Securing stable health insurance dictated most of my career decisions. I was captive to turrible gigs, had to pass on a lot of opportunities.
Want to revitalize our society?
#1 is Medicare for All. More startups, more risk taking & innovation, higher birth rate, etc.
#2 is childcare. Cheap, plentiful, good quality.
#3 is housing. Again: Cheap, plentiful, good quality. Plus, rentals better suited for young families (eg more 2 & 3 bedroom units).
This costs infinite money.
It's impossible to scale, because nobody wants an environment where their child is not getting attention from compassionate, engaged adults throughout the day. To get the same level of care as a stay at home parent, you need as many care workers as there are families with young children. And if you pay those workers comparably to the average wage, you need to tax the entire wages of one parent in each family to cover the care costs.
It's probably much cheaper to write checks to families encouraging them to have one parent care for their own children full time.
$50 if they’re watching 5 kids, $100 for 10, etc.
That’s assuming 0 overhead.
Ideally, yes.
But I'm not going to tell someone they can't work.
My wife was stay-at-home, until she couldn't take it any more, and then returned to work. Even though it cost us more overall (childcare, second car, etc).