Comment on Why the real poverty line is $140,000, this strategist argues
echolalia@lemmy.ml 1 week agoYou don’t need childcare if you’re childless
Childless person here. My partner and I had no ability to count on our families for childcare, or more basic things. Our choice to not have children was more about our (tenuous) mental health and lack of emotional support from family, but economics played a part too.
You are lucky to have support from someone who has good health and the ability to watch your kids (they are retired? None of my family can afford that)
Children aren’t some sort of luxury. Our poverty line should allow for people to afford children.
I don’t agree with all of this guy’s numbers but you absolutely should include the cost of children in the poverty line.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Daycare is, though. What you’re really talking about with daycare is paying for servants to watch your kids while you work or otherwise spend your time elsewhere.
There’s a real economic benefit in socializing the cost of care and professionalizing child care as a profession. But daycare prior to Pre-K is primarily occupying the child’s time and energy until the parents return. It’s a hard trade off between your time and someone else’s.
I think the point he hits on is the bizarre math of denying public child care to middle class Americans specifically. And I’m all for citing it as bad policy.
But it’s a very separate thing from household poverty, precisely because being unemployed (or relying on someone who is) effectively solves your child care cost problem.