No. of Recommendations: 1
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.
Maybe. But unlike K-12 education, it's an investment in the job skills of the parent, not the educational needs of the child. We're willing, as a society, to impose financial burdens on the collective through taxes in order to make sure that kids get feed and clothed and educated. When the interest at stake is, "pay more money so that the parent doesn't have a few-year gap in their resume," it's less clear-cut. Which, again, explains why public education is universal among Western developed economies but almost none of them provide <3 childcare.
