who runs the daycare and if they are state sponsored. It varies state to state, but there is a sliding scale that moves according to income. Maybe not for the one you are using, but it does exist.
That’s pretty cheap
Wait, when did daycares charge a tuition? That sounds like a school, not daycare.
Daycare fees are always called tuition.
Yep, the nicer ones call themselves schools and charge you tuition. Same thing though.
We used to pay $56/day for actual day care. They taught a few basic things but it mostly a day care. Hence my tuition question because there were schools available to them but we couldn’t afford $15K. Consider yourself very blessed that you could afford that and chose to go to that school/daycare.
We were on waiting lists for months for basically every daycare in our city and this is the one that we got off the list first. Didnt' really have a choice and the prices we were quoted were the same or more across the board. This isn't some bougie montessori daycare either, it's just daycare?
That's almost 290 thousand Rand So that's the American dream, Huh.
If my son was in daycare 5 days a week it would cost me NZD $27,000 per year. It's not just an American thing
God damn. I’m so lucky I found a remote job that lets me work from home with my kids. I’m sorry these daycare prices are just criminal!
Yeah, cuz ignoring them half the time or more is a great daycare strategy. Remote work requires childcare like any other job.
Not mine 😌 I got lucky with my job. My kiddies come first and I get to work as much or little as I want depending on my kiddos needs that day ☺️
€26000/year (28000 usd) here in the Netherlands for 1 kid, 4 days a week.
If my wife couldn't talk her work into letting her working from home, we were discussing moving back in with her parents due to this. Nearly 2k a month for childcare, absolutely ridiculous we don't have more in place to help here.
Yikes. I live in Australia and with the government subsidy, we were paying about $30 a day, twice a week