> Would make sense IMO to provide an equal value waiver to those who take care of their kid rather than send them to childcare.

This is a great way to kill a policy.

It would technically be most fair if every parent was given the same amount of money per child, period. Then they could do what they needed or wanted with it.

But doing so would not only increase the costs dramatically (by a multiple) it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care.

That’s great in a hypothetical world where budgets are infinite, but in the real world they’re not. The more broadly you spread the money, the less benefit each person receives. If you extended an equal benefit to parents who were already okay with keeping their children home, it’s likely that the real outcome would be reduced benefits for everyone going to daycare. Now you’re giving checks to parents who were already doing okay at home but also diminished the childcare benefit for those who needed it, which was the goal in the beginning.

> The more broadly you spread the money, the less benefit each person receives.

But this is true in the other direction, too. Means testing costs money, time, and ensures some needy folks fall off the program.

For example, Florida did drug testing as a condition for welfare benefits... and it cost more than they saved. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/us/no-savings-found-in-fl...

> But doing so would not only increase the costs dramatically (by a multiple) it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care.

And while no-strings-attached payouts appeal to rational geeks, they usually lead to public perception problems. If you give a voucher for childcare to a parent struggling with addiction or a gambling habit, they will probably send the kid to childcare. If you give them cash, they probably won't.

It's a minority that might not be worth fixating on from a rational policy-making point of view, you bet it's the minority that will be in the headlines. Selfishly, I'd like cash in lieu of all the convoluted, conditional benefits that are available to me. But I know why policymakers won't let me have it.

In Poland, they have a "universal child benefit" that pays a stipend for every child you have.

They do pay for it and it is expensive, but apparently it made a large reduction in child poverty, so that's a win.

From my understanding, it also reduced women in the workforce and reduced investment in childcare infrastructure since more mothers were then taking care of children at home.

So this is possible, it just depends on what you want to incentivize.

> The more broadly you spread the money, the less benefit each person receives. If you extended an equal benefit to parents who were already okay ...

By your own argument, this policy dilutes the value New Mexico / Feds were prior giving to the poorer parents who met the means testing New Mexico used before, then, no? Because this isn't the beginning of "free" childcare in NM, they are just expanding it beyond the prior poverty-line times 'X" means testing.

Ergo per your logic "real outcome would be reduced benefits" to the poorer parents who already had subsidized childcare.

Edit: accidently switched "childcare" to "healthcare" a few times, flipped back

"But doing so would not only increase the costs dramatically (by a multiple) it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care."

And that's the argument against many of these policies - removal of the needs based testing. Odd to see you defend the policy on the very basis others attack it on.

I would very much be considered someone who doesn’t “need” the funding, but when deciding between having a 3rd child or just sticking with 2, I wasn’t comfortable enough to afford 3 in daycare and helping 3 through college. However, I expect my offspring to be significantly greater economic contributors to society than the average. It would have made sense for society to fund my childcare to incentivize me to populate the earth.

>Now you’re giving checks to parents who were already doing okay at home but also diminished the childcare benefit for those who needed it, which was the goal in the beginning.

They're the ones who are basically paying the vast majority of the cost of this program, what's the problem with a small fraction of it coming back to them? Especially if it reduces the bureaucratic overhead of running it?

"it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care". Looking at data like 77% of US workers would face financial difficulty if a paycheck was delayed by just one week. I would imaging % of people with kids who don’t need it for child care is fairly tiny.

> But doing so would not only increase the costs dramatically (by a multiple) it would give money to many parents who didn’t need it for child care.

This exists. It’s called the Child Tax Credit.

If the children have any parent that is working, whether it is one or two, by definition they need more money.

The real reason this is “bad” is because the policy actually being implemented is, as the GP comment demonstrates, to get women into the workforce. This requires the goal to be getting them out of the home away from their children. Thus, you must relatively penalize mothers who stay home and care for their children, which is what this policy does. Of course, it is worse for children, worse for families, worse for mothers, worse for just about everything except “business.”

Edit to add: It is only better for the business and the economy short term, because ultimately it results in a lower birth rate and below replacement level fertility is the main problem we currently have for the near-future economy

Literally what Canada did under Harper, and then grew substantially larger under Trudeau.

End result is that Canada's child poverty rate was cut in half over the aughts.

https://x.com/trevortombe/status/1100416615202533377

And yes, it hit the same political hurdles you'd expect. A Liberal-party aide helped lose the 2006 selection by saying parents would burn it on "beer and popcorn". He's still around as a consultant and professional trash-talking commentator. This is ironic considering how the party championed it's success after they (rightly) expanded the program.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/liberal-apologizes-for-saying...

I guess Youre not a fan of UBI?