Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

bmitc

Does that pay mortgages and daycare?

View on HN

Daycare costs tend to drop when you don't have a job.

You would think so, but I've also known people that have kept their spots for when they find new work.

i've heard of common people registering for day care before the baby is even born

That is necessary these days if you need daycare during infancy.

Sometimes that doesn't guarantee you a spot in time.

Good luck finding daycare quickly if you find a job.

The market for child care seems to have tilted in favor of families ever since CA started mandating pre-k in the public schools. This has had the effect of gutting local preschools at the higher grades.

I also wonder if the recent layoffs have affected the market for childcare. I definitely know some tech folks who are at home with their kids now.

Most daycares have waitlists well over a year and cost more than rent and mortgage payments.

“Most”? Perhaps in NYC or something, but not in general. We never paid close to rent in daycare costs.

Perhaps that’s because we live in SV, where housing is expensive, but I’d again assert that “most” daycares do not cost more than the rent/mortgage payments of the families that go there.

Daycare in my area hovers around $3,000/month.

Wow! For $3k/mo you could hire a nanny or babysitter pretty much full-time (which is more expensive than daycare/preschool, since it's 1-to-1).

Our base rate (in Menlo Park) was around $1,500/mo, but if you added extra hours (past 1 or 2p) then it was more. Presumably someone who is laid off and wants to hold their spot would stick to the minimum hours both for cost reasons and so they could spend more time with their baby/kid.

Out of curiosity, what do mortgages cost for families who attend these daycares?

No, but the large salaries and stock compensation that tech workers have been paid over the past decade certainly should, along with the generous severance packages that are pervasive in the tech industry. You have been living within your means and saving, haven’t you?

When a significant portion of your compensation is an asset, it kind of disincentivizes this.

The stock market is at or near all time highs.

It usually is.

A good time to sell and make actual money.

Never saw anything like the numbers that people post here and also never got any stock myself.

Most of my startup options turned out to be worthless. The little that wasn't? It wasn't even worth the pay cut I took for it. You really have to be in the right place at the right time.

I do, however, always live below my means, save, and invest. I have never saved less than 30% of my salary. You have to do this long term, meaning 15 to 20 years+. Many people don't have the temperament to do this.

Most (in USA) don't have the income to have 30% to save after rent and food and necessities consume 90%

I'm talking about people in tech, which generally have higher incomes.

A few years ago one of those "the most common job in each state" maps was posted. Truck driver and school teacher were all over on the map but a few states had software developer was the most common job and I suspect it was in the top five in most other states. The vast majority of software developers work for non-tech companies at middle income wages. FAANG and SV salaries are the exception, most software developers aren't getting rich. It's a nice middle income job for most and that doesn't create an abundance of excess to sock away, even if it pays above the median wage for fulltime workers.

Did you read the article? It’s basically sourced from layoffs.fyi (a well-known website amongst people not in tech) and reports about layoffs at non-tech companies such as Google, eBay, Facebook, Cisco, and Microsoft.

Why are you bringing up non-tech companies in this thread?

Those are tech companies, not non-tech

Didn't you know? Silicon Valley isn't just saving the world. It is the world. Tech doesn't exist outside of it.

Shout out to Planet Morty, they can be great

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-...

BTW the most common job in DC in 1996 was JANITORS!

I have to wonder if that survey was taken during the government shutdown when even was furloughed??

Reply on news.ycombinator.com