Last year, infant care cost $19,212 a year in Santa Clara County and $18,543 in Alameda County compared to a national average of about $9,000 to $9,600 a year, according to Child Care Aware of America. At an average of $16,542 a year, infant care in California costs more than the average annual cost of college tuition at a U.C. school, which is $12,570.
“There is a crisis in childcare,” says Sandee Blechman, executive director of Children’s Council of San Francisco, where 2,500 families are waiting for subsidized care. “Politicians are fretting about the cost of housing, but a lot of people pay more for childcare.”
Let me guess. They want more government to fix the problem that the government created. The government decided child care needed lots of regulations, so now it’s too expensive. At some point, people are going to realize the government is the cause of the problems.
There wasn’t even a license, capacity, or adult/child ratio back then. Now the facility requirements also make it much harder to run from your home. Once you have to rent space specifically for the daycare the costs skyrocket. Add more employees with licensing requirements and costs skyrocket even more.
In my only dabble with commercial property which was a few years ago, I had a decent-sized standalone office building in east bay which should have been an ideal childcare center (zoning allows it). I had one lady really wanting to rent it as she was renting a house and running a home-based childcare center but couldn’t enroll more kids due to state limit. So we went to planning department and sat down with them to discuss our options. Turns out we couldn’t pass the parking requirements after satisfying the minimum outdoor space requirements. It wasn’t because there was not enough room, but after dedicating space for the one handicapped spot, there was not enough room left for safe pickup/dropoff activities that they would like to see. I am not saying the requirements are without merit, but it seemed overly restrictive even though she said parking should be fine after being in this business for many years. In the end it didn’t work out, otherwise I would’ve been sitting pretty right now.
@manch No sure if that is working out going forward when couples are starting to have their 1st kid starting later in life (early to mid 30s) while the grand-parents are aging to a point where they needed care-giver service…
It would be interesting to see how a working couple balances both young kids and aging parent at the same time…
If the preschool situation does not change, then it only shifts who pays for the education, not on the amount needed to pay for it. So instead of parents of the kids, it’s all taxpayers, which pretty much means just the highest earners of the state since that’s the path of least resistance.
If we’re serious about equality, then we should have pre-school starting at birth. 90% of brain development is by age 3. Kids that start out behind during that time period rarely catch up no matter how much funding we throw at it.
It’d be crazy expensive though, so I have no idea how to pay for it. In theory, you’d save some on K-12, since less kids would be behind. However, you need way higher staffing levels for babies.
If we were 100% confident it’d work, then it’d be an investment that’d reduce future spending on social programs. It’s just a 20-30 year investment before it’d make a difference. That’s a tough sell although you’d know within 5-years if it’s working when kids start school.
If we had the political will, I’d pair it with mandatory birth control unless you’re married.
Free preschool is now on the platform of every mainstream Democrat. I bet at least in California it will be a reality within 5 years. Most likely much sooner than that. Did Gavinator say anything in his budget?
