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Paying women to stay at home

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Posts

  • BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    A UBI for kids is the same as giving people money to be parents. Which you were against. So i'm not sure what's going on anymore.

    I'm against people get money for being parents because I'm relatively against the idea that you get something others don't just because you decided to have a child, regardless of how much you actually need it. In the same way that I'm against free TV licenses for all old people but pro TV licenses for poor people of any age.

    UBI for the child is for the child and their benefit though. It's their money, but being children their guardian obviously spends it. That's in the context of actually having a national UBI though

    Money is fungible, it doesn't matter what you call it. Getting money for being a parent is identical to giving money "to kids" but actually to their parents.

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    A UBI for kids is the same as giving people money to be parents. Which you were against. So i'm not sure what's going on anymore.

    I'm against people get money for being parents because I'm relatively against the idea that you get something others don't just because you decided to have a child, regardless of how much you actually need it. In the same way that I'm against free TV licenses for all old people but pro TV licenses for poor people of any age.

    UBI for the child is for the child and their benefit though. It's their money, but being children their guardian obviously spends it. That's in the context of actually having a national UBI though

    Money is fungible, it doesn't matter what you call it. Getting money for being a parent is identical to giving money "to kids" but actually to their parents.

    Alright but specifically you don't get money because you're a parent. You get money because you have a child in childcare and you don't earn enough to not qualify for the subsidy.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Your posts suggest you view this as "they get a cool free thing because they are parents that I don't get, how unfair!"

    How most parents, people who know parents, HR professionals, and policy makers view it: "being a parent is essentially having a 24 hour job and is necessary for the continuation of the state and the species in some capacity, and compensating full time childcare in some capacity lowers the stress of other systems, from food to prisons, by ensuring children and parents have the time and compensation to be able to afford to do it right."

    That argument as well be in a lucky ducky cartoon.

    Yeah and I'm pro giving people childcare subsidies for, like, the vast majority of people. As I've said.
    Solar wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    A UBI for kids is the same as giving people money to be parents. Which you were against. So i'm not sure what's going on anymore.

    I'm against people get money for being parents because I'm relatively against the idea that you get something others don't just because you decided to have a child, regardless of how much you actually need it.

    Surely you can see how that might have gotten lost along the way, here.

  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    The entire point is that new people are an absolute necessity to the workforce. The people that are taking care of children deserve to be paid for this vital service to the community.

    Even when they're the actual parents of the children.

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    I'm sure it's really expensive. But some people earn a lot of money so

    So what your point? Means tested daycare for not-millionaires? What is your conception of "people who earn a lot of money" here as compared to what childcare actually costs?

    I'm pretty sure if you have an income of £80,000 or more, off the top of my head, you don't need the government to pay did your childcare

    Why not? What logic is this based on? Do you actually know how much daycare costs? Cause it really seems like you are just randomly throwing numbers out there.

    And that's not even touching on the issue of why we should consider childcare as something we only grudgingly fund cause we absolutely have to.

    I'm not grudgingly funding it, I'm pro funding it, as I've said. And it costs about 12.5k for 52 weeks of 50hrs private nursery as noted above.

    You are absolutely grudgingly funding it. You are literally saying only some people get it. The entire premise of this means testing idea of yours is that you are only funding childcare because you have to for the people who you deem can't afford it. If you actually just wanted to fund childcare, what's the point in the means testing? Just fund the fucking program.

    A quick google on costs in the US (just as an example) suggests that childcare costs as a percentage of income are in the 15-20% range in most states. And numbers can be worse elsewhere. And they are still rising faster then inflation basically everywhere. I again suggest you are not really considering the actual cost of childcare.

    Frankly, the easiest way to think of this is that you are paying someone to do the job. So the absolute lowest amount childcare can cost would be a straight percentage of the salary of what you want to pay your childcare worker. So for a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio (fairly standard for toddler care) you are looking at 20-25% of a livable salary, at minimum. A good chunk more then that in reality because you have to add on food, facility fees and all that other shit. The only reason this shit is "cheap" is because we've been underpaying people to do it and offloading a massive amount of the costs in ways that aren't directly tracked.

    Saying "only some people get it" =/= "I'm only grudgingly in support of it." I'm very much in support of it, for people who need the money to pay for it.

  • mrondeaumrondeau Montréal, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Deebaser wrote: »
    mrondeau wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    mrondeau wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    I assume he also wants the child itself to gain a UBI.

    Seems like a good idea, yes. Instead of having a UBI, but only if you have kids.

    The issue here is that UBI isn't a thing in play, while the policy in Norway is. We can add this to another thing in the UBI thread that UBI solves, were it ever implemented, but the framework of the OP is discussing a different topic.

    So another way to reinforce that I'm a second class citizen. Gotcha.

    Not benefiting from every public policy hardly makes you a second class citizen.

    Having to work while your children go to a subventioned daycare does not prevent you from being a parent. I don't care about subventioning daycares (in fact, I think we need to expand that program), even if I don't use it. I care about gating programs that should be universal behind having children. If welfare is inadequate for people who don't work, then it's inadequate for all people who don't work (assuming that the extra amount allocated for childcare is adequate. Which it not true, so it should therefore be increased. Although the base amount is even more deeply insufficient, because all recent increases have been for the children.)

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    A UBI for kids is the same as giving people money to be parents. Which you were against. So i'm not sure what's going on anymore.

    I'm against people get money for being parents because I'm relatively against the idea that you get something others don't just because you decided to have a child, regardless of how much you actually need it. In the same way that I'm against free TV licenses for all old people but pro TV licenses for poor people of any age.

    UBI for the child is for the child and their benefit though. It's their money, but being children their guardian obviously spends it. That's in the context of actually having a national UBI though

    Money is fungible, it doesn't matter what you call it. Getting money for being a parent is identical to giving money "to kids" but actually to their parents.

    Alright but specifically you don't get money because you're a parent. You get money because you have a child in childcare and you don't earn enough to not qualify for the subsidy.

    Being a parent means having a child that needs childcare. The fact it benefits the lowest income more than those with higher incomes shouldn't come into play, nor should the fact that those with higher incomes can reap the benefits as well as those beneath them on the poverty scale. Anyone gets access to Social Security, regardless of if they make 5k of 500k a year once they qualify. There is an equity piece there that can't easily be removed. Especially when considering the politics of how taxation goes to support the subsidy.

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Your posts suggest you view this as "they get a cool free thing because they are parents that I don't get, how unfair!"

    How most parents, people who know parents, HR professionals, and policy makers view it: "being a parent is essentially having a 24 hour job and is necessary for the continuation of the state and the species in some capacity, and compensating full time childcare in some capacity lowers the stress of other systems, from food to prisons, by ensuring children and parents have the time and compensation to be able to afford to do it right."

    That argument as well be in a lucky ducky cartoon.

    Yeah and I'm pro giving people childcare subsidies for, like, the vast majority of people. As I've said.
    Solar wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    A UBI for kids is the same as giving people money to be parents. Which you were against. So i'm not sure what's going on anymore.

    I'm against people get money for being parents because I'm relatively against the idea that you get something others don't just because you decided to have a child, regardless of how much you actually need it.

    Surely you can see how that might have gotten lost along the way, here.

    The qualifier there is "regardless of how much you need it" although I admit that is easy to read as "I'm against it in all cases."

    What I mean to say is, I'm against the idea that parents get money for being parents without any consideration for their wealth and income. The primary consideration for whether people need state assistance should be socio-economic status i.e if you are a family with a lot of money you shouldn't get childcare subsidy because hey, you have money already, there's not infinite money in the government bank and lots to pay for etc.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    I'm sure it's really expensive. But some people earn a lot of money so

    So what your point? Means tested daycare for not-millionaires? What is your conception of "people who earn a lot of money" here as compared to what childcare actually costs?

    I'm pretty sure if you have an income of £80,000 or more, off the top of my head, you don't need the government to pay did your childcare

    Why not? What logic is this based on? Do you actually know how much daycare costs? Cause it really seems like you are just randomly throwing numbers out there.

    And that's not even touching on the issue of why we should consider childcare as something we only grudgingly fund cause we absolutely have to.

    I'm not grudgingly funding it, I'm pro funding it, as I've said. And it costs about 12.5k for 52 weeks of 50hrs private nursery as noted above.

    You are absolutely grudgingly funding it. You are literally saying only some people get it. The entire premise of this means testing idea of yours is that you are only funding childcare because you have to for the people who you deem can't afford it. If you actually just wanted to fund childcare, what's the point in the means testing? Just fund the fucking program.

    A quick google on costs in the US (just as an example) suggests that childcare costs as a percentage of income are in the 15-20% range in most states. And numbers can be worse elsewhere. And they are still rising faster then inflation basically everywhere. I again suggest you are not really considering the actual cost of childcare.

    Frankly, the easiest way to think of this is that you are paying someone to do the job. So the absolute lowest amount childcare can cost would be a straight percentage of the salary of what you want to pay your childcare worker. So for a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio (fairly standard for toddler care) you are looking at 20-25% of a livable salary, at minimum. A good chunk more then that in reality because you have to add on food, facility fees and all that other shit. The only reason this shit is "cheap" is because we've been underpaying people to do it and offloading a massive amount of the costs in ways that aren't directly tracked.

    Saying "only some people get it" =/= "I'm only grudgingly in support of it." I'm very much in support of it, for people who need the money to pay for it.

    Which, we are arguing, is most folks. And which, we are also arguing, is a standard that is problematic in implementation. Who decides who gets to be supported? What is the threshold? Doing so only for those in poverty also ignores the fact that those in the middle and upper incomes may benefit in similar ways, and in removing people from those higher-wage positions to take on childcare roles more opportunities open for upward mobility.

  • BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Well, the idea would be to tax the wealthy to pay for the childcare(and stay at home) subsidies, so they do end up paying for it. And they also pay for the subsidy of the poor's childcare costs.

    BSoB on
  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Your posts suggest you view this as "they get a cool free thing because they are parents that I don't get, how unfair!"

    How most parents, people who know parents, HR professionals, and policy makers view it: "being a parent is essentially having a 24 hour job and is necessary for the continuation of the state and the species in some capacity, and compensating full time childcare in some capacity lowers the stress of other systems, from food to prisons, by ensuring children and parents have the time and compensation to be able to afford to do it right."

    That argument as well be in a lucky ducky cartoon.

    Yeah and I'm pro giving people childcare subsidies for, like, the vast majority of people. As I've said.
    Solar wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    A UBI for kids is the same as giving people money to be parents. Which you were against. So i'm not sure what's going on anymore.

    I'm against people get money for being parents because I'm relatively against the idea that you get something others don't just because you decided to have a child, regardless of how much you actually need it.

    Surely you can see how that might have gotten lost along the way, here.

    The qualifier there is "regardless of how much you need it" although I admit that is easy to read as "I'm against it in all cases."

    What I mean to say is, I'm against the idea that parents get money for being parents without any consideration for their wealth and income. The primary consideration for whether people need state assistance should be socio-economic status i.e if you are a family with a lot of money you shouldn't get childcare subsidy because hey, you have money already, there's not infinite money in the government bank and lots to pay for etc.

    This is a real program that has been around since 1998, seemingly without a funding issue.

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    If you're talking about the political context being "we have enough money to give this to everyone!" then yes I agree UBI is a great idea

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    I'm sure it's really expensive. But some people earn a lot of money so

    So what your point? Means tested daycare for not-millionaires? What is your conception of "people who earn a lot of money" here as compared to what childcare actually costs?

    I'm pretty sure if you have an income of £80,000 or more, off the top of my head, you don't need the government to pay did your childcare

    Why not? What logic is this based on? Do you actually know how much daycare costs? Cause it really seems like you are just randomly throwing numbers out there.

    And that's not even touching on the issue of why we should consider childcare as something we only grudgingly fund cause we absolutely have to.

    I'm not grudgingly funding it, I'm pro funding it, as I've said. And it costs about 12.5k for 52 weeks of 50hrs private nursery as noted above.

    You are absolutely grudgingly funding it. You are literally saying only some people get it. The entire premise of this means testing idea of yours is that you are only funding childcare because you have to for the people who you deem can't afford it. If you actually just wanted to fund childcare, what's the point in the means testing? Just fund the fucking program.

    A quick google on costs in the US (just as an example) suggests that childcare costs as a percentage of income are in the 15-20% range in most states. And numbers can be worse elsewhere. And they are still rising faster then inflation basically everywhere. I again suggest you are not really considering the actual cost of childcare.

    Frankly, the easiest way to think of this is that you are paying someone to do the job. So the absolute lowest amount childcare can cost would be a straight percentage of the salary of what you want to pay your childcare worker. So for a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio (fairly standard for toddler care) you are looking at 20-25% of a livable salary, at minimum. A good chunk more then that in reality because you have to add on food, facility fees and all that other shit. The only reason this shit is "cheap" is because we've been underpaying people to do it and offloading a massive amount of the costs in ways that aren't directly tracked.

    Saying "only some people get it" =/= "I'm only grudgingly in support of it." I'm very much in support of it, for people who need the money to pay for it.

    No, that's exactly what it means. It says you are only paying for the program for people you deem absolutely need it. Everyone else can just do whatever because you don't want to just fund childcare, you just want to fund it just enough that it's not overly impoverishing too many people.

    If you want to fund a program, if you believe it's a thing the government should be doing, you just fucking fund it.

    shryke on
  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    I'm sure it's really expensive. But some people earn a lot of money so

    So what your point? Means tested daycare for not-millionaires? What is your conception of "people who earn a lot of money" here as compared to what childcare actually costs?

    I'm pretty sure if you have an income of £80,000 or more, off the top of my head, you don't need the government to pay did your childcare

    Why not? What logic is this based on? Do you actually know how much daycare costs? Cause it really seems like you are just randomly throwing numbers out there.

    And that's not even touching on the issue of why we should consider childcare as something we only grudgingly fund cause we absolutely have to.

    I'm not grudgingly funding it, I'm pro funding it, as I've said. And it costs about 12.5k for 52 weeks of 50hrs private nursery as noted above.

    You are absolutely grudgingly funding it. You are literally saying only some people get it. The entire premise of this means testing idea of yours is that you are only funding childcare because you have to for the people who you deem can't afford it. If you actually just wanted to fund childcare, what's the point in the means testing? Just fund the fucking program.

    A quick google on costs in the US (just as an example) suggests that childcare costs as a percentage of income are in the 15-20% range in most states. And numbers can be worse elsewhere. And they are still rising faster then inflation basically everywhere. I again suggest you are not really considering the actual cost of childcare.

    Frankly, the easiest way to think of this is that you are paying someone to do the job. So the absolute lowest amount childcare can cost would be a straight percentage of the salary of what you want to pay your childcare worker. So for a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio (fairly standard for toddler care) you are looking at 20-25% of a livable salary, at minimum. A good chunk more then that in reality because you have to add on food, facility fees and all that other shit. The only reason this shit is "cheap" is because we've been underpaying people to do it and offloading a massive amount of the costs in ways that aren't directly tracked.

    Saying "only some people get it" =/= "I'm only grudgingly in support of it." I'm very much in support of it, for people who need the money to pay for it.

    No, that's exactly what it means. It says you are only paying for the program for people you deem absolutely need it. Everyone else can just do whatever because you don't want to just fund childcare, you just want to fund it just enough that it's not overly impoverishing too many people.

    I think you're assuming I'd draw the line at a much lower threshold than I would here, but sure if you want to say "happy to subsidise childcare for people who financially need the assistance" is grudging support then okay, your assessment of my enthusiasm is your own business

    Solar on
  • chokemchokem Registered User regular
    Immigrants are ready and willing to join our workforce right now, no need to wait 18-22 years for them to reach enough maturity to be somewhat useful, and then there’s the added bonus that it doesn’t increase the world population and contribute to more competitive environments for limited resource.

    Don’t get why I was personally attacked as a classist and even a racist for suggesting that, especially when people have already raised some of the same points I made about population growth and not incentivizing child births.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    edited September 2019
    chokem wrote: »
    Immigrants are ready and willing to join our workforce right now, no need to wait 18-22 years for them to reach enough maturity to be somewhat useful, and then there’s the added bonus that it doesn’t increase the world population and contribute to more competitive environments for limited resource.

    Don’t get why I was personally attacked as a classist and even a racist for suggesting that, especially when people have already raised some of the same points I made about population growth and not incentivizing child births.

    No problem, let me show you why:
    chokem wrote: »
    Everything we do to encourage people to have more children puts a strain on the environment. Look around and see what having too many humans on this earth has done, it’s doubtful we’ll even survive climate change beyond the next century.

    This is nihilism, which is actively discouraged on these boards.
    chokem wrote: »
    The education system is also pretty fucked, I’m tired of seeing shitty overworked teachers trying to wrangle classrooms overflowing with kids, and it’s always the least privileged kids who suffer, because low income parents who benefit most from programs like the one proposed are always the ones who end up having a pile of kids as a result.

    Yikes, this is a pretty hefty stereotype used commonly about both the poor and, in the US, about minorities.
    chokem wrote: »
    And even when these kids grow up they put further strain on healthcare industries and social security.

    Adding to the same stereotyping mentioned above.
    chokem wrote: »
    If you want to increase the population of the nation get used to immigration. If you really want a kid but can’t afford those first few years where they require constant attention then consider adoption. It’s time to make child-free households a default.

    This is eugenics. Specifically against the poor, but also by implication against minorities.

    Enc on
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    I'd also like to bring up the fact that the Norwegian system (19 weeks reserved for each parent at full pay, 19 additional weeks to share) has not been a failure in creating more equal parenting or a better society. It simply has not succeeded in creating a self reinforcing system where fathers begin to independently choose to do more childcare activities. Fathers are taking their leave, doing more work at home, and it is good for everyone. It is one of the best systems in the world for encouraging fair coparenting. It just isn't quite good enough.

    If you are from a place that's not Norway or similar and are arguing about how the policy isn't working, I can tell you that your policies are worse. The USA specifically is insanely worse, to the point where the situation is almost incomprehensible to anyone not from here.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • dispatch.odispatch.o Registered User regular
    I think this is getting kinda circular and heated. My only point was that framing it as an option between wage slave and parent and saying, "I shouldn't have to be a wage slave" with the implied - because I'm a parent - is a really horrible sales pitch.

    No one wants to be a wage slave and by avoiding it through a fund that comes from taxes, you're avoiding it AND increasing the burden on those without that option.

    I'm all for subsidizing the fuck out of childcare services and providing benefits that include limited salary to people who stay at home if necessary.

    I think the definition of necessary would need to be seriously evaluated and redefined as "not hyper wealthy" instead of what it typically means for other social services, "exists in poverty".

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    I'm sure it's really expensive. But some people earn a lot of money so

    So what your point? Means tested daycare for not-millionaires? What is your conception of "people who earn a lot of money" here as compared to what childcare actually costs?

    I'm pretty sure if you have an income of £80,000 or more, off the top of my head, you don't need the government to pay did your childcare

    Why not? What logic is this based on? Do you actually know how much daycare costs? Cause it really seems like you are just randomly throwing numbers out there.

    And that's not even touching on the issue of why we should consider childcare as something we only grudgingly fund cause we absolutely have to.

    I'm not grudgingly funding it, I'm pro funding it, as I've said. And it costs about 12.5k for 52 weeks of 50hrs private nursery as noted above.

    You are absolutely grudgingly funding it. You are literally saying only some people get it. The entire premise of this means testing idea of yours is that you are only funding childcare because you have to for the people who you deem can't afford it. If you actually just wanted to fund childcare, what's the point in the means testing? Just fund the fucking program.

    A quick google on costs in the US (just as an example) suggests that childcare costs as a percentage of income are in the 15-20% range in most states. And numbers can be worse elsewhere. And they are still rising faster then inflation basically everywhere. I again suggest you are not really considering the actual cost of childcare.

    Frankly, the easiest way to think of this is that you are paying someone to do the job. So the absolute lowest amount childcare can cost would be a straight percentage of the salary of what you want to pay your childcare worker. So for a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio (fairly standard for toddler care) you are looking at 20-25% of a livable salary, at minimum. A good chunk more then that in reality because you have to add on food, facility fees and all that other shit. The only reason this shit is "cheap" is because we've been underpaying people to do it and offloading a massive amount of the costs in ways that aren't directly tracked.

    Saying "only some people get it" =/= "I'm only grudgingly in support of it." I'm very much in support of it, for people who need the money to pay for it.

    No, that's exactly what it means. It says you are only paying for the program for people you deem absolutely need it. Everyone else can just do whatever because you don't want to just fund childcare, you just want to fund it just enough that it's not overly impoverishing too many people.

    I think you're assuming I'd draw the line at a much lower threshold than I would here, but sure if you want to say "happy to subsidise childcare for people who financially need the assistance" is grudging support then okay, your assessment of my enthusiasm is your own business

    You're getting a lot of pushback because you aren't actually detailing out your position beyond claiming that there is a threshold where you should be, in context, punished for having children if you are wealth enough. If your wife or husband still makes, say, $70,000 after you stay home to care for your child, and you think that should be $65,000, that will make a signifigant pay hiccup in the tax rates for income. It essentially makes a punishment deadzone between your arbitrary threshold and the amount of wealth where it no longer is a meaningful change.

    Like, in my area, a household without that compensation between $65,001 and, probably, just over $110,000 would be the range that functionally people won't be able to have children as easily. This sort of policy makes it so either you are super rich, or super poor, otherwise you have to keep working.

    Which, functionally, is still better than what the US has now as pretty much everyone stays working except for the rich because our system sucks, but the threshold will create problems wherever you place it. This is why programs like Social Security don't cap out at a certain height in income.

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    I mean ultimately what I'm getting from this is: none of us want to be wage slaves. None of us want to be forced to engage with a stupid capitalist system that exploits us endlessly, we want to be free to do what we find fulfilling, whether that's raising children or working in the community or making furniture or whatever.

    And yeah I absolutely agree. Parents shouldn't have to be wage slaves. Non parents shouldn't either. Nobody should.

  • MulysaSemproniusMulysaSempronius but also susie nyRegistered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    Incidentally based on the UK average if you want to put your kid in a private nursery every week of the year, for 50 hrs a week, that will cost you £12,584 per annum (which I believe you can claim pre tax and also I am pretty sure you get 21 hrs a week subsidised in the UK too)
    I would love to be able to pay only $15,520 a year for childcare (it's about $20,000-$24,00 a year where I live), have it be pre-tax (only $5,000 can be done with pre-tax money here), and have 21 hours subsidized.
    The main problem I have with means-based programs is that the middle class is very often shut out. I never qualified for any help, not even when I had two kids in daycare and had to pay more for childcare than I took home from my job (It was for only a couple of months until the oldest started school, so I stuck it out. Because my job was pretty great, and I plan on working here until retirement.)
    On paper, my husband and I make a decent wage. But we have a decent amount of expenses, too. Who decides who needs the money? How much money people should earn to deserve it?

    If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
  • BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    Means testing wastes everyone's time, and creates administrative overhead. Just tax the wealthy a bit more then, because money is fungible, it doesn't matter that you didn't means test them.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    "Better then the US" is an irrelevant standard in this discussion. US parental leave policy is so bad it's actually hard to be worse. We should use a bar that's actually meaningful.

  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    spool32 wrote: »
    Mortious wrote: »
    spool32 wrote: »
    woo boy do I have thoughts here.

    Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.

    The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.

    The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.

    It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.

    Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.

    On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.

    Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.

    It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.

    The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.

    No, it's literally the opposite of blatantly wrong to say that current gender dynamics are sexist, therefore we should attempt to address that problem via policy. This is literally the point of policy.

    The entire point of the Norwegian example in the OP is that, like with many things, it is not sufficient to just say "Well now you have the freedom to not be sexist" and expect that to actually accomplish anything. Because that "freedom" drops into pre-existing dynamics. Specifically in this case, sexist gender dynamics and sexist economic disadvantages that effect women.

    The point of the entire example is that it's not enough to just tell people that men could totally take that parental leave or be stay-at-home parents or whatever, if they wanted. Because they won't. If you want to stop women being forced to do a disproportionate amount of the labour of child-rearing and suffering a disproportionate amount of the negative effects of it, you need to explicitly craft policy that rewards men for doing it too.

    Honestly, your entire argument here doesn't really make much sense in the context of this discussion because the objection you raise is based in some idea that people are saying women shouldn't be stay at home moms. Which is literally not what any of this is about. The problem is not that any women is a stay-at-home mother or a primary caregiver or whatever. It's that a disproportionate number of them are. The desired outcome is not that no women stay home and raise their kids. So saying people gave your wife shit for doing that is a bad thing that happened but not actually relevant to the policy discussion because that's not what the policies in question are trying to achieve.

    Maybe I missed it but I haven't seen anyone suggest a solution that is not just stop paying for parents to stay home. For parental leave making it so both parents get leave they have to use or lose leads to more equitable outcomes than just one big pool they choose how to split, so it is pretty clearly better policy. But I don't really see an equivalent that can be used for paying a stay at home parent. Do you really want to just pay dads more to stay home than moms? Do you just want to have an ad campaign?

    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • dispatch.odispatch.o Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    Means testing wastes everyone's time, and creates administrative overhead. Just tax the wealthy a bit more then, because money is fungible, it doesn't matter that you didn't means test them.

    Means testing would be necessary to account for the difference in cost of living. Most of the investment should be in child care, with a flat amount based on where you live as wages. You can't make rent on 40k/yr in San Francisco. You can buy a 2,000sqft home in Kentucky for that though and have money leftover.

  • tinwhiskerstinwhiskers Registered User regular
    Don't we basically already do child UBI in the US via tax credits anyhow?

    There's a credit for dependent children and spouses, a deduction/credit for child care expenses, the EITC scale up with the number of dependents.

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  • mrondeaumrondeau Montréal, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Don't we basically already do child UBI in the US via tax credits anyhow?

    There's a credit for dependent children and spouses, a deduction/credit for child care expenses, the EITC scale up with the number of dependents.

    That's nowhere close to a PBI, that's just accounting for the fact that children don't fill tax returns.

  • BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    If you're really worried about that you can just adjust the payout depending on location, which isn't means testing.

  • chokemchokem Registered User regular

    “This is nihilism, which is actively discouraged on these boards.”

    It is not nihilism, it is an inconvenient truth. I’m not sure how you can look at the growing population of the world and the fragile state of the climate and decide more humans as much as possible is a wise thing to promote. Surely you must have some idea of an ideal number of children per couple, maybe it’s not between zero and one, but then what is it? 1? 2? 4? 8?



    “Yikes, this is a pretty hefty stereotype used commonly about both the poor and, in the US, about minorities.”

    So what? There is always some truth behind stereotypes, that’s how they become stereotypes. Combining a lack of birth control for the poor along with insufficient income to support children is a bad combination and the problem grows exponentially as those children grow up to be poor and continue the cycle. Now you want to give the illusion that they can support multiple kids by giving them a year of free income while ignoring the fact that kids cost way more than just a year of free income in the long run.



    “This is eugenics. Specifically against the poor, but also by implication against minorities.”

    Thanks, since my wife and I decided to adopt a child from Morocco we are basically eugenicists, and probably even Nazi’s in your eyes. Fuck us for wanting better immigration policy as the preferred means of population growth, how racist of us to choose immigrants over homegrown Americans.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Ignoring the blatant racism, population control isn't a concern in the western world. It takes an average of 2.8 children per couple in order to maintain the US population and we're well under that and have been for more than 30 years. Most US population growth is already driven my immigration except in a handful of states. Worldwide population is certainly something to consider if this were a worldwide policy, but we're talking about a more narrow focus here.

    You aren't suggesting we encourage international adoptions, which is a fine a great thing to do. That's a far cry from your quote:
    chokem wrote:
    If you want to increase the population of the nation get used to immigration. If you really want a kid but can’t afford those first few years where they require constant attention then consider adoption. It’s time to make child-free households a default.

    Which is saying that if you need financial support to have a child, well you should not have children or, at best, adopt someone else's only once you are financially stable enough (which, ha. Kids get more expensive over time). There is also an easy interpretation here of you suggesting people who give birth and can't afford it should send their children out to adoption, though that doesn't seem to be what you are suggesting based off of further posts. Then you are discussing that, in the US, no one should have a child by default.

    All of these things are 100% eugenics policies. Such ideas are dictating who can, and cannot, have children based upon your own determination of social needs rather than leaving that up to the individual parents themselves.

    And also, yeah. Super racist in that middle part. I mean, damn.

  • chokemchokem Registered User regular
    “Poor” is not a race, therefore suggesting that people who can’t afford to raise children and bring them to full maturity shouldn’t have children until they are able to do so cannot be eugenics, or even racist.

    I never said send your kid out for adoption, I said people need to consider adopting children.

  • FANTOMASFANTOMAS Flan ArgentavisRegistered User regular
    chokem wrote: »
    “Poor” is not a race, therefore suggesting that people who can’t afford to raise children and bring them to full maturity shouldn’t have children until they are able to do so cannot be eugenics, or even racist.

    I never said send your kid out for adoption, I said people need to consider adopting children.

    Its not that poor is a race, but racist policies keep certain groups in poverty. You cant just divorce the concepts of racism, minorities and the effects of living in a racist society as a minority.

    Hopefully someone else will explain better and not get infracted for it.

    Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
  • chokemchokem Registered User regular
    If you can divorce the negative externalities of incentivizing a new baby boom then you can divorce poverty from racism.

  • FANTOMASFANTOMAS Flan ArgentavisRegistered User regular
    chokem wrote: »
    If you can divorce the negative externalities of incentivizing a new baby boom then you can divorce poverty from racism.

    Is the baby boom happening in any of the places that are being discussed?

    Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Nothing about Denmark's policy increased fertility rates in a meaningful way. When the policy passed in 1998 the fertility rate was about 1.7, it has since dropped fractionally to about 1.65. If anything, paid child leave has caused the opposite of a baby boom. Only the cohort of people with two children before the policy went into effect fractionally raising to have three (and of that, only women who polled as well-educated) showed and increase in fertility rates.

    There is significant quantities of research, both of US policies and elsewhere, that show that having greater support during childcare leads to lower total birth rates as parents can focus more resources on fewer children. A lot of this is due to correlations between financial support and birth control/family planning as well.

    To show my work, as it were:
    https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol10/10/10-10.pdf

    Enc on
  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    bowen wrote: »
    Being child free is kind of a social faux pas, it's more acceptable now in 2019 than ever, but we shouldn't really encourage that either.

    Is it? I've never gotten dirty looks for talking about being child free, the worst I've ever gotten is from older people suggesting I'll change my mind later. Nobody's ever suggested I wasn't doing my part to ensure the continuation of the species or a functional society/economy/workforce.

    Delzhand on
  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    FANTOMAS wrote: »
    chokem wrote: »
    “Poor” is not a race, therefore suggesting that people who can’t afford to raise children and bring them to full maturity shouldn’t have children until they are able to do so cannot be eugenics, or even racist.

    I never said send your kid out for adoption, I said people need to consider adopting children.

    Its not that poor is a race, but racist policies keep certain groups in poverty. You cant just divorce the concepts of racism, minorities and the effects of living in a racist society as a minority.

    Hopefully someone else will explain better and not get infracted for it.

    To take a stab at this, the reason why the poor and minority groups are linked in discussions of the US comes with socio-political terms like underclass which have been historically used with the very terms that chokem is using here to validate racist legistlation. From destroying historically black communities in the name of highway planning to attacking welfare as a homogenous group, such language has become little more than a dogwhistle for othering black and hispanic populations in the US.

    Wikipedia has a pretty great section on their Underclass article discussing this:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underclass
    Criticisms of Underclass Terminologies:

    Derogatory and demonizing language
    Many who refute the underclass concept suggest that the underclass term has been transformed into a codeword to refer to poor inner-city blacks.[45] For example, Hilary Silver highlights a moment when David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK, campaigned for Louisiana Governor by complaining about the "welfare underclass".[44] The underclass concept has been politicized, with those from the political left arguing that joblessness and insufficient welfare provided are causes of underclass conditions while the political right employ the underclass term to refer to welfare dependency and moral decline.[46] Many sociologists suggest that this latter rhetoric – the right-wing perspective – became dominant in mainstream accounts of the underclass during the later decades of the twentieth-century.[46]

    Herbert Gans is one of the most vocal critics of the underclass concept. Gans suggests that American journalists, inspired partly by academic writings on the "culture of poverty", reframed underclass from a structural term (in other words, defining the underclass in reference to conditions of social/economic/political structure) to a behavioral term (in other words, defining the underclass in reference to rational choice and/or in reference to a subculture of poverty).[3] Gans suggests that the word "underclass" has become synonymous with impoverished blacks that behave in criminal, deviant, or "just non-middle-class ways".[3]

    Loïc Wacquant deploys a relatively similar critique by arguing that underclass has become a blanket term that frames urban blacks as behaviorally and culturally deviant.[40] Wacquant notes that underclass status is imposed on urban blacks from outside and above them (e.g., by journalists, politicians, and academics), stating that "underclass" is a derogatory and "negative label that nobody claims or invokes except to pin it on to others".[47] And, although the underclass concepts is homogenizing, Wacquant argues that underclass imagery differentiates on gender lines, with the underclass male being depicted as a violent "gang banger", a physical threat to public safety, and the underclass female being generalized as "welfare mother" (also see welfare queen), a "moral assault on American values".[48]

    Homogenizing a heterogeneous group
    The concept of 'the ghetto' and 'underclass' has also faced criticism empirically. Research has shown significant differences in resources for neighborhoods with similar populations both across cities and over time.[49] This includes differences in the resources of neighborhoods with predominantly low income and/or racial minority populations. The cause of these differences in resources across similar neighborhoods has more to do with dynamics outside of the neighborhood.[50] To a large extent the problem with the 'ghetto' and 'underclass' concepts stem from the reliance on case studies (in particular case studies from Chicago), which confine social scientist understandings of socially disadvantaged neighborhoods.

    You can't, as you suggest, separate poverty from minorities in any meaningful discussion because no real implementation in the US will do so. Anything targeting the poor, especially in a punitive way like "no children of your own unless you can afford it," is specifically going to be a greater burden on the minority populations of the US.

    Such eugenics policies have been proposed before, mind you. David Duke is far from the only racist asshat that has used terms of "mitigating poverty" as a means to attack a disenfranchised minority population. Such terms are found everywhere racist policies are floated, and in great numbers.

    Hell, half of Swift's A Modest Proposal was this, and that's centuries old at this point.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Delzhand wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Being child free is kind of a social faux pas, it's more acceptable now in 2019 than ever, but we shouldn't really encourage that either.

    Is it? I've never gotten dirty looks for talking about being child free, the worst I've ever gotten is from older people suggesting I'll change my mind later. Nobody's ever suggested I wasn't doing my part to ensure the continuation of the species or a functional society/economy/workforce.

    I don't know about elsewhere, but at the very least its pretty controversial when my mother comes over for dinner.

  • dispatch.odispatch.o Registered User regular
    Depends on where you live. In The South I definitely got a lot of accusations of selfishness for having a vasectomy. My girlfriend has been openly accused of being selfish and dating someone who wasn't a good person by her family.

    If you are over 30 and unmarried there's something wrong with you. If you adopt it's not "really yours".

    There's lots of shit.

  • VishNubVishNub Registered User regular
    Delzhand wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Being child free is kind of a social faux pas, it's more acceptable now in 2019 than ever, but we shouldn't really encourage that either.

    Is it? I've never gotten dirty looks for talking about being child free, the worst I've ever gotten is from older people suggesting I'll change my mind later. Nobody's ever suggested I wasn't doing my part to ensure the continuation of the species or a functional society/economy/workforce.

    Same, and if anyone did, I would probably get quite angry.

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