I have always had the assumption that most countries have, since it's a pretty essential part of how I grew up. Anyway, I live in Belgium and we have government subsidized childcare.

Some details you may find interesting:

The majority of these "daycares" are women doing this at their own home. In such cases, the maximum daily capacity is 8 children, and last I heard (some 10 years ago or so) the rate was 8 euro per child per day. These nannies (for the lack of a better term) are employed by a non-profit organization which is financed by the government, and which follows up with those nannies.
Due to the low capacity and high demand, residential areas tend to have several of those daycare places per street, and all their customers are practically their neigbors. When I was a child, my nanny was well acquainted with all of her customers, and this is how it typically goes due to how low-scale it is.

This is part of our culture and is quite reliable. The main issue is availability (as you might expect). These nannies are not paid particularly well and there has been a decline in people being interested in this job. These days, if you live in a larger city, it is advised to start applying for a daycare even before you get pregnant, to be certain that you'll actually get a spot near where you live.

The big issue is what you and some others have already mentioned: you don't trust government appointed people with your children. I think that that's an issue with the government and the negative perception that it has (in a nutshell: they are unreliable and untrustworthy), and that's a valid counterargument that they will not be able to fix in a jiffy.

I think that the American government needs to take a step back, and be humble enough to start small with this type of stuff. You can't take a country with barely any social security, and slap random social security policies onto it. When you say "Universal Childcare is the compromise", this is where you hit the nail on the head. The government should actually look into how to make life more affordable, how to increase people's purchasing power, how to get the housing market under control, how to get the healthcare market under control, etc etc etc. Once there is a framework for social security that really benefits everyone, they can start looking into more specific gaps in the system. Child care should be way down their list of priorities, and should not really be discussed right now.

Regarding this specific point:



This is not an argument against subsidized childcare. If two parents are both working a full-time job, they'll need someone to take care of their children during the day -- regardless of whether this person is subsidized or not.

This post was edited by Leevee on Apr 7 2021 01:56pm

Mean household income in the US in 1970 was $9780. Mean household income in the US in 2020 was $94,700. Not only have wages gone up, they've gone way up. Now, to temper that slightly, the GDP in 1970 was just over $1 Trillion. In 2020 it was just shy of $21 trillion. You strongest argument for "double the wage" would be the GDP argument, not making false claims that wages haven't gone up. When I got my first "real" job, Federal Minimum wage was $5.15, and in the state where I was in, it was $5.50. Today federal minimum is $7.25 and that same state is (as of July 2021, the next hike) $12.75 except in the metro, where it's $14. Said state sets it's minimum wage based on the Consumer Price Index, and is intended to allow for basic "livable" wage levels. To be honest, in rural counties, the minimum is too high, and in the metro, it's too low. But the wage increase is annual, relatively minimal, and already impacts prices. Just not enough to notice.

And USPS is not a "company". USPS is a federal agency of the Executive Branch of government, and records a net loss of billions per year. If they were a "company" they would be out of business, and would have been a long time ago. Tax dollars prop them up and keep them propped up. Likewise, you have no idea what the differences in overhead cost to businesses, especially service-based businesses, where labor is the vast majority. But when small businesses, such as the ma and pa store, are operating on a 2% profit margin, and their gross revenue is only $1,000,000/year, that means their profits are only $20K/year. Now assume for a minute there are 10 employees who you're now being forced to pay an additional $5/hour to and your store is open 24/7/52. Let's even assume there's only 1 employee working at any given time on any given day. That now adds 24*7*52*5=$43,680 in overhead, and that's not even including the extra FICA match and Unemployment insurance the business needs to pay. How do you pay for it, do you think?

You haven't really thought through what you're trying to convey. You're on the right path with corporations outsourcing labor and actual production, and the heavy impact that has when they're competing vs local small businesses. The conclusion is where you're wrong. If you attempt to enforce a high enough wage point that it's simply too expensive to run a local or small business, then all that's left are the Amazons and Walmarts and Targets and such, who're going to be outsourcing a lot of their production needs anyway. That ends up going right up the chain, negatively impacting every US product producer who still employs Americans to build/make their product. Eventually, you get to a point where all that's left is basic retail, chain-style service, and corporate office/managerial level labor in the US, along with your government workers, and medical workers, and we are no longer producing anything of value at home. We're just 100% consumers. Tell me, if at the same time we're doing that, we're reducing other sources of income such as fossil fuels, at what point can we no longer afford the products that we're no longer making?

The incentivization for corporations to outsource labor and production is incredibly clear. What you have not made clear in any way is how you're going to incentivize small businesses not to simply sell to the corporations while the selling's good, rather than going bankrupt when you force them to increase their labor costs without being able to increase the value of their goods?

Edit: Fixed a math issue. Should be relatively accurate for the example now.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Apr 7 2021 02:03pm

oh i don’t disagree at all. unfortunately we’ve ingrained a two worker household setup now in America. Plus everyone seems to want to work noy stay at home and raise children. So either someone makes like 100k minimum or good luck making it work.

The incentive to have two working parents is too strong. The earning power of a second parent is enormous, wages would have to effectively double.

More taxation
You want gov to take care of your kids lol?

"government child care"