Child care is so expensive in NYC that it's become a crisis | Hacker News Reader

Child care is so expensive in NYC that it's become a crisis

gothamist.com

20 pointslaurex13 comments

First year with 2 kids in daycare, 6 months after COVID hit, we paid $38,000 for a years worth of care before the Government intervened and made some concessions. Now it's considerably more affordable here in Australia, I think now we would be paying about $15,000-$16,000 AUD

I am thankful the Government made some changes to make it more affordable. $38k was more than our mortgage and put a lot of strain on our finances.

I feel like the honest solution is to just get over living in NYC and live somewhere else. As someone who lived there in their early 20s... and left. I have zero regrets.

The consequences of 2008 era (and generally the way of the current fiat system) are coming to roost.

Asset prices and investments in unproductive assets - such as real estate - is far too high for low price businesses to be sustainable.

There are only two ways out of this - taxing the rich more (more capital gains brackets) and banning corporate ownership of physical property until the prices of properties collapse to sustainable values.

Government could also create an environment where it's easier/cheaper to build on property.

I guess paying up front for your own health, safety, instruction, isn't that big of a bargain as the capitalists want you to believe. Everything must be profited off, everything is a commodity, there is no public service, everyone can be squeezed for the extra dollar.

Yet you still read Americans blabber that the "europoor" work practically for free giving away all they have in taxes. After all, it's all grounded on the fear that taxes -god forbid- may end up helping another person.

Now imagine you have twins, or more. There is no buy-one-get-one-free on childcare, you're now down 100k a year.

Housing, housing, housing. The answer is always housing.

The cost of housing in NYC (and other desirable areas) is so egregious that it's nearly impossible for people to live there who aren't rich. So if you're in a line of work that isn't scalable by means of automation, there are a whole host of jobs that can't afford to live in places where folks who can scale their output have taken up all the scarce resources. This story has repeated itself time and time again across different cities and jobs (e.g. super expensive resort destinations where people like cleaners, retail workers, waitstaff, ski instructors, etc. can no longer afford to live there), and the root cause solution is nearly always the same: build more housing. And then build some more.

I would extend that to cost of living in general. If you want services from local people, you need to pay them enough to live locally, which includes housing, food, healthcare, taxes, and their childcare, too.

But my primary point is most of the other things that lead to a high cost of living in a particular area are all downstream from housing. The high cost of childcare and food in some locales are a direct result of the high cost of housing.

Healthcare (in the US at least) is a whole separate horrible mess.

I’m not convinced that healthcare really counts as being downstream from housing. The ludicrous utility pricing in some places (PG&E territory in California, for example) also appears to be its own special disaster that is largely independent of housing or even labor prices in CA.

> I’m not convinced that healthcare really counts as being downstream from housing.

Yes, agreed, that's what I meant by "Healthcare (in the US at least) is a whole separate horrible mess."

I agree that it's downstream from housing. Canada is learning this lesson harshly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com