Quebec provides universal childcare for less than $7 a day | Hacker News Reader

Quebec provides universal childcare for less than $7 a day

theguardian.com

51 pointshoward94121 comments

Certainly that's not the full cost. It just subsidizes it heavily. (Not that it's a bad idea to do so. Just that $7 isn't the real cost.)

I think everyone is aware of that.

So you have flagged the inaccurate headline then?

The article has sources that claim even with the subsidies it generates profit due to enabling mothers to work (and opening up jobs for single parents) plus higher paying jobs for childcare based on studies done originally in multiple trialed places in the USA that made the same claim - for each dollar put in, the government got back twelve roughly. Simply -a mother that doesn’t work doesn’t generate income tax and children who grow up in poor environments have bad outcomes that cost the government money. No where does the article claim that the parents shoulder the actual cost.

Do those stats take into account the negative externality of the child being raise for a large portion of its most critical years by a stranger instead of the mother (or father)?

That sounds like very much a strawman argument.

Parents need to have the income to support the family. They end up putting the child in childcare and taking on extra-work or if they are fortunate to rely on family members to afford childcare.

why do you assume that it's a negative externality?

One should consider the parents who would’ve never had children if they couldn’t have someone watch their child while they work, either because they had to or would prefer to work vs perform child rearing.

Should you not have children if a parent can’t be home during their early childhood years? That’s more philosophical.

Did you go to high school, bn-l?

Child care providers build strong relationships with the kids they take care of, they’re hardly strangers.

As much as their mother (or father)?

That appears to be some other argument you want to make - are you claiming the roughly seventy five percent of children in the USA who do not have a stay at home parent are damaged? Is your solution to let these children drown or to pay more for the parent to stay at home or some thing else?

[flagged]

Taxation without representation could not be juvenile thinking, it's a founding concept of my country which seems to be lost today

> Taxation without representation could not be juvenile thinking, it's a founding concept of my country which seems to be lost today

If by "my country" you mean the US, it's perfectly happy with taxation without representation. Current examples include the District of Columbia, certain situations in U.S. territories, and permanent residents. Past examples e.g. women.

It depends where the gov spends it. And it’s more like mugging because theft doesn’t necessarily imply there’s a gun whereas with taxation there is.

Isn't OP just arguing that, on balance, the other provinces subsidize Quebec via federal taxes?

There's a wildly misinformed group that spends a lot of time whining about equalization payments without understanding the first thing about them.

> extremely juvenile and uninformed take

Please edit swipes of comments on HN. If someone seems uninformed to you, think about how to educate rather than deride.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> That is bullshit.

> Quebec can provide all kinds of things with the billions of dollars it takes away from the people of other provinces every year.

Please avoid inflammatory, political/ideological outbursts like this on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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