American Families Plan, what are your thoughts?

[mommyoffive]

American Families Plan: What's in Biden's $1.8 trillion care proposal - CNNPolitics

 

Helping families afford child care

Biden's proposal calls for having low- and middle-income families pay no more than 7% of their income on child care for kids younger than age 5. Parents earning up to 1.5 times the median income in their state would qualify.

The President also wants to invest more in the child care workforce to bring their wages up to $15 an hour, from the typical $12.24 hourly rate they earned in 2020.

 

Making community college free

Biden is proposing a $109 billion plan to make two years of community college free.

The federal government would cover about 75% of the average tuition cost in each state when the program is fully implemented, with states picking up the rest, another senior administration official said. States would also be expected to maintain their current contributions to their higher education systems.

 

Enhancing Pell Grants

The President would provide up to approximately $1,400 in additional assistance to low-income students by increasing the Pell Grant award.  Students can receive up to $6,495 for the 2021-22 school year. Biden has promised to double the maximum award.

 

Providing paid family and medical leave

The American Families Plan would provide workers with a total of 12 weeks of guaranteed paid parental, family and personal illness/safe leave by the 10th year of the program, according to a White House fact sheet. The partial wage replacement would apply to individuals who wanted "to take time to bond with a new child, care for a seriously ill loved one, deal with a loved one's military deployment, find safety from sexual assault, stalking or domestic violence, heal from their own serious illness or take time to deal with the death of a loved one."

The plan would also ensure three days of bereavement leave annually starting in the first year of the plan's rollout.

Workers would receive up to $4,000 a month through the national leave program, with a minimum of two-thirds of their wages replaced.

 

 

Investing $200 billion in universal preschool

Biden is calling for the federal government to invest $200 billion in universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds through a national partnership with states. The administration estimates it would benefit 5 million children and save the average family $13,000 when fully implemented.

The program would be accessible to families of all income levels, according to the White House.

 

 

Recruiting more teachers and strengthening the educator workforce

The American Families Plan aims to address teacher shortages and meet an anticipated increase in demand for universal pre-K educators by increasing funding for educator scholarships and specialty training, as well as raising wages for certain groups in federal programs.

 

 

Providing more nutrition assistance for children

 

Biden wants to invest $25 billion to make the summer Pandemic-EBT permanent and available to the 29 million children receiving free and reduced-price meals. Congress created the program last spring to provide funds to low-income families whose children could not receive meals in school because of pandemic closures.

The President would also expand the free meals program for children in the highest poverty districts so that an additional 9.3 million kids would qualify.

 

 

Here are the relief measures the plan would extend or make permanent

Keeping the expanded child tax credit through 2025

Beefing up Affordable Care Act subsidies permanently

Providing more help to pay for child care permanently

Making the enhanced earned income tax credit permanent

 

 

 

 

[Spy Car]

Combined with the pro-job/pro-union infrastructure investments that will rebuild the American Middle Class, combat global warming, and put our economy in a competitive position in the decades ahead, this American could not be more delighted.

Just what this nation needs IMO.

Bill

Edited April 29, 2021 by Spy Car

[Arcadia]

30 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

Making community college free

 

Biden is proposing a $109 billion plan to make two years of community college free.

The federal government would cover about 75% of the average tuition cost in each state when the program is fully implemented, with states picking up the rest, another senior administration official said. States would also be expected to maintain their current contributions to their higher education systems.

We already have two years of community college free in California under the California College Promise. If 75% of the tuition cost is going to come from Federal, then hopefully the money the state save would go towards the state universities since the states are expected to maintain their current contributions to their higher education systems.

For preschools under the local school district, the demand far exceeded supply. The district ended up renting portable classrooms and putting them at the school's parking area and/or basketball courts.

[WildflowerMom]

All of it sounds good to me, but I’ll really be ecstatic when we get universal healthcare.  🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[TexasProud]

I just don't know how we pay for all of this. Our country's debt is already so high.  Where is the tipping point?  I mean it all sounds absolutely wonderful and IF government provides all of that well, then great.  History says it won't. But I guess we will see.  

[Carol in Cal.]

I find the idea of making it the norm to turn kids over to government schools starting at age 3 to be misguided and unacceptable.  

Here in CA we already have the majority of kindergarteners deciding they are stupid because they can't meet unreasonable academic expectations.  And now we are going to drive that even deeper into kids' psyches by starting school at earlier ages.  Kids are so different from each other through about age 7, and then even out after that.  We should be supporting parents in customizing their children's experiences to fit their specific needs during those years.

I would much rather see a large income tax deduction or child credit for kids through age 7 than fund a new program that will inevitably be a bad fit for most kids.  The deduction or credit would increase effective family income which could be used as the family saw fit, for the customized experiences that all children should have.

[Bambam]

6 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

I just don't know how we pay for all of this. Our country's debt is already so high.  Where is the tipping point?  I mean it all sounds absolutely wonderful and IF government provides all of that well, then great.  History says it won't. But I guess we will see.  

I too wonder where the funding is coming from.  You can't spend what you don't bring in (at least for real people). Or you can, but there comes an end eventually.  

[Arcadia]

14 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

I just don't know how we pay for all of this. 

 

5 minutes ago, Bambam said:

I too wonder where the funding is coming from.  You can't spend what you don't bring in (at least for real people). 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/28/biden-seeks-tax-hikes-wealthy-pay-ambitious-families-plan/4853891001/
 

“WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is calling on Congress to raise taxes on wealthy Americans for the first time in nearly a decade to help pay for his ambitious $1.8 trillion plan to provide relief to families and reshape the U.S. economy.

Biden’s American Families Plan, which proposes investing billions of dollars in child care, paid family leave and education, would nearly double the capital gains tax to 39.6% for people earning more than $1 million a year. The current rate is 20%.

The package also calls for raising the top marginal tax income rate to 39.5%, up from the current 37% that has been in effect since a tax reform law that congressional Republicans pushed through Congress in 2017. Biden’s proposal will restore the tax rate to the level it was at before the tax reform law”

CNN news link on the same topic https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/18/politics/biden-tax-plan-explainer/index.html

[Spy Car]

23 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

I just don't know how we pay for all of this. Our country's debt is already so high.  Where is the tipping point?  I mean it all sounds absolutely wonderful and IF government provides all of that well, then great.  History says it won't. But I guess we will see.  

The economy is going to boom. And our people and the economy will be far better off that if we do nothing and go into a decline.

I think the lesson of US history supports such measures. We have an historic opportunity.

Bill

 

[Hyacinth]

Hard to talk about this too deeply without getting political, but I'll make this comment: I'd rather see a much stronger investment in K-12 education than in preschool and community college.

The whole point of subsidizing preschool (as I understand it) is to get parents into the workforce. And I get it. But how many families would truly be STRENGTHENED by an attentive parent at home? Call me idealistic, but I think parents are awesome teachers for their own kids, especially in those precious early years.

And if K-12 schools were doing a better job of actually educating students--ALL STUDENTS--then I'd feel better about the community college proposal. As it is . . . eh.

[Farrar]

The John Oliver about the National Debt is worth watching if your first question is how do we pay for it. Obviously, he's coming from a liberal perspective, he says NSFW things, etc. 

 

[Farrar]

We have free universal PreK4 here and it's slowly expanding to PreK3. It's needs to be everywhere. While it's not something I, personally, wanted to take advantage of, it's also something that I can see has strengthened the schools, helped families, helped kids. There's not been any drawbacks.

Same with community college. Some community colleges are great. Others are kinda the pits. Just like schools. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be paying for them. Free CC is slowly expanding in many areas. This would be great.

I'd love to see that include dual enrollment. I suspect that many states might include DE - the way California does.

[Lilaclady]

17 minutes ago, Hyacinth said:

Hard to talk about this too deeply without getting political, but I'll make this comment: I'd rather see a much stronger investment in K-12 education than in preschool and community college.

The whole point of subsidizing preschool (as I understand it) is to get parents into the workforce. And I get it. But how many families would truly be STRENGTHENED by an attentive parent at home? Call me idealistic, but I think parents are awesome teachers for their own kids, especially in those precious early years.

And if K-12 schools were doing a better job of actually educating students--ALL STUDENTS--then I'd feel better about the community college proposal. As it is . . . eh.

I would love to believe this but one thing I think the Covid issue showed is that most parents do not want to teach their own kids. Parents with kids in school who were supporting students found it really hard to do. I know pandemic was not ideal but so many don’t want to teach their kids. 

[Hyacinth]

13 minutes ago, Lilaclady said:

I would love to believe this but one thing I think the Covid issue showed is that most parents do not want to teach their own kids. Parents with kids in school who were supporting students found it really hard to do. I know pandemic was not ideal but so many don’t want to teach their kids. 

Sure, parents thrown into helping their middle schoolers with algebra hated it. But how much "teaching" does a three-year-old require?

[Junie]

I can get behind free community college.  It's the free preschool that is really difficult for me to swallow. 

I think it is unfortunate that preschool has become mandatory for success in kindergarten/elementary school/high school/college/life.  Preschool does a disservice to kids who are entering kindergarten as their first school experience.  So kids who aren't "prepared" for kindergarten are now at a disadvantage.  They are the ones falling behind.  With universal free preschool, parents are going to feel like they need to put their 3 and 4 year olds in school so that they won't get behind. 

I guess free preschool is the only way to solve the problem that preschool created in the first place.  It used to be that there was no readiness checklist for kindergarten other than your fifth birthday.  Sadly, that is no longer the case.

 

[Farrar]

9 minutes ago, Hyacinth said:

Sure, parents thrown into helping their middle schoolers with algebra hated it. But how much "teaching" does a three-year-old require?

They need a present parent or other adult who has the mental bandwidth and emotional capacity to support them and love them and read stories and so forth. Honestly, for parents who absolutely need to maintain two incomes or who are single parents, this is exceedingly difficult. We can both believe that the best thing for young kids in general is a parent at home, make that choice for ourselves, and accept that this is not an ideal possibility for many other families. 

[SKL]

The nutrition thing already existed pre-Covid in my area (and it is pretty middle class, not rich or poor).  Not sure who funded it.  Also DE with community college is already free here, starting at 7th grade, and the cost to go to Community College post-high school isn't that high either.

Universal preschool will go the way of Head Start.  People who want better will pay for better, and that will leave those who can't pay in a situation at least as bad as before.  Just my prediction based on life experience.

I don't like the trend of putting more and more of our human needs on the schools and the government.  But I know my views are in the minority here.

As for who will pay for it - I have no doubts about that.  But I think this will get political too quickly if I go there.

[maize]

14 minutes ago, Farrar said:

They need a present parent or other adult who has the mental bandwidth and emotional capacity to support them and love them and read stories and so forth. Honestly, for parents who absolutely need to maintain two incomes or who are single parents, this is exceedingly difficult. We can both believe that the best thing for young kids in general is a parent at home, make that choice for ourselves, and accept that this is not an ideal possibility for many other families. 

Is there greater benefit to subsidizing childcare and preschool specifically vs. more direct stipends to families? I'm in favor of family/caregiver stipends that can be used either to make it easier for a parent to care for and teach their child directly or to pay for someone else to do so.

 

[Hyacinth]

26 minutes ago, Farrar said:

They need a present parent or other adult who has the mental bandwidth and emotional capacity to support them and love them and read stories and so forth. Honestly, for parents who absolutely need to maintain two incomes or who are single parents, this is exceedingly difficult. We can both believe that the best thing for young kids in general is a parent at home, make that choice for ourselves, and accept that this is not an ideal possibility for many other families. 

Absolutely.

[Carrie12345]

I’m skeptical about the *combination of affordable daycare and universal pre-k.  Where I’m from, daycare centers with 3s and 4s provided pre-k.  If the affordable daycare is already there, I’m struggling with the gov’t pre-k need. And I definitely don’t want to see it become compulsory.  Plus, with daycares, at least there’s a little bit of choice in location.

But I do believe in taking good care of kids without costing a fortune, so I’m open.

I also believe in ‘free’ community college. I do realize that the funding is complex, given how inexpensive cc is in some areas and how expensive it is in others.

[frogger]

1 hour ago, Hyacinth said:

Hard to talk about this too deeply without getting political, but I'll make this comment: I'd rather see a much stronger investment in K-12 education than in preschool and community college.

The whole point of subsidizing preschool (as I understand it) is to get parents into the workforce. And I get it. But how many families would truly be STRENGTHENED by an attentive parent at home? Call me idealistic, but I think parents are awesome teachers for their own kids, especially in those precious early years.

And if K-12 schools were doing a better job of actually educating students--ALL STUDENTS--then I'd feel better about the community college proposal. As it is . . . eh.

I have to say this is really important. If we just make kids stay in school longer and they are finally learning what they should have learned 4 years ago we are doing them no favors. We are wasting their lives, literally. 

My goal in homeschooling was to simply not have them in public school all day and not steal some of the most productive years of their life, making them sit in study hour all the time and memorize pep rally songs. 

[Tenaj]

It's hard for me to think about sending a kid off to preschool at 3 or 4.  Kindergarten has become so much more formal than it was when I went to Kindergarten and I'm afraid that the idea of "preschool" will become more formalized with this proposal. Little kids need to play, and use their imaginations.  If they can keep that atmosphere, that will be great.   On the other hand, if it stays at a true preschool level and does NOT become mandatory in any way I can see the huge benefit to kids who have parents who need the help.  My own daughter is a single parent at this point and I can see how this could be a true benefit for my grandson and her as she navigates his next few years.

The community college program I have reservations about mainly because I think it will essentially turn into another two years of high school with there being little value to it.   Of course, I may be proven wrong 🙂

[frogger]

48 minutes ago, maize said:

Is there greater benefit to subsidizing childcare and preschool specifically vs. more direct stipends to families? I'm in favor of family/caregiver stipends that can be used either to make it easier for a parent to care for and teach their child directly or to pay for someone else to do so.

 

Making it so a childcare bill never exceeds 7% of a parents income will likely create incentives to overcharge. If a parent pays 7% regardless than they will be less cost conscience. Won't this create an upward pressure on prices. It seems more and more families would start reaching the 7% mark and then the pressure would continue to drive costs up. I'm not sure but it seems to me that this will be a tax on higher incomes in the form of both higher childcare costs and more taxes. At some point that might create more incentive for those women near the margin to drop out of the workforce.

I think just giving subsidies or credits would create less of a problem because people would still be sensitive to price though it would still help and I think still increase wages of caretakers.

Edited April 29, 2021 by frogger

[KungFuPanda]

I've read all of the posts and I have thoughts. 😀 Not every parent who is home with a preschooler is committed to age-appropriate enrichment activities. I think that the type of parents who are are over-represented on this board.  A lot of mothers  cant afford not to work.  Many others are scrambling to mind the infant, keep up with the house, and keep the preschooler from injuring himself.  Having the option of preschool for those who need it won't harm a child that doesn't go and may greatly help those who do.

People seem to be conflating early education with developmentally inappropriate early education.  Eliminating preschool isn't the way to keep people from pushing academics on children too early.  It's not the same problem.  I'm really discouraged that the pendulum hasn't swung back towards more play-based preschools and kindergartens, but those programs need to expand, not shut down.  Quality childcare is important to families.  Even most women who can "afford" to stay at home would be impoverished if something happened to their husbands.  It's a precarious situation for a wealthy nation to keep its women and children in and I think these new programs are a tiny step in the right direction.

 

[Kanin]

58 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

And I definitely don’t want to see it become compulsory.

Is Biden saying it would be compulsory - or just available to people who want it?

[Tenaj]

6 minutes ago, Kanin said:

Is Biden saying it would be compulsory - or just available to people who want it?

I haven't seen anything referring to it as compulsory at this time.

[frogger]

20 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Remember that the families who earn more than 1.5 of the medium (was it medium) income in the area will be ineligible for the subsidy so many families would be ineligible. That seems to suggest that daycares would not overcharge because they would lose the families that were not eligible. 

I suspect the biggest impact would be on under the table arrangements. I'm sure that you would need to provide the tax ID number or SSN of the daycare provider in order to obtain the subsidy. That's similar to how it works with flex plans. 

The families who suffer the most will be those right at the 7% margin. Earn a little overtime and all fo the sudden you're responsible for 100% of your childcare. But all government programs have cut-offs which hurts someone. 

The majority of America's children would benefit from this though. There are many kids being cared for in unlicensed and unsafe daycares or cared for by Grandma because daycare is too expensive. In our area, daycare for an infant might be $15K a year. Actually when DD was in daycare, several of the other families forced their 4 YOs to undergo testing so they could be enrolled in kindergarten so their families could save money on daycare. 

Yes, intelligent programs fade out not just cut you off like that. EITC for example is set up so you are always better off to make a little more.

[happi duck]

I taught public school kindergarten.  My students started at all levels from already reading to answering "blue" when shown a flashcard and asked "what number is this?" I had students who had preschool across all these levels and kids who were home across all these levels. 

Ime, I can't imagine that more kids in preschool will force kindergarten to be more academic.  What was forcing that, ime, was parents pressuring the district for more academics.

Just my two cents from my experience.

[Carol in Cal.]

1 hour ago, happi duck said:

I taught public school kindergarten.  My students started at all levels from already reading to answering "blue" when shown a flashcard and asked "what number is this?" I had students who had preschool across all these levels and kids who were home across all these levels. 

Ime, I can't imagine that more kids in preschool will force kindergarten to be more academic.  What was forcing that, ime, was parents pressuring the district for more academics.

Just my two cents from my experience.

Nope, not here in CA.  Here it came in due to the math wars.  That also forced Algebra 1 in 8th to be the norm, which has resulted in many, many students taking Algebra 1 2-3 times because they were not ready for it the first time.  It's a mess here and it's not getting better.  The teachers' unions love it because it's driving most districts to all day kindergarten.  And again, the vast majority of kids in those kindergartens do not meet the unreasonable standards and I find that very damaging.

[happi duck]

10 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Nope, not here in CA.  Here it came in due to the math wars.  That also forced Algebra 1 in 8th to be the norm, which has resulted in many, many students taking Algebra 1 2-3 times because they were not ready for it the first time.  It's a mess here and it's not getting better.  The teachers' unions love it because it's driving most districts to all day kindergarten.  And again, the vast majority of kids in those kindergartens do not meet the unreasonable standards and I find that very damaging.

Nope?  Not sure to what that was referring.  I'm not saying kindergarten isn't being pushed beyond what's appropriate.  Just, ime, it is because of parents wanting impressive results not because kids went to preschool and came into kindergarten "too smart" and were leaving the kids who were home behind.

I agree that pushing math before kids are ready is fruitless.  It does however let districts and parents brag and that, unfortunately, is desirable for some.

[HeartString]

2 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

I’m skeptical about the *combination of affordable daycare and universal pre-k.  Where I’m from, daycare centers with 3s and 4s provided pre-k.  If the affordable daycare is already there, I’m struggling with the gov’t pre-k need. And I definitely don’t want to see it become compulsory.  Plus, with daycares, at least there’s a little bit of choice in location.

But I do believe in taking good care of kids without costing a fortune, so I’m open.

I also believe in ‘free’ community college. I do realize that the funding is complex, given how inexpensive cc is in some areas and how expensive it is in others.

Where are you that daycare is affordable? Daycare for 1 full time and 1 school age kid was over $1000 a month when my kids were young and it’s only gone up.  It took almost my whole income at the time.  

[HeartString]

I’m surprised this plan didn’t include the expanded child tax credit that is set to temporarily go into effect starting in July.  I thought that was a cornerstone of his plan.  

[Spy Car]

24 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Nope, not here in CA.  Here it came in due to the math wars.  That also forced Algebra 1 in 8th to be the norm, which has resulted in many, many students taking Algebra 1 2-3 times because they were not ready for it the first time.  It's a mess here and it's not getting better.  The teachers' unions love it because it's driving most districts to all day kindergarten.  And again, the vast majority of kids in those kindergartens do not meet the unreasonable standards and I find that very damaging.

I disagree entirely with your assessment of the state of public school education here in CA.

Bill

 

 

[Spy Car]

Just now, HeartString said:

I’m surprised this plan didn’t include the expanded child tax credit that is set to temporarily go into effect starting in July.  I thought that was a cornerstone of his plan.  

He called for it to be extended until 2025 (at least).

Bill

[HeartString]

Just now, Spy Car said:

He called for it to be extended until 2025 (at least).

Bill

Thanks.  I was just reading the part up thread. I missed the speech. 

[Spy Car]

Just now, HeartString said:

Thanks.  I was just reading the part up thread. I missed the speech. 

He devoted some time speaking to extending the tax credit and the rationale for doing so as an important part of the program moving forward.

Bill

[MEmama]

26 minutes ago, HeartString said:

Where are you that daycare is affordable? Daycare for 1 full time and 1 school age kid was over $1000 a month when my kids were young and it’s only gone up.  It took almost my whole income at the time.  

My BIL in Ohio pays $1500 per month for one kid. They are very excited for him to become school age.

I doubt they net much of anything from his wife’s salary after daycare and aftercare for their other kid are accounted for. 😞 

[Carol in Cal.]

49 minutes ago, Spy Car said:

I disagree entirely with your assessment of the state of public school education here in CA.

Bill

 

 

It's based on direct observations locally as well as information from parents and teachers in various parts of NorCal.  It may be different down by you.  It's mostly a mess up here.

[Carrie12345]

2 hours ago, Kanin said:

Is Biden saying it would be compulsory - or just available to people who want it?

Nope, that’s just my own added commentary.
I happen to be a state that had a “high” compulsory age and they just lowered it to K-age, so I have biases, lol.

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, HeartString said:

Where are you that daycare is affordable? Daycare for 1 full time and 1 school age kid was over $1000 a month when my kids were young and it’s only gone up.  It took almost my whole income at the time.  

In the hypothetical world of this proposed plan to have affordable daycare.

[maize]

1 hour ago, Spy Car said:

I disagree entirely with your assessment of the state of public school education here in CA.

Bill

 

 

My friend teaches at a Title I school in CA. Her students (middle school) regularly achieve results on standardized tests that are worse than what you would expect if the bubbles were filled in at random. 

Your experience with public schools is not I think representative of the state.

I wasn't at all impressed by the L.A. county district school my friend's child went to when we lived in San Pedro. It was considered among the better schools in the district; apparently what that meant was entirely developmentally inappropriate kindergarten homework. Her five year old was coming home with spelling list of words like through. Every week a new list of not-grade-appropriate words. Pure pedagogical nonsense.

[BlsdMama]

8 hours ago, WildflowerMom said:

All of it sounds good to me, but I’ll really be ecstatic when we get universal healthcare.  🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

As good as it sounds, I believe it will sign my death warrant. 

[BlsdMama]

3 hours ago, MEmama said:

My BIL in Ohio pays $1500 per month for one kid. They are very excited for him to become school age.

I doubt they net much of anything from his wife’s salary after daycare and aftercare for their other kid are accounted for. 😞 

So I admit we had this conversation today... so the value of an invested and actively engage mother surpasses a daycare or preschool worker, paid too low of a wage,  is incredibly valuable. I don’t understand why so many choose two incomes when it isn’t value added? I think I’m missing something.  Medical insurance?

[KungFuPanda]

3 hours ago, HeartString said:

Where are you that daycare is affordable? Daycare for 1 full time and 1 school age kid was over $1000 a month when my kids were young and it’s only gone up.  It took almost my whole income at the time.  

My daughter worked in the campus preschool during college.  Those kids paid more in tuition than she did.  It was a really nice preschool, but $$$.

[Farrar]

One of the things that I often see in conversations about public education is an assumption that one's experience - whether good or bad - is somehow universal - or mostly universal. If your local public schools are pretty good, don't assume everyone's are. If your local public schools are abysmal or you or your kids have public school horror stories, don't assume that's the most common narrative either.

American schooling is simply very hard to characterize overall. Even within a single school district, it can vary widely in quality and experience. Some schools are excellent for the kids at the top and scary for the kids who come in without the privilege of family support or with learning differences. Other schools are mediocre across the board - not terrible, but not really serving anyone needs adequately. Some schools do amazing work with populations that traditionally struggle but don't serve kids who have a big head start through family privilege very well.

No one is talking about making PreK mandatory. Even if they did, why do you care? You'd still be able to homeschool. Strongly seconding the idea that there are two distinct issues - too much focus on early academics with inappropriate expectations and whether or not preK should be funded. PreK can be totally appropriate - or not. But the existence of PreK does not mean forcing 3 yos to learn how to read.

We are already in a situation where a high school diploma doesn't get you anywhere. Funding the thing that does - community college - will not automatically make it high school plus. We're already there. That's another distinct problem that needs to be separated out.

[KungFuPanda]

13 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

So I admit we had this conversation today... so the value of an invested and actively engage mother surpasses a daycare or preschool worker, paid too low of a wage,  is incredibly valuable. I don’t understand why so many choose two incomes when it isn’t value added? I think I’m missing something.  Medical insurance?

Retirement income and the ability to support the family should the husband become unemployed, disabled, or die  . . . or just leave.  And sometimes the mother is the one who carries the medical insurance.

Edited April 30, 2021 by KungFuPanda

[HeartString]

32 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

So I admit we had this conversation today... so the value of an invested and actively engage mother surpasses a daycare or preschool worker, paid too low of a wage,  is incredibly valuable. I don’t understand why so many choose two incomes when it isn’t value added? I think I’m missing something.  Medical insurance?

Lots of single mothers with preschoolers out there too. Husbands with wages too low to support a family.  Medical Insurance for sure.  I quit to stay home as soon as my husband had a job that offered insurance, for many years he worked places that didn’t offer it.  

Edited April 30, 2021 by HeartString

[RootAnn]

46 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

. I don’t understand why so many choose two incomes when it isn’t value added? I think I’m missing something.  Medical insurance?

Some people are not cut out to stay at home. They'd go crazy.

My co-workers & boss all insisted I would be back at work in six months. (That was almost 18 years ago.) My friend & co-worker was chomping at the bit to get back to work well before her 6 week maternity leave was up.

[Farrar]

1 hour ago, BlsdMama said:

So I admit we had this conversation today... so the value of an invested and actively engage mother surpasses a daycare or preschool worker, paid too low of a wage,  is incredibly valuable. I don’t understand why so many choose two incomes when it isn’t value added? I think I’m missing something.  Medical insurance?

In addition to the reasons already stated, there are so few protections for motherhood in the work force. If you have a career, pausing it to stay home for a few years isn't really possible in America without risking a lot of long term income. Sure, you only just cover preschool when you're a young mom, but if you stay out of the workforce, you'll lose opportunities and promotions and pay increases that you'll never be able to come close to making up. And if you're not in a career at all, you may risk having to take a lower wage job longer term when you do go back. Essentially, it's not about the money for the scant years of childcare - it's about the long term money.

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, BlsdMama said:

So I admit we had this conversation today... so the value of an invested and actively engage mother surpasses a daycare or preschool worker, paid too low of a wage,  is incredibly valuable. I don’t understand why so many choose two incomes when it isn’t value added? I think I’m missing something.  Medical insurance?

A large number of husbands/fathers do not have health benefits with their jobs. Many two income households I know have one spouse who works a position does not commonly come salaried with benefits. 

In many areas, the cost of living is very high and one income cannot possible pay for even the basics. Saying just move is of no value because finding employment is an issue, and if everyone living in a high col moved to a low col area, it would drive the cost of housing through the roof which is what has happened in numerous areas this year.

It is very, very risky to be a non working parent. All those years out of the work force makes it very difficult to get back into the work force into a decent job. Spouses get sick, die, lose their jobs with benefits, leave. 

College tuition has outpaced wages by 500%. Financial aid is non existent to middle class families, and some states have pathetic community college systems where students spend money for two years thinking they are saving over going to u diversity, then go to transfer, and find out they are getting credit for exactly nothing and missed out on standard freshmen scholarships so now they get to go to school for another four years at higher price with less assistance. So parents are frightened about not having enough funds to assist their young adults, and can't save for this on only one income, but the government and colleges base their financial aid decisions on the assumption that parents have saved, and have saved a lot of money.

Women can not longer build credit based on their husband's income and credit worthiness.

Many people are simply their best versions of themselves by having a career. I sacrificed nineteen years to homemaking and homeschooling and was just barely hanging on by the end. I am infinitely happier and I truly believe, a better me, now that I am slowly building a career however short it may end up being.