If only we could have this kind of discussion here in Canada on the merits of universal daycare. Nope. Only in the USA. Turns out Californians will be going to the polls to decide whether to pursue a universal pre-school program.
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This is not mere ivory-tower doom-mongering. This is what a sober assessment of a similar universal day care program in Quebec suggests.
If Reiner's initiative is approved in June, individuals making more than $400,000 a year ($800,000 for families) will face a 1.7 percent tax increase to raise $2.5 billion to finance three hours of free preschool a day for all of California's 4-year-olds -- even the 62 percent who already attend preschool without universal subsidies.
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The final price tag for Quebec's day care program is 33 times what was originally projected: It was supposed to cost $230 million over five years, but now gobbles $1.7 billion every year. With this kind of spending, one would think that Quebec was offering top-notch day care to every tot, toddler and teen.
Think again.
Much of the increased spending has gone not toward increased access, but increased costs. Day care worker unions, on the threat of strike, negotiated a 40 percent increase in wages over four years. The cost of care has doubled since the program began, with the annual per-infant cost now exceeding $15,000.
Besides unions, the other major reason for the skyrocketing costs is that when people don't pay the full price for a service, they consume more of it -- what economists call the problem of the moral hazard: Quebecois taxpayers pay 80 to 90 percent of the cost of care, requiring parents to pitch in only $7 a day.
Such low co-pays have encouraged mothers who might otherwise have stayed at home with their newborns to return to work. But any hope that the program would be able to meet the demand that it created was doomed right from the start, because it banned new centers and barred existing ones from participating, decimating the private day care market. (It has since reversed this policy). Literally overnight, long lines of desperate parents vying for a "free" day care spot emerged. Parents registered babies yet to be conceived. And when they did land a spot, they paid their $7-a-day to hold it -- even if they were months away from using it.
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Many low-income parents, who lost their child care tax deductions in order to finance the program, have been crowded out by middle- and upper-income parents more savvy at negotiating the system. According to research by Peter Shawn Taylor for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, half of Quebec's day care spaces are taken by families in the top 30 percent income bracket.
Read the whole thing.
4 comments:
When my wife and I got married we decided to have three children, this took place over a period of 11 yrs.
We did not ask or receive any help whatsoevere, finacial or otherwise, we brought the children into the world and we paid the cost`s, yes, sometimes, most of the time, we went without things to ensure that when the children came home from school, mom was there for them.
Learn to get along with what you have not what you can get from the government.
I do not agree with this paid leave for new mom`s. you bring them into the world, now pay the cost yourselves, period!
Cheers!
That is the most intelligent and forward thinking argument against daycare I have ever heard, I'm going to have my wife quit her job so she can stay home. So what if we have to it Kraft Dinner and Ichiban for 3 square. Anon did it so we should all have to do it.
Your right our children deserve no better then we or previous generations enjoyed.
Maybe well we are at it we should move into caves again. I mean that his how we used to live and if it was good enough for the cro-mags , it damn well good enough for us.
Thanks for enlightening me.
Chad, aparently the world owes you a living and an education; and it should also raise your children.
And I think that you do live in a cave, figuratively speaking: the things that you seem to regard as ideal, or as your right, are anything but, as you seek others to assist you in your most primary obligation, whch is child care. There is a time and place for charity, and this does not mean that we should choose it when we do not truly need it. Ichiban and KD is preferable.
I hope you and your socialist, progressive, bolshevik or menshivik (whatever you heroes call yourselves these days) stay away from my childen.
No one seems to remember that when Quebec came up with this "bright idea", it was only $5 a day. Every knows it doesn't work, so why would Martin try to foist it on us? Because middle income earners will vote for him if they think there's something in it for them. The lie is in the fact that they'll never see it because it's not sustainable.
And there's no reason single income families (where one parent provides child care) should subsidize dual income families. Even if the dual income families feel entitled to free daycare, who do they think is paying?
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