With its white pillars and soaring steeple, the Friendly Avenue Baptist Church evokes an illusory past when fathers left for work, mothers stayed home to mother, and education began when children turned five. But its sought-after preschool illuminates the dilemmas of modern family life.

Until their elder son started kindergarten this fall, Jessica and Matt Lolley paid almost $2,000 a month for their two boys’ care — roughly a third of their income and far more than their payments on their three-bedroom house. But one of the teachers who watched the boys earns so little — $10 an hour — that she spends half her time working at Starbucks, where the pay is 50 percent higher and includes health insurance.

The center’s director wants to raise wages, but has little room to pass along costs to parents who are already stretched. She has been trying since February to replace a teacher who quit without warning; four applicants accepted the job in turn, but none showed up.

“I’ve been an administrator for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said the director, Sandy Johnson. “Directors are at the point where they’re willing to hire anyone who walks through the door. The children deserve far more than that, and the families deserve far more than that.”

Democrats describe the problem as a fundamental market failure — it simply costs more to provide care than many families can afford — and are pushing an unusually ambitious plan to bridge the gap with federal subsidies.

The huge social policy bill being pushed by President Biden would cap families’ child care expenses at 7 percent of their income, offer large subsidies to child care centers, and require the centers to raise wages in hopes of improving teacher quality. A version before the House would cost $250 billion over a decade and raise annual spending fivefold or more within a few years. An additional $200 billion would provide universal prekindergarten.

“This would be the biggest investment in the history of child care,” said Stephanie Schmit, a child care expert at the Center for Law and Social Policy, a research group that supports the measure. “For too long, parents have had to struggle with the high cost of care, while child care providers have been incredibly undervalued and underpaid. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do right for everyone.”

Prospects remain uncertain for the broader bill, which includes new educational, health care, and child-rearing subsidies. Some Democrats balked at Mr. Biden’s request for $3.5 trillion over 10 years and proposed a figure closer to $2 trillion.

Republicans strongly oppose the safety net expansion, saying that it is unaffordable and smacks of socialism, and some conservatives warn the child care provisions would inflate costs, impose burdensome regulations, and penalize parents who prefer informal care.

The Treasury Department reported last month that the average cost of care is roughly $10,000 a year per child and consumes about 13 percent of family income, nearly twice what the government considers affordable. At the same time, it noted the average teacher earns about $24,000 a year, many live in poverty, and nearly half receive some public assistance.

“It’s among the lowest-paid of all occupations,” said Lea J.E. Austin of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. “People have a hard time seeing that this is complex, specialized work.”

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The coronavirus pandemic has made the problem worse. Competing employers have raised pay, and some teachers are afraid to supervise children who cannot be vaccinated or masked. Nationally, the work force has declined by about 12 percent from prepandemic levels.

Other uncertainties remain. Mr. Biden proposed subsidies for about three-quarters of households, excluding the most affluent. But the House version covers everyone.

Beyond legislative detail, progressives are seeking a paradigm shift. They see child care much like public education: a service on which society depends and therefore should ensure.

“It’s a public good and should be treated that way” said Julie Kashen, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “The shared stake in seeing children thrive doesn’t suddenly begin when they turn five.”

But conservatives fear government intrusion into the family realm. Rachel Greszler, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation, recently warned Congress that the measure would increase costs and drive small centers out of business, especially those based in homes and churches. She also said the policy would penalize parents who stay at home, taxing them to expand center-based care and ignoring the “tremendous personal and societal value” of full-time child-rearing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43251402)

you’ll get in the way of the budding child care industrial complex

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43251494)

the average white collar worker does 10 hours of productive work a week, at most. office jobs are mostly nonsense, and if we got women out of the workforce, we'd be just as productive if not more.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43252149)

i'm going to staff it with 'retired' escorts

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43251452)

If they don’t, they’d be better off providing their own childcare since the expense of paying for it is more than the additional income from a second working spouse.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43252232)

Instead of just writing checks, why doesn't the government figure out where all of that loss comes from (I'm guessing insurance and other bullshit) and then try subsidize that with some national insurance program or other shit?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43252256)

https://ij.org/case/washington-d-c-day-care-education/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43252377)

Look at colleges for a great example that most XOers are familiar with: the money doesn't go to the people that provide actual labor, it goes into bullshit like diversity programs and lazy rivers at the dorms.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43252373)

Horseshit. It's work that literally billions of people have done with no training.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4939517&forum_id=2#43253052)