$10 a day
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Minimum wage $15/hour.
$120 a day (BEFORE taxes, etc).
So you need at least 12 kids per person to supposedly break even.
Math is hard.
Oh and "free preschool." Yeah, "free..."
Wait a minute, you are starting with the assumption that Child Care is a minimum wage job. Go through a McDonalds Drive-Thru and ask yourself if you want any of these people watching kids that aren’t their own. (Giving the benefit of the doubt that these people will be more conscientious about their own kids). You have to start at a minimum of $22.50 per hour for childcare workers. And don’t dismiss the taxes and benefits. That $22.50 is really $33 per hour.
Next, you calculated 40 hour work weeks. No, the parents are working 40 hour work weeks, meaning the kids are there 45 hours (assuming 30 minute commutes) and add in another 5 hours since the workers will need to be there at least 30 minutes early and stay 30 minutes late to cleanup and parents arriving late. That’s 50 hour work weeks. That means that the employee cost for 10 hours of the week is actually $49 per hour (time and a half for overtime).
So every employee is costing you ($33 x 40) + ($49 X 10) = $1880 divide that by $50 per week per child and that’s 37.6 kids per caregiver.
So that’s 38 kids per caregiver provided you have no nurse and no administrators, plus don’t mind also working as a caregiver. making $22 per hour AND doung all the administrative stuff on your own time for free…
Now, I assume we will need to put these kids into a building of some sort?
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All of the math above is great. Now, dont forget one major reason why childcare is expensive. There are laws that cap how many kids per caregiver there can be. I think it’s around 4-6 kids per caregiver in a daycare facility? So the 42 per caregiver is just slightly breaking the law.
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All of the math above is great. Now, dont forget one major reason why childcare is expensive. There are laws that cap how many kids per caregiver there can be. I think it’s around 4-6 kids per caregiver in a daycare facility? So the 42 per caregiver is just slightly breaking the law.
All of the math above is great. Now, dont forget one major reason why childcare is expensive. There are laws that cap how many kids per caregiver there can be. I think it’s around 4-6 kids per caregiver in a daycare facility? So the 42 per caregiver is just slightly breaking the law.
I miscalculated. It’s 38 per caregiver…
And again, we haven’t touched on the rent of the building, maintenance, insurance, and it is simply not feasible to not have administrators and maintenance staff beyond the caregivers.
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Had a client whose primary job was working in law enforcement. His wife owned a daycare. We talked over his retirement and pension plan, and of course his wife's business was part of the conversation.
He told me emphatically that her business would almost never turn a profit and if it did, it would be a tiny profit. They built the building with an eye towards the business failing and also as a tax write-off. Their actual plans were to use the building for a future business...One that would make money.
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The problem is we live in an economy that basically requires dual incomes. Which requires full time day care.
With the costs to operate, as Jolly points out, the cost to the parents is incredibly high while the pay for the workers is incredibly low.
There are no easy solutions, but Kamala’s idea makes zero sense and, at best, masks the underlying issue using a large tax funded bandaid.
I don’t mind universal preschool btw. Studies show kids that get preschool are substantially more likely to do well in school and life. So if we want taxpayer funded preschool (aka just more public school years) that is fine but I have no idea where they’ll find the classrooms, facilities, or teachers.
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The problem is we live in an economy that basically requires dual incomes. Which requires full time day care.
With the costs to operate, as Jolly points out, the cost to the parents is incredibly high while the pay for the workers is incredibly low.
There are no easy solutions, but Kamala’s idea makes zero sense and, at best, masks the underlying issue using a large tax funded bandaid.
I don’t mind universal preschool btw. Studies show kids that get preschool are substantially more likely to do well in school and life. So if we want taxpayer funded preschool (aka just more public school years) that is fine but I have no idea where they’ll find the classrooms, facilities, or teachers.
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@89th students that attend private preschool have higher success rates, but Head Start preschools are a disaster. I’ll let you figure out why there’s a discrepancy l.
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LOL I'm sure I know why. That being said, here are the first 4 articles when I was looking for a study (I forget where) that looked at preschool's impact:
https://news.mit.edu/2023/study-preschool-gives-big-boost-college-attendance-0208
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/10/1079406041/researcher-says-rethink-prek-preschool-prekindergarten
