zlacker

>>toomuc+(OP)
This is fantastic! I hope they succeed and there is no abuse or other issues, because it will show how much an economy can grow when women are allowed to work to their full potential. Families who were previously in poverty because the mom would struggle to pay for childcare to work can now have assurance kids are ok while the mom can pursue jobs, start her own small business (huge chunk of businesses are small businesses ran by women) and prosper. If you pose your child’s safety vs another dollar, most parents would vote for their children. But if the children are taken care of, parents can give the economy their best and the taxes paid and GDP gained will pay back for the expense manyfold.

>>dzink+Y6
Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare. Stay at home moms do not provide a less valuable service than childcare providers. This policy appears to disincentives children staying with their mother even when it is preferred.

>>mothba+w7
> Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare.

This is a great way to kill a policy.

It would technically be most fair if every parent was given the same amount of money per child, period. Then they could do what they needed or wanted with it.

But doing so would not only increase the costs dramatically (by a multiple) it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care.

That’s great in a hypothetical world where budgets are infinite, but in the real world they’re not. The more broadly you spread the money, the less benefit each person receives. If you extended an equal benefit to parents who were already okay with keeping their children home, it’s likely that the real outcome would be reduced benefits for everyone going to daycare. Now you’re giving checks to parents who were already doing okay at home but also diminished the childcare benefit for those who needed it, which was the goal in the beginning.

>>Aurorn+cc
> The more broadly you spread the money, the less benefit each person receives.

But this is true in the other direction, too. Means testing costs money, time, and ensures some needy folks fall off the program.

For example, Florida did drug testing as a condition for welfare benefits... and it cost more than they saved. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/us/no-savings-found-in-fl...

>>ceejay+5h
> Florida did drug testing as a condition for welfare benefits... and it cost more than they saved

It's more complicated than that. Of the 6352 people who applied for TANF, 2306 dropped out during the process. Then of the 4046 TANF applicants remaining, only 2.6% tested positive for drugs. The vast majority of media coverage focused on the 2.6% being less than the ~8% drug-use rate in the general population.

What we don't know is of the people who dropped out, was this due to unintended reasons (privacy concerns, the inconvenience of the drug test, missing deadlines) or due to the intended reason (people self-selecting out because they knew they would test positive and become ineligible for 12 months). We'll never know the real breakdown, but it's misleading to say "it cost more than they saved".