Subject: Re: Fox News Freaking Out
In some states, the annual cost of infant child care is about $20K per year. In that scenario wouldn't make sense for the state to pay that amount to pay a third party to care for an infant so that the parent could work, unless the parent is working for more than $20K per year. You could instead just give money to the parent instead, and let them stay home.

Short-term, yes.

But, in the long-term, the kid grows up. Then the stay-at-home parent has a huge gap in their resume, their skillset is rusty (or obsolete), and they will have great difficulty re-entering the workforce. By channeling that $20K to a child care center, you generate economic activity in the form of that child care center, PLUS the economic activity of the would-be SAH parent. I don't have data, and will defer if someone does, but I'm guessing that $20K generates more than it costs. Even if it's only a little (e.g. $2K extra), it's a positive investment.

That's the reason why, unlike universal free public K-12 education, even the most generous rich countries don't have similar programs for early childhood childcare.

It's difficult to compare to other nations because they have other programs/policies that we don't. For example, paid maternity AND paternity leave. And not just a couple of weeks, but several months (minimum of 4 months in France, for example). And they have healthcare, where we -mostly- don't. Parents receive a lot of help, where here they mostly don't. So more parents here struggle, and need some form of daycare so they can work just to survive. That's less the case overseas.