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Comment by nekoashide | Hacker News Reader

I have done no research on this but maybe these are dual income households where one spouse stopped working to take care of children because of covid closing schools and they adapted to a single source of income. With childcare cost are there any reasons for them to go back at this point if the wages are low enough it doesn't make financial sense?

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>I have done no research on this but maybe these are dual income households where one spouse stopped working to take care of children because of covid closing schools and they adapted to a single source of income.

[raises hand]

Daycare was already expensive, know plenty of people myself included who are no longer doing it because they work from home. None the less because of COVID protocols meant less space in the daycare. Daycare really needs to be subsidized so costs can come down without totally screwing employees.

Honestly if 5 families could go in together, purchase land, and build community homesteads, you could build homes for everyone for 10-20k a pop, and maybe share tools, printers, and other big ticket items not worth owning in tiny quarters.

Professionally constructed homes for 400k, or for 200k you can get homes for 5 families (maybe a lot more depending on the land deal).

Then each family can easily live the 50's lifestyle w/ one parent working one taking care of kids... I hope more people start doing this, and as much as "tiny homes" are trending on youtube, etc I don't think it's a stretch to think it might take off and maybe even lift up renters, and bring down rental empires.

Even if childcare costs $1000 a month, it still makes financial sense to work.

Anecdotal but I know 4 Boomers who retired during covid. I also know a lot of younger folks who opted in to the gig economy instead of working at a store/restaurant, including 3 of my nieces and a nephew.

DoorDash went from 850ish million to 2.6Billion dollars in 2020 with over a million dashers and they account for about 45% of food delivery in the US.

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