Work vs. Stay-Home Parents

Meghan Kruger writes in The Washington Post:

Warren’s plan would dramatically increase demand for an already-limited number of day-care slots, as out-of-home care suddenly becomes “free” or much less expensive for millions of families. The plan would also be available to parents who stay at home with their children, encouraging families to use day-care services they don’t necessarily need.

Parents who choose to stay home with their kids not because they don’t need daycare, but because day care is too damn expensive. Right now the cost for day care is about $2,000 a month for one child. If parents have two young children, that’s almost $48,000 a year. Does it make sense for one of the parents to go to work just to pay for day care or better to stay home with their kids? When parents don’t have to worry about daycare they can go back to work.

With Warren’s plan, parents only have to pay seven percent of their income. If they make $100,000 a year. That’s only $7,000 a year.

When I brought this up to my wife, her question was how the government going to pay for all of this. It can be done through investment, benefits enhancement, and major system overhaul. I’ll let the expert explains them.