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Centers in our area are in the mid-low quality range. The bare minimum profit goes back into the center, the wages are advertised as under $10/hr, with experience or education-CDA/experience combo- UP TO $12/hr
I could work at McDonalds, Lowes, etc and make more. IME the only people who stay long term are those with financial support elsewhere (spouse), those who really love the work, or those with no other viable options- eg centers offer deep discounts for employee children, it's a M-F job, etc. -
I am glad someone finally put it in an article. Gets tiring seeing all the "daycare is too expensive" articles. I do, however, disagree with the summation, that states should pour more money into childcare. I don't think that will work.
The article said that regulations are there to protect children, but can be costly tot he daycare. But are they all really there to protect kids? If so, wouldn't they be the same state to state? In some states, you can't even watch one child not related to you without asking the state for a license, but in others, you can have 6+. I am not an advocate for more government, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think the market could adjust itself with less or at least more consistent regulations. For example, I am most experienced with infant care. In my state, I can only watch 4 kids under 24 months. If I was able to watch 5, which is my comfort zone, I would make almost $10k more per year. (Five is the most I can carry if there were a fire...amazing how many kids you can tuck under an arm if needed
). It literally is the difference between qualifying for assistance and not qualifying when it comes to my income. Of course, that is just a small example, but I feel like if they put more importance on our jobs, parents would feed off that and not just the high cost of daycare. I am not sure how state funds get doled out, but I just look at schools. Teachers are underpaid, schools have been given billions in federal/state money, and teachers are still underpaid and quality of education has not improved. :confused: I just see the same happening for daycares. The money will be sparingly passed down, but a large part of it would probably be wasted and go to the salaries of the people they hire to oversee it. 
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Because personal responsibility died?
Childcare used to be a luxury. Something considered and budgeted for before having kids. Now it is a right?
IDK. Erma Bombeck wrote about it 30 years ago. Laughed until I cried. Now it just makes me sad.- Unless otherwise stated, all my posts are personal opinion and worth what you paid for them.
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The problem is wages. They haven't went up in 20 years. Starting wages in my town are the SAME as they were in 1999. At the last place I worked, I went back after being gone for 10 years. I started at $3/hr LESS than I made when I left. There are MANY people in my town bringing home $200-$250 a week from a full-time job after deductions. Anyone who thinks corporations can't afford to pay their workers more is dead wrong. Profits are huge for these businesses, they just aren't trickling down to employees. Free trade agreements have ruined our economy-this wasn't a problem before it became so easy to ship American jobs overseas. If we protect American jobs, people can afford to pay for childcare.Comment
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I disagree. Not particularly with you but with this often brought up argument.
You kind of rock, IMHO.
My starting rates were $35 a week in 1989. I am at $125 now. I have had pretty good increases.
Minimum wage went form $3.35 to $7.25.
If "they" keep raising wages everyone else just raises their rates.
The only sustainable solution is personal accountability.- Unless otherwise stated, all my posts are personal opinion and worth what you paid for them.Comment
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She was jealous of her neighbor who got to go out to work.
Considered doing it so she could have lunch breaks, wear clean clothing and have adult conversations. Daydreamed of the peacefulness of it all from her perspective of a "frumpy housewife".
The reality that she saw was that this neighbor had to give her entire paycheck, plus fifty, to her other neighbor for that privilege.
Erma's husband did not earn enough for her to go to work.
The punchline was that the neighbor worked in a daycare, taking care of other peoples kids, to pay someone to take care of hers.- Unless otherwise stated, all my posts are personal opinion and worth what you paid for them.Comment
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In 1990, my sister paid $2.25 per hour, per child in a small town in Minnesota for childcare. She was shocked when she heard this weekend (from me) that our county's average rate is $2.45. It may be different elsewhere, but around here, wages have been mostly stagnant for around 20 years. Starting wages still average $10.50 per hour for skilled jobs, minimum wage for unskilled. I do not know how some of my parents manage to pay me, honestly.I disagree. Not particularly with you but with this often brought up argument. You kind of rock, IMHO.
My starting rates were $35 a week in 1989. I am at $125 now. I have had pretty good increases.
Minimum wage went form $3.35 to $7.25.
If "they" keep raising wages everyone else just raises their rates.
The only sustainable solution is personal accountability.Comment
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Holy cow!
She must have found a weird pocket of expensive providers..... I've lived in MN my whole life and there are many counties in the state today that don't charge that much today.
When I first got licensed (20+ yrs ago) the standard hourly rate for licensed providers was about .85 to $1.00 an hour. The state assistance program reimbursed approximately .60 an hour.
Today, the state assistance program reimburses something like $2.37 an hour.
Min. wage around here has stayed around $5.25 to $5.75 until 2011 when the first increase in over a decade happened and they raised the min wage to $6.15
We are expected to be at $9.50 by the first of August.
Daycare costs on a similar scale have NOT increased at all.
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I won't go too much into it, as I am long winded, but wages have increased, just not as much in comparison to the cost of living. My mom charged under a $1 an hour for kids in her daycare in the 80s. Now, that same town, it is closer to $2.50 an hour. Gas at that time was about $.80 a gallon and is now staying steady at about $2.50 a gallon. Food costs have gone up so much, that people drive 30 minutes just to go to a walmart and get them a little cheaper.
It is all relative. Wages go up, but the cost to do business goes up even more. After the second child, you have to determine if going to work is even worth while. For a lot of people, even making a third of their paycheck after taxes and daycare is necessary, sometimes just for insurance benefits.
On a side note, back in the day, having children almost always meant going down to a single income so one parent could stay home. It wasn't even talked about much, because it was just expected that one parent would raise the kids and the other would work. Daycare is now expected. Parents are interviewing while still in the process of conceiving. The idea of one parent staying home is almost becoming non existent. Not sure if it is a "keeping up with the Jones" kind of thing, but they want the fancy cars and big house and someone has to pay for it and according to this article and low quality daycares, the kid is the one who ultimately does.:confused:
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Just to add...is there a statistic on how many daycare families are on state aid, including childcare assistance? I would not be surprised if they were pretty high as well. Seems like being dependent on government aid is pretty common nowadays.Comment
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this info is from data gathered in 2014
Child care subsidies help low-income families with children under age 13 pay for child care so that parents can work or participate in training or education activities. Parents typically receive subsidies in the form of vouchers that they can use with a provider of their choice–whether a relative, neighbor, child care center, or after-school program. States have a great deal of flexibility to establish child care subsidy policies to meet their needs. Thus, national data on the characteristics of families served masks a large degree of variation across individual States.
Number served. Approximately 1.41 million children and 852,900 families per month received child care assistance in FY 2014.
Income level. Of the families served in FY 2014, 51 percent were below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), or $19,790 for a family of three. Twenty-seven percent had incomes between 100 and 150 percent of the FPL, and 11 percent had incomes above 150 percent of FPL. The remaining families had invalid or unreported data (5%) or a child as head of household (5%).
TANF status. Nationally, the average monthly percent of families reporting income from TANF was approximately 14 percent in FY 2014. Most States give families currently receiving, at-risk of receiving, or transitioning off TANF, first priority for child care assistance.
Ages. Subsidies help pay for care for infants and toddlers, preschoolers, as well as school-aged children. For children receiving CCDF subsidies in FY 2014:
34 percent were school-aged (6 years & older)
11 percent were kindergarten-aged (age 5 years)
28 percent were preschoolers (3 & 4 years old)
28 percent were infants and toddlers (younger than 3 years old)
Settings – Type of Care. Because the subsidy program emphasizes parental choice, children are cared for in a wide variety of settings. Nationally, in FY 2014:
72 percent of children receiving subsidies were cared for in a child care center
18 percent were in family child care homes
3 percent were in the child’s own home
6 percent were in a group home
Less than 1 percent had invalid data or did not report any data
Settings – Regulation Status. Nationally, in FY 2014:
86 percent of children receiving subsidies were cared for in regulated settings,
13 percent were settings legally operating without regulation. Of those,
62 percent were served by relatives in child, family, and group homes; and
38 percent were served by non-relatives in child, family, and group homes
Family Copayments. Of those families with reported income in FY 2014, approximately 77 percent paid a copayment. Excluding families with no copayments, child care copayments averaged 7 percent of family income. More than one-third of all States and Territories (21 in FY 2014) served families where the average assessed family copayment was five percent or less of family income.
Reasons for Care. In FY 2014, 92 percent of families cited either employment or education and training as the reason for needing child care. Another 7 percent cited protective services as reasons for care.
Providers Receiving CCDF Funds. Nationally, in FY 2014, 369,606 child care providers served children receiving CCDF subsidies:
23 percent (86,574) of providers receiving CCDF funds were child care centers; and
77 percent (283,032) of providers receiving CCDF funds were home-based providers.
For 17 of the 56 State and Territory grantees, between 85 and 100 percent of providers were regulated; for another 22, between 50 and 84.9 percent of their providers were regulated. At the opposite end of the spectrum, only 5 grantees (3 states and 2 territories) reported that less than 25 percent of their providers were regulated.
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.Comment
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Well in my area, parents just won't pay for quality care. The quality doesn't seem to be a priority to them. I don't understand what that comes from.
When wages go up, so does the price on everything else. Take the grocery store for instance. Many of them use high school kids as much as possible and pay min. wage. That wage goes up, and so does the cost of everything in the store. Fuel prices were sky high for several years, so they raised the cost on everything to cover that stuff. Even trash collection got hit with "fuel surcharge" fees, and on my bills at least those fees haven't been lowered even when the price of gas is now cut in half. Prices on the goods we buy also went up for the cost of fuel, because shipping cost more. But those prices haven't gone down either. So for all those who are screaming to make the min. wage $15 an hour, well that isn't going to help the way I see it prices will just reflect it then, making expenses match up with the increase.
I also agree with the regulation part making prices higher. I simply can't afford to get licensed. Having to do the things the gal that licenses me wants, would cost far more than I make. So, for that reason I can take less kids and can't take state subsidy (not sure I would anyway with the info I have, not sure), but that takes me out of the mix to provide quality care to lower income people.
It is a problem. I couldn't afford to do this as a single income household, and I lost money last year. I couldn't even claim any of my T/S expenses, because I lost money before they were counted. Given the fact that it is so hard to earn a living on it, I see us having less and less childcare at all, much less quality care.Comment
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If Daycare Is So Expensive Why Are Provider's Having to Struggle?
so many people having children that they cannot afford. I busted my butt at 16 to stay OFF the system and pay my way (and my child's). Where is the personal responsibility? The pride?
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