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San Francisco to offer free childcare to people making up to $230k

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/san-francisco-childcare-families
53•darth_avocado•2h ago

Comments

NooneAtAll3•1h ago
a year, I assume
bsimpson•1h ago
That sounds like a good way to keep moms out of the workforce.

I know a lot of couples who feel like the wife's job is a hobby, because after taxes it barely covers childcare (especially if you also value spending time with your kids).

Free childcare could free those households up to decide which parent(s) work when. Instead, by capping it below a common dual income, it incentivizes the least earning parent to continue to stay out of the workforce.

simonw•53m ago
The subheading says "Officials to offer 50% subsidy up to $310,000" which hopefully addresses your point there.
jeltz•47m ago
While I too disagree with the cap I think you are a bit blinded by working in tech. A lot of double income households do not reach 230k.
rconti•47m ago
I don't follow. Wouldn't the high cost of childcare make couples less likely to have 2 incomes, because the lower-earning spouse is working for lower marginal pay, just to pay someone ELSE to provide child care?
jeltz•45m ago
I think he is talking about the threshold effects. E.g if one partner earns 200k then it could make more sense for the other to stay at home than to work and earn say 50k or 70k. The 50% subsidy above 230k reduces that issue but I would rather see no cap.
exitb•40m ago
You framed this issue in a certain way, but your position could be described as „lower earning families need to pay for childcare, so higher earning families keep producing two incomes”. Not so attractive anymore.
transcriptase•39m ago
So basically a return to what was the norm from ~300,000 years ago until 1975?

Sound the alarms.

darkwater•23m ago
We can all go nomad and berry-picking anytime, then.
throwaway9e9t•16m ago
We also had slavery, no advanced medicine, no education for most people, and an average lifespan of about 30. Amazing how selective nostalgia can be.

Letting the other 50% of the population make the same life choices is a good idea in my opinion.

TMWNN•36m ago
> I know a lot of couples who feel like the wife's job is a hobby, because after taxes it barely covers childcare (especially if you also value spending time with your kids).

When described that way ... aren't they right about the wife's job?

bryanlarsen•21m ago
That's some convoluted logic. The data shows the opposite. Free/cheap childcare significantly increases the number of parents who work.

https://childcarecanada.org/documents/child-care-news/11/06/...

Jensson•6m ago
Threshold based benefits decreases numbers of parents who work though, why have that threshold when its that high? If a couple can get free childcare by the wife working part time instead of full time they absolutely will, that is the effect the threshold gives you.
tobi_bsf•46m ago
nice to see the city supporting the lower class.
mindok•45m ago
“Free”. Presumably tax payer funded in actuality.
joe_mamba•40m ago
We'll get the super wealthy in California, like Larry Page and Sergey Brin, to pay for it. Oh wait, they just left.
hsbauauvhabzb•36m ago
That’s generally how good governments work yes.
amirhirsch•43m ago
this won't cost the city too much, there's only like a hundred kids under 6 in this city and 3% of them are mine.
bryanrasmussen•39m ago
HN poster responds: "You have 0.18 kids under 6! That seems unlikely!"
Groxx•37m ago
nah, it just means you get 18% of childcare costs paid.
normie3000•36m ago
Am i missing the joke? ChatGPT tells me 3% of 100 is 3, not 0.18.
transcriptase•35m ago
You’re missing something if you asked ChatGPT that.
darkwater•25m ago
No, they have their irony fully deployed, not missing anything.
f33d5173•34m ago
.18 is 3% of 6. This might mean something, but I don't know what.
bryanrasmussen•18m ago
the next number in the sequence 3, 6, 18 is 72, but I doubt it means anything.
bryanrasmussen•30m ago
When I first read it I thought wait, 3% of 6 is 0.18, but then I realized no I'm a dork because 6 is the age of the kid, whereas the number 100 is written as a word hundred, hence I decided to write "HN poster responds:" with quotes around my first non-coffee aided thought because I thought it was funny. I guess I should have just made that full statement, but I do have a tendency to rather oblique communication strategies.

on edit: basically because I thought hah, this is the kind of mistake I always see poor tired folks make on HN and making the dumb comment and here I am making it!! This is a classic moment!

Jensson•39m ago
So now making 231k makes you worse off than someone making 230k? Why even have that threshold when it doesn't even exclude that many people, it just causes weird incentives.
bryanrasmussen•37m ago
Probably because in order to get it passed they had to have some cutoff because there was some people who would argue against it being free for everyone.
divbzero•37m ago
The article also mentions a 50% subsidy up to $310,000. The details aren’t spelled out, but subsidies like this often phase out gradually to avoid a cliff at the threshold.
Jensson•9m ago
So now you are better off making 310k than 311k, is that much better? It doesn't matter how you read it you still get that effect.
eptcyka•4m ago
These subsidies can be implemented in a way where they taper off instead of imposing a hard cliff.
Jensson•3m ago
They can be, but the article says they aren't.
L-four•3m ago
No at 310k you get $1 dollar at 311k you get $0. But you know like you have 999 more dollars than before. Assuming Post tax income.
iwontberude•23m ago
Okay now do everyone
zingar•7m ago
We have 30 hours of free childcare in the UK (for nursery, schooling in older years is free) if both parents are working and neither earn more than £100k. It has the interesting impact that a salary of £99.9k is worth more to me than £130k, give or take some extra contributions to pension.

It’s interesting to me that the threshold is so much higher in San Francisco given that SF is only 8.7% more expensive than London, at least according to numbeo.

Maybe healthcare makes up some of that difference?

walthamstow•4m ago
Income cliffs are generally stupid. See Britain's 100k cliff for free childcare. If both parents make 99k, you get it. If one earns 101k and the other earns zero, you don't get it. The workaround (pension stuffing) is widely known and actually means the govt does worse out of the whole thing.

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San Francisco to offer free childcare to people making up to $230k

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/san-francisco-childcare-families
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