New Mexico — long ranked worst in the U.S. for child wellbeing — became the first state to make childcare free for most families. The result? 120,000 people rose above the poverty line.

This wasn’t a moonshot. It was a single policy shift that removed a massive, structural bottleneck — one that millions of us face every day.

If you’ve ever tried building, working, or even thinking clearly while managing childcare, you know how hard it gets. For many, the constraint isn’t talent or effort — it’s whether they can safely hand off their kid long enough to get anything done.

and still birth rates are reasonably high...why would a state pay for childcare if it wasnt to rise birth rates?

To bolster its workforce. Parents with childcare can work. Regardless why (fertility rate, labor force participation improvement), it is the right thing to do imho.

Daycare is suboptimal. Parents have a duty to and should have the freedom to take care if their kids.

Many parents feel the trap of daycare, and will never escape it.

A single income household is ideal over a dual income household with hired childcare.

> Daycare is suboptimal. Parents have a duty to and should have the freedom to take care if their kids.

Why should parents be the sole caretakers of young children? This is not the norm and never has been.

> A single income household is ideal over a dual income household with hired childcare.

Why should people have to choose between work and raising kids? Why not work less and do both?

Ideally we'd all have a lot of things we don't all have the means to have. Practically, the pitch is daycare offers a net cheaper option for society as a whole by allowing us to specialize roles in our communities, allowing the same means to do more similar to public education. Constraints aside, it'd also be great if, e.g., we all got our education via dedicated 1:1 time with experts instead... but that doesn't make it a practical possibility for everyone.

It's also worth noting the article opens with a single income family that used childcare. The options there were either don't have the family you want at the ideal age, don't go for a more ideal education/income prospects, or don't go for the ideal always-with-one-parent style of raising the kids. None of the choices would have left all ideals on the table.

A single income household with a homemaking parent requires that wages or salaries be offered that can support an entire family on a single income. In most states, minimum wage (and even most hourly jobs that pay above minimum wage) isn’t even enough to support living alone for a single person working less than 60 hours/wk.

> Parents ... should have the freedom to take care [of] their kids

I wonder if there is a path to making this possible for more people?

The options are frequently a zero income household or a single income household with hired childcy.

Done properly such policies promote a better more uniform and reliable childcare industry, moves more parents from home into the workplace, raises more in taxes from working hours, increases early socialisation for young children, etc.

To reduce crime, have increased economic growth.

To improve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for its citizens.

Birthrate in the US is extremely and unsustainably low.

1.62 births per woman in 2023.

Replacement rate is 2.1 or 2.2 depends on the source.

I’m not sure how I feel about a government incentivizing daycare. I’d rather all parents receive financial support, regardless of their childcare decisions.