Being a parent of a young child myself, I can very much empathize with this article, and the plight of child care workers. The conclusions are only logical that this is an area where government support and intervention can reap vast societal benefits. There is an increasing body of research indicating that the quality of the care a child receives from birth, as well as the safety of socio-cultural environment a child is born into (which can be controlled by high quality child care), are strongly correlated with how productive a member of society the child grows up to be. Why wouldn't the government want to maximize that? If we can pay for elder care via social security, how can we afford not to pay for child care? Some countries are ahead in this regard.