How much is a pre-k "teacher" worth? The Democrats say $60k a year, and that'll cost you

this one’s worth less tan two cents

$13,000 extra, pulled straight out of a middle-class family’s income.

Some might question whether a baby sitter who’s been recently made redundant by the introduction of robotic hamburger-flippers deserves the same money as a college-graduate with a teaching degree, but let’s go with it, and ask this, instead:who’s going to be stuck paying for newly-declared enhanced cost? The answer, as always, is you.

Why? Biden mandates much higher wages for child-care workers but only grants subsidies to households making their state’s median income or less. So other families get stuck paying far more.

According to the left-wing Center for American Progress, the average cost of center-based infant care is $15,888 a year, with workers paid an annual $25,460. Biden would hike pay 138 percent, to a new average of $60,660 a year. Pay isn’t centers’ only expense, but this will still push family costs to $28,970 — up $13,000.

Average annual US household income is $67,521.

And from that linked-to report from the socialists (who, naturally, say that the answer is to stick the entire cost on that mysterious, fabled 1/10th of 1%) this:

The Democrats’ child care proposal mandates higher wages for child care workers but then does not follow through on the public subsidies for all families. The result will be a massive increase in child care fees for families with incomes slightly above their state’s median income.

According to the Center for American Progress (CAP), the average cost of basic quality center-based infant care is $15,888, with $9,480 going to pay worker wages, $768 going to pay worker benefits, and $2,580 going to pay for administration.

Under the Democratic child care plan, child care worker wages are meant to increase to the wages currently received by elementary school teachers. The median child care worker is currently paid $25,460 per year while the median elementary school teacher is currently paid$60,660 per year. Thus, this mandate could increase child care worker pay by 138 percent. If we increase the salary cost from the CAP estimate above by 138 percent, the unsubsidized price of child care goes from $15,888 per year to $28,970, an increase of $13,082 per year. And this is not the only thing the bill does that will increase the cost of care.

The Democratic child care plan subsidizes the price of child care by replacing flat user fees with a sliding-scale income-based copayment. Costs that exceed a given family’s copayment amount will be picked up by the government.

[F]or illustration purposes, note that the median household income last year in the country was $67,521. If this was your state’s median income, then having a family income just $1 higher than that would result in you being ineligible for child care subsidies in 2022 even as the unsubsidized price of child care skyrockets due to the wage and other mandates in the Democratic proposal.

Under this scenario, there will be many dual-earning couples who cannot afford child care if both of them continue to work, but could afford child care if one of them quit their job and thereby brought their family income below the eligibility cutoff. Normally people who quit jobs to take care of their kids do so in order to save the money they’d have to spend on child care. Under this plan, they have to quit their job in order to afford child care!

For all the talk of child care benefits being a boon to women’s labor force participation, this design clearly pushes against it by making it virtually impossible for a dual-earning middle class couple to afford child care in the first three years of the program.