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Comment by interpol_p | Hacker News Reader

The cost of day care over there is stunning. The day care we send our children to in Australia is very similar to what you describe (i.e., compassionate and loving staff, focus on play in a mixed social environment, lots of outings and great food).

But the cost is $85 per day, per child. We have two children so it costs more than our mortgage to take our children to day care. It is also one of the more affordable day cares.

The government is supposed to cover 50% of the cost, but only up to maximum of $7,500. Meaning they end up covering far less than half.

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Where I live in the US you can send a child to a good daycare for about ~$350 per month.

What causes daycare to be so expensive in Australia? Wages, regulation, not enough supply, something else?

Having spend the last 3 months in Australia I would guess it is regulations,security and liabilities.

It has to do with the area, too. I live outside Boston, and it's 350/week around here; and we're not even at once of the expensive ones.

Just to give a good indication of the range of options/prices in the US, a good day care in Seattle proper runs just under $2000/m and has a 1 year long waiting list. We applied for 3 and got into 1. (For an infant, prices go down about $150/m for every year of life).

I'm not sure why it's so expensive. They do seem constantly undersupplied and I expect they pay their staff well.

I found some average prices for Australia [1]. They list "Long day care (child care centre)" at $70 - $185 per day, which is what we found when looking at prices.

[1] https://www.careforkids.com.au/child-care-articles/article/7...

Edit: looking at some of the other replies, it seems just as expensive in some parts of the US.

$350? Is that subsidized? That doesn't seem possible.

A good student:teacher ratio for 1-2 year olds is 1:3, for 3 year olds is 1:5 and for 4 year olds is 1:8. Assuming an even mix, that's an overall ratio of 1:4. 350 x 4 x 12 is $17K a year per teacher, and that's only if nothing goes towards rent, supplies and the other costs of running a day care.

It isn't possible...this person is way off.

It's entirely possible if by daycare the person means a 1:5 or higher teacher:child ratio in a rural part of the country, or possibly just a babysitting service with a zoo of children and very few teachers.

I'm sure it's just Mom's taking kids into their home to make some money on the side. They're making less than minimum wage and aren't accounting for any rent or supplies, but it's better than the nothing they'd get staying home to look after their own kids.

My point doing the math was that a day-care as a "real" business has to charge at least double the OP's $350 a month.

$85 a day is about $1,700 per month, which is typical for a major American city for an infant.

Where the heck did you get $350/month? In the midwest I was paying nearly $1000/month per child for a good daycare, that is pretty darn common.

Data point: private daycare for 1-3 year olds (4:1 ratio) is about €1700/month in Germany, but in my town it gets subsidized by around €8-900/month. Some counties subsidize down to 0 cost if they want to attract families; publicly run daycares are around €450 for daycare and €220 for kindergarten, but they have stricter closing jours (our private one is open 8-6) and more days off per year (up to 6 weeks).

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