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Comment by tyfon | Hacker News Reader

Here in Norway we have another system where the payments for child care is graded so those with low income pay zero and those with highish (> €60000/year) pay full (€200-300/month) and in between you pay around €100/month.

500 bucks/month seem quite expensive.

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Here in France we have a system where the payments for child care is graded so those with low income pay zero (actually get billed a low hourly price plus receive an immediate help from the state so the net to pay is zero) and those with highish (> €40000/year) pay a high per hour rate and get the help capped to 600€, and that help drops to zero if the hourly rate goes above 10€/h (which can quickly happen if you have a flat daily rate but fail to present the child on time, like nobody with children has never been late, ever) or for days the child is not presented to childcare at all, but you still get billed for those, including if the child is ill up to 5 days (after that healthcare takes over, but in between, which is pretty much most of the time, you foot the bill)

I’ve been a father for three weeks, we ran the numbers with my wife for this kafkaesque system with crazy conditions at every corner that seem specifically designed to make us bleed inane amounts of money, and for our current situation this means for five days a week of presence the bill totals north of 2k€/mo, minus the capped 600 on the happy path, and if everything goes well... <deity> forbid anything goes wrong., we’d have to foot the whole bill plus possible penalties.

YMMV and there are “somewhat cheaper” solutions, but there’s 1-2+ year (years!) wait queues, and they’re not FIFO but priority ordered by... revenue, which makes the queue virtually infinite for us. So my wife which had an entrepreneur project on the table is contemplating dropping that on the floor and staying at home, which would be a terrible move in so many ways.

I’m all for social help and levelling the playing field, but this is downright batshit insane.

Well, I find it hard to believe that €200 - €300 should be "full". That can most certainly not cover the full cost for child care, so there's probably still a significant subsidy by the state even for high earners.

It's not the full cost of having a kid in childcare. Norway have set a cap on what the parents have to pay, and most (if not all) kindergartens have discounts if you have multiple kids in the same place.

The actual cost is much higher but is covered by the government, with some adjustments to account for local variations in things such as real-estate costs and similar.

This also means that people are still paying a higher price for it, but that price is just mixed in with the rest of their taxes.

To be clear, I'm in favor of governments taxing for the purpose of providing services of benefit to society. But having the government cover costs does not make those costs go away, it just shifts how people pay for them.

If you only look at the cost you are correct. But at the same time having more people able to work increases the tax revenue of the government which in turn makes the total influence on the economy of the country not as bad. Too often people only look at costs in these scenarios. I see you are not opposed to the idea regardless but it is a thing to bear in mind :)

> This also means that people are still paying a higher price for it, but that price is just mixed in with the rest of their taxes.

Given that Norway has extremely successful oil and gas investments that doesn't seem right. This is money that the average person would never see anyways. It's not money coming from their taxes back into their pockets.

Fair enough, it is more complex than I stated. Though there is still an opportunity cost; if that money were not being spent on this, it could be spent on other things, or given to taxpayers. I'm just pushing back on the idea that things are "free" when the government pays for them, but costs don't go away just because they are paid for by the government. It's a pedantic point though.

Keep in mind that most of the money Norway make from oil & gas are invested [1], it's not money used directly for anything in Norway. Up to 4% of the money made from the investments can be spent, the rest is re-invested.

Of the 1.173,5 bn NOK income in the 2020 national budget, 1.084,8 bn NOK are from taxes and various charges.[2]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... [2] - https://www.statsbudsjettet.no/Statsbudsjettet-2020/Satsinge... (Norwegian)

No, when I say full, it is really the "maximum you ever need to pay" for a spot in kindergarten. It is of course subsided too by the government!

And as the sibling here say you can get rebate for having more kids too.

Having accessible daycare for all means more women can go to work full time which again means higher productivity among the population and more career opportunities for women so it is very important in many areas.

In corona times it is essential to get anything done effectively.

We also have the right in law to daycare, not just an offer if there is room for it.

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