Some More News - Some More News: Why Is Child Care So Expensive?

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Hi. In the U.S., child care is too expensive for parents, but the child care industry doesn't pay caregivers nearly enough. Why is that? Maybe maaaaaybe we should have universal child care. Hosted by Cody Johnston Executive Producer - Katy Stoll Directed by Will Gordh Written by Shawn DePasquale and David Christopher Bell Produced by Jonathan Harris Edited by Gregg Meller Post-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John Conway Researcher - Marco Siler-Gonzales Graphics by Clint DeNisco Head Writer - David Christopher Bell PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenews MERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.com AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You’ll get a Welcome Kit, a bottle of D3K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out DrinkAG1.com/morenews to get this offer! You can get 50% off your new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring and your first month free at SimpliSafe.com/MORENEWS There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe.

Young people, disgusting, terrible and disgusting. I'm talking of course about little kids. We all hate them. Don't deny it. We hate their little faces, their mealy little mouths babbling at you at the supermarket. Every time I see a child, I throw up a little in my mouth. Just like you all do too.

This is a relatable thing I'm expressing. But alas, we also have to keep them alive. Because here's some more news. Little kids are apparently us from the past, which is why it's a teensy odd that childcare in the United States is pretty expensive. Depending on where you live and the age of the child, it costs an average of $5,000

to $18,000 a year. Way more if you live in a city. In 2023, the national average is around $11,582 per child. That's roughly the same as a round-trip flight to Europe every month for a year. Except you don't get to hang out with those cool French and their cigarettes and guillotine violence. So much guillotine crime over there. No, it's just to have your kids exist. That's it.

But I guess that's all because of big childcare making you fork over the goods while they roll in your money wads. Except hi, hey, hello. Here's some more, more news. The average childcare worker in your money wads. Except hi, hey, hello, here's some more more news. The average childcare worker earns just over $28,000 annually. That's barely enough to afford groceries

or health insurance. And that's weird, odd, as I said before, it's all odd. It means that the childcare industry is both A, too expensive for the consumer, and B, too cheap for the provider. And so no one is happy. A nice little lose-lose for all you parents and workers out there.

And like, come on, give them a break already. It's bad enough that they have to be around children. See, threw up a little just thinking about him. Day Care or Don't Care? America's Child Care Crisis So let's just answer this at the top. Why is child care so expensive in the United States, but providers don't make any money. It's actually an incredibly simple reason. The childcare industry in America is almost entirely a private industry, like fast food or that tobacco accessories shop that just bongs. Bongs for marijuana. And just like those other businesses, there are regulations they have to follow and employees

they have to pay. CPR training, making sure there are fire exits, limiting the amount of kids being supervised by only one adult. These are good things that cost money to maintain. These standards also vary state to state. And even in the states with fewer regulations, it's still expensive. You gotta pay people, there's no way around that. And because it's a private industry, that creates a really high overhead for these businesses. Therefore, they have to charge a lot, but still be competitive and turn a profit. And so guess where that money doesn't go? To the workers. It's no surprise that these workers who aren't making a living wage don't stick around.

The childcare industry has turnover rates 65% higher than other industries, leaving families scrambling to find consistent quality care. It's a revolving door of worker shortages and inconsistent training standards. So, not only have we created a system that's too expensive and pays too little, but it also sucks. It's like if Zbarro charged $50 a slice. I mean, I'd still pay it, but you get the point. So that's it. That's the reason. Episode over.

They are children, disgusting children, and there needs to be laws to keep them safe, just like schools, except not like schools. These places aren't funded by the government. Hey, why? That's silly. We have a silly country. Like there's also pre-K,

which I think might get confused with daycare. And I'd argue the term childcare really applies to both. And while some states do fund universal pre-K, that funding is often lacking and makes these programs exclusive and often lottery-based, meaning that you literally have to enter your toddler in a lottery to get in, like it's some sort of hunger game. Because yes, of course, the United States

is particularly terrible at this. This isn't some mystery that humanity can't crack. Our government spends just 0.3% of GDP on early childhood education and care, a child-sized fraction of what other developed countries spend. I thought children were our future, and yet the United States only spends a measly $500 annually for children 2 and under.

For comparison, that's way behind Norway's absolutely bonkers $30,000 per year for kids in the same age bracket. Like, holy shit, Norway! Way to pay the value of a thing! Chill out, you overachievers! And Norway's not the only country flexing on us. New Zealand also passed some innovative childcare reforms, introducing policies that provide 20 hours of free early childhood education per week for kids aged 2 to 5, with even more subsidies for low-income

families. Then there's Finland's Early Childhood Education and Care System, which offers universal access to affordable, high-quality early education and flexible schedules to accommodate working parents. Denmark's also crushing it. Their heavily subsidized childcare system starts at age one and parents pay no more than 25% of the actual cost. Imagine looking at a $2,000 daycare bill and only owing $500.

Meanwhile, in France, Germany, and the UK, over 90% of three-year-olds are enrolled in preschool compared to 40% in the United States of America. In France specifically, preschool is free starting at age 3 because I guess those crazy baguettes think education is a right and not an expensive inconvenience. They've also got a national curriculum focused on social and cognitive skills, and wild concept, they also pay their teachers a living wage. Turns out the guillotine violence works! It's worth noting that the reason these countries are investing in childcare isn't

just because parents need time to work. Children are, as I mentioned, adults from the past. They are, as I also mentioned, allegedly, our future. And so making children educated and well-adjusted means having, like, better adults eventually, right? That should be obvious. In case it's not obvious, we've actually gotten mountains of research showing that children who attend preschool are more prepared for elementary school and less likely to be held back. They also have better math and literacy skills. One study even followed 4,000 kids into adulthood and found that the ones who attended pre-K had higher rates of high school graduation and going to college. Back in the 70s, the Perry Preschool Project found that high-quality preschool didn't just help kids with their ABCs, it made them more likely to succeed as adults.

In fact, a follow-up study even found that the kids of those original kids had better outcomes in life. Not to mention that these programs delivered a 13% yearly return on investment to the public for every dollar spent. That's better than most stock portfolios, and way better than giving all your money to a tech weirdo who just discovered the concept of trains and then weirdly decided that he hates trains. The author of The Perry Project, economist James Heckman, even developed what's known as the Heckman Curve, which argues that investing in people, especially when they're very young, has the biggest

payoff for society as a whole, including the government's finances. It's not even about being nice or doing the right thing or being a nanny state or doing socialist tyranny or engaging in the great sin of empathy. It's just a wise use of taxpayer money. It is really good to have affordable and available child care for everyone. But here, in the US of A. No. Even though more women than ever are participating in the workforce, and dual-income households are now the norm,

our elected officials still can't seem to see this as a major priority. It's like, hmm, it's like perhaps, hmm, maybe they don't have this problem. It's almost like, hmm, stick with me on this, hmm. But it's almost like, hmm, the people making laws for the majority class aren't members of that class, but rather of a smaller class

above that class and therefore have no understanding of the actual issues the average American has to grapple with. Because the majority of Democratic, Independent, and Republican voters, aka Americans, do believe that increasing federal funding for childcare programs is a good use of tax dollars. The Democrats talked a big game about a universal pre-K program and affordable early childcare during the 2020 campaign. But then Biden's plans for that got gutted during inflation reduction act negotiations.

Thank you, Joe Manchin, you human speed bump on the road to progress. Because again, what does Joe need universal pre-K for? His grandkids are doing fine over at the Bradford Wick Institution for Proper and Distinguished Toddlers. A thing I made up, but also kinda didn't. I guess in defense of these useless, rich, smelly trash bags, some states, like California, Maine, Michigan, and Minnesota, have responded to the child care crisis with what we could

generously call common sense reforms. Stuff like extending eligibility for state subsidies and cap and co-payments. This is also known as doing the bare minimum, but we're not here to talk about the flaccid Democrats and their non-solutions. as doing the bare minimum, but we're not here to talk about the flaccid Democrats and their non-solutions. We're here to talk about the people in charge, the rock hard Republicans and their non-solutions, which are shockingly to cut regulations

by allowing childcare providers to understaff while also loosening the training requirements for employees or to hear one totally normal guy describe it. What we've got to do is actually empower people to get trained in the skills that they need for the 21st century. We've got a lot of people who love kids, who would love to take care of kids,

but they can't either because they don't have access to the education that they need, or maybe more importantly, because the state government says you're not allowed to take care of children unless you have some ridiculous certification that has nothing to do, nothing to do with taking care of kids.

So empower people to get the skills they need. Don't force every early childcare specialist to go and get a six-year college degree where they've got a whole lot of debt and Americans are much poorer because they're paying out the wazoo for daycare. Thank you, Mr. Vice Vice President. That sums up the GOP position,

which is that the reason childcare is expensive is because some states require six year degrees for providers. And he's sort of technically accurate in that from the data we could find, only two states require a bachelor's degree, but only for large childcare centers. See, I think the picture he's trying to paint

is of some lady running a childcare out of her home, being asked to jump through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops, but that's not actually the case. For example, California's requirements for a family childcare home licensing is simply that the in-home provider undergoes a background check and 16 hours of health and safety training,

along with some experience requirements and to be a legal adult. Don't get me wrong, this stuff can be costly and time consuming for some people to do in certain situations, but it's not unreasonable when you're talking about childcare. But in order to sell the idea of deregulation, they have to first claim that those regulations

are unnecessary. Ah, those useless fire exits! Construction would be so much cheaper if we didn't have to build those wheelchair ramps that nobody uses! And of course, you can see how this all plays out by just looking at what red states are already doing. For example, Kansas' Department of Health and Environment passed new rules to let childcare operators

take on more kids without hiring more staff. Child to adult ratios are gonna come in big here because staffing requirements obviously lead to higher expenses. The age of the child also dictates how many children can be watched by one adult. So it's no surprise that Kansas also redefined infants, lowering the age from 18 months to one year. So that 13-month-old you have? Congrats, your baby is now ready to take on the world! Give him a cigar to celebrate. Kansas even tried passing a bill that would count 14-year-olds as childcare staff,

which thankfully did not become law. I know I'm picking on Kansas, but there's a reason why. Between 2007 and 2009, 30 children died in childcare programs throughout that state, 30. That's like an entire classroom of kids gone, which I guess isn't something we care about much anymore. Anyway, anyway, that led to the 2010 passage of Lexi's Law named after a 13 month old who died while unsupervised

at a home-based childcare program. Lexi's Law introduced stricter requirements for child care, which in turn actually shot Kansas to the top of national child care policy rankings, until the state made budget cuts to their health agencies, making it much harder to enforce these new regulations, and leading to an additional 15 children dying in Kansas daycares between 2009 and 2015. Because what are we gonna do? Remember why we did stuff and things? Kansas, where learning from mistakes is optional.

I mean, not just Kansas. America, where learning from mistakes is optional. Yeah, there we go. I use Dorothy's home state because it perfectly shows why we have these yellow brick regulations. But there are plenty of other GOP led states deregulating childcare. In Iowa, Republicans passed a law in 2022

that expanded child to staff ratios and lets teenagers age 16 to 17 watch children without any adult supervision. Don't worry though, it's just to assist during nap time and five minute breaks. What could possibly go wrong in five minutes? Hey, parents of toddlers and teenagers, what could possibly go wrong in five minutes?

Nothing, right? Nothing? Nothing could go wrong in five minutes? Anyway, South Dakota cranked up the childcare chaos by approving a 15 to one ratio of five-year-olds to adults. And to make things extra dangerous, they slashed safety training requirements because childcare should be perilous

and overwhelming like knife juggling. Not to be outdone, Utah passed a law letting unlicensed childcare providers expand their ratios from six to one to eight to one. Yes, you heard that correctly. Unlicensed, as in anyone, hey, anyone, here's two more of someone's kids. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republicans are pushing similar

solutions, once again, attempting to bring down the ratio and age limits on providers. Teenagers, more kids, teenagers, more kids, teenagers, more kids, that's it, that's their solution. And just for a moment, imagine proposing this for any other job working with children, teachers, doctors, clowns. Would those jobs work better if they dealt with more kids

and were occupied by teenagers? Why is this acceptable for childcare? Well, I can tell you why. It's the other more famous half to that JD Vance clip. So one of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for daycare is make it so that maybe grandma or grandpa

wants to help out a little bit more. Or maybe there's an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. JD Vans and the rest of the GOP really, really, really don't want people to think of childcare as an industry or service or necessity. But rather this loose thing we do

with our immediate family or community. Just to have grandma watch the kids or that neighbor teen, not the weird one, the other one. Kick them like 20 bucks, maybe some beer, and you're all set. Why are we making it this big regulated business? Back in my day, we didn't need babysitters.

We just went to the library. Well, not that, because you don't want to fund that, but you get it. The GOP really wants to frame this as Big Uncle Sam trying to dictate how mom and pop watch the kids. Back in 2021, Vance wrote on Twitter that universal daycare is class war against normal people. Now we're just gonna breeze past the audacious absurdity

of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's vice president talking about class war, and we're just gonna explain that his evidence was a survey showing that 44% of people without a four year degree prefer one parent to stay home full time while the other works. Weirdly, the survey doesn't include single mothers.

Interesting, but also, why does that make universal daycare a class war? Is universal daycare going to force lower classes to not have a stay at home parent? Would you like to raise wages so that households don't require two incomes to survive? What are you talking about, JD? When you think about it for just more than a second,

it's gibberish. And it's because at the end of the day, they just don't have a good solution to the high cost of childcare. They don't want to, you know, pay more for that. So they have to sell Americans on this plan to make the service cheap by cutting regulations and sell that as some kind of for the people solution.

But I thought childcare was class war. Why is he even bothering coming up with fake solutions if it's only going to help the haughty elite? And just think about that for a minute in terms of any other industry. Air travel is expensive, right? We hate it, what's the deal, et cetera. But if someone proposed we make it cheaper

by firing everyone at the FAA, that would be stupid and no one would want that, right? Ah, just remembered, okay, nevermind. But you get the point. If Arby's said, our burgers now cost less because we stopped buying soap and gloves, we would not go to Arby's anymore. I mean, I'd still. So, okay. Let's say at the moment that the GOP has zero good solutions here. What can we do to improve child care in this country?

Well, after the break, we'll look at a time when child care was good in America, and why that was. History! You love it! We are really cooking now. I can feel my stride setting in. Mr. Cody, Wombo had a nightmare! Wombo, hi you... thing you.

Wombo dreamt that his home decreased in value due to property taxes. Can Warmbo sleep in bed with Mr. Cody? Okay, so a few things. Number one, it's two in the afternoon. Number two, no. But who will take care of Warmbo when he's home alone? No, no, no.

We're not doing Warmbo as a metaphor for childcare. I pooped my pants. Just cut to the break. Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god, it smells like a morgue. Pooped him good. You have no pants, it just fell on the floor.

Somebody cut to the ads. Friends, I'm stuck in the chair, not by glue or some diabolical series of straps. No, the studio is so gosh darn cluttered that there's no space to sway or spin, let alone sachet. And just like people declutter their homes in March, the current month, it's also a great time to refresh your nutrition and daily habits.

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When it comes to my health, I want something I can trust. And that's why I choose AG1. With science-backed ingredients and real benefits, I can feel AG1 makes it easy to support overall wellness every day. And that's why I've been partnering with AG1 for many marches, including the current one.

And AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift when you sign up. You will get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com slash more news to get this offer. That's drinkag1.com slash more news to start your new year,

the new March year that it currently is. And start it on a healthier note. I'm still stuck in the chair. I haven't dropped that. Oh, geez, it melted right through the floor. Hold on everybody. Katie, Katie, I know you can hear me. Just show up.

What do you want? I'm busy. I need you to watch Warmbo for a few hours. Like he's a child? Yeah, it's a loose metaphor. Like his stool. His stool is on the loose and I don't know what it plans to do.

Yeah, I don't really babysit. Honestly, just the idea of a child kinda... babysit, honestly, just the idea of a child kind of... Their gross little faces and that doll hair. No, no, I get it. I get it. Fine, I'll think of something. Later, Gator. All right, well, I guess we'll just power through.

I smeared some peanut butter on all the doorknobs so that should keep him busy for a while. So childcare, we need it, but it's expensive. Not in other countries, just this one. And here at the Showty, when something is bad in America, we like to look back and see if it was ever good and why it was good, if it was good. And just a weird coincidence,

the time a thing was good is usually before the 80s. So odd, I don't know, just a bizarre little thing that happens every time we research the history of something. I wonder why, it's probably nothing. It's probably nothing. Should I look over here? Oh, that's why.

So obviously the first solution we came up with for childcare was to just have the ladies do it. See, it's really easy when you can just force half the population to have fewer financial rights than the other or rights in general. We talked about this in our recent trad wives episode, like and subscribe, but the romanticism for those days

really boils down to the affordability of single income homes. Dads went to work, moms stayed home, and everyone repressed their feelings until they developed bleeding ulcers. And yeah, it would be cool if we could afford a home on one income again, regardless of who is working. But that's not happening. And apparently the solution to building more housing is to raise tariffs on the lumber

we need for building those houses, but whatever. What else did we do back then? Well, things got a little sticky when this Hitler dude started showing up everywhere. God, Hitler, dude was a lot. And so during World War II, Congress passed the Defense, Housing, and Community Facility Services Act,

also known as the Lanham Act. You see, dad needed to go pew pew at the Defense, Housing, and Community Facilities Services Act, also known as the Lanham Act. You see, dad needed to go pew pew at the Hitler, and so mom needed to work. The Lanham Act funded public childcare facilities and communities tied to defense industries. Because as we know, the only time America gives a shit about its citizens is when it helps win a war.

And really just the one war, not war in general, just the Hitler one. And I get it, it was a pickle. Literally before World War II, pickles were called Hitlers. So we changed the name, do not look that up. But yeah, we needed ladies to work. And so a reliable childcare program magically appeared to ease the burden on single parent households.

And not just any childcare, but good childcare. The programs created by the Lanham Act were high quality, addressing the needs of both children and mothers. They didn't just lock the kids inside a holding pen until a parent could get them at the end of the workday. It also wasn't a rigid, one-size-fits-all curriculum that ignored working schedules. It was balanced to accommodate the curriculum that ignored working schedules.

It was balanced to accommodate the needs of each working individual. Also, and most importantly, it was affordable. Mothers could send their child to a center for 50 cents a day, about $7.50 in today's money. The fee even included lunch, snacks, and… The Lanham Centers would send them home with a roast chicken dinner in tin foil and vegetables. Wow! That talking laptop knows a lot about history! This ran for six days a week, and as you just heard, cost less than a fancy burger per day. It was actually during this era that the term daycare was coined. In total, between 1943 and 1946, the government spent the modern equivalent of over $1 billion serving roughly 600,000 kids.

Studies would show that the World War II child care boom had long-lasting benefits for both the kids and moms long after the program ended. And oh boy, it definitely ended. Hitler blew his brains out and the Lanham Act was the first and only time the government ever federally subsidized large scale childcare. After all, the idea of sending women to work

wasn't exactly popular at the time. Still, people did notice that this sort of slapped. President Truman actually tried to extend funding, recognizing that even without a war, childcare was still, you know, a necessity. But Congress disagreed, crushing any dreams of a permanent federally funded childcare system. Even former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt,

who let's be honest, had more foresight than all of Congress combined, warned that shutting down the childcare centers was a colossal mistake. And like everyone else with any basic common sense, she argued that it wasn't just a wartime thing, but an all the time need for working families. But of course, the dongs in charge decided

that Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman who spent decades advocating for policies that actually helped people, somehow didn't know what she was talking about. And that, my friends and enemies and frunemous, is how America screwed up its one best chance at universal childcare. But for one glorious, except for the Nazis, span of time, we had it figured out.

Childcare-wise, not Nazi-wise. That's more of time we had it figured out. Child care wise, not Nazi-wise. That's more of an ongoing issue, it seems. Like child care. God, we suck. And blow. To be fair, as women did begin to enter the workforce, the question of child care would come up again. In a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act in 1971, which promised a network of nationally funded centers offering education, nutrition, and medical services. They even put real money behind it, like serious We Kinda Care money.

Adjusted for inflation, it was five times the 2012 federal budget for Head Start. Cool. So how did we fuck it up? You know how, right? About six feet high, had a dog named Checkers, weird-looking penis? That's right, Nixon vetoed it. Of course he did. In his explanation to Congress, he said that allowing the federal government to pay for child care would, quote,

"...commit the vast moral authority of the national government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing over against the family centered approach. Which you may notice, while kind of oddly phrased, is the same horse shit that JD Vance said. By the way, that Nixon quote I just read was written by Pat Buchanan. Obviously he's there. Buchanan made sure the veto wasn't just

about killing a bill. It was about branding universal childcare as an un-American anti-family radical leftist idea, which in turn put the Democrats on the defensive. Boy, that all sounds familiar, doesn't it? This idea that the government is trying to tell you how to raise your kids has been a very convenient talking point for a while, probably because it's working.

For some amazing reason, the GOP has been able to convince a portion of Americans that having affordable childcare or teaching about racism or providing lunches is somehow this affront to family values. Except the reason isn't amazing, it's that the opposition party immediately takes the bait. It's a bad system. It's a bad job. Bad job, everybody. Anyway, here we are in the year of our Dark Lord 2025.

In over half of US states, daycare costs for infants exceed tuition at public universities, which Eagle Walleted viewers might note are also too expensive. We had the solution 80 years ago, but people didn't see the use for it at the time, what with mom there. Except now, 70% of mothers with kids under five are working, and good for them. And we super-duper-pooper need this.

It's not a partisan thing. It's just a very obvious and technical issue we can fix. You know, if someone in power can actually take a moment to fix it instead of discussing the purpose of the post-menopausal female on a podcast. But it makes him a much better human being to have exposure to his grandparents. I don't know.

And the evidence on this, by the way, is super clear. That's the whole purpose of the post-monopausal female in theory. Hey man, you guys sound like serial killers, but okay. Let's say for a moment that the purpose of old people is to help raise grandchildren. I'm not against the idea

that humans work best in communities. In fact, I like the idea of more community and community services. But for this, just let old people do it idea. Wouldn't we want to make sure that could happen? You know, by funding social security and ensuring everyone can retire at an early age. Do Republicans seem like they want to do that?

We just did a whole video on the nursing home industry for this reason. It's the same game they always play. Republicans say, we don't want to fund X and should just do Y instead. But also, they don't want to fund Y either. They talk about the good old days when Dad supported the family, but don't want to raise wages for that to happen. It seems like they don't want anything.

Period. Like, just an aside, but has anything good happened since Trump took office? Has he signed a single executive order designed to help average Americans? To make stuff more affordable or more accessible? Or to give Americans the means to help themselves? He and Doge are just dismantling. Just taking it all away in real time as we watch while telling us what a hard time we're going to have to endure. They don't seem to want to build anything. After all, if we had universal

healthcare or childcare or other services, the bosses wouldn't have nearly as much leverage over workers. The donkeys wouldn't pull the cart if they weren't starving for the carrot. The one thing we do have right now for providing affordable pre-K care, AKA Head Start, is currently under attack. Thanks to Trump's funding freeze, many Head Start programs couldn't access the money they were legally owed. Many of them were considering closing down.

Why? Why do they want this? Why does Project 2025, a GOP guidebook that Trump is absolutely following, why does it propose that we eliminate Head Start entirely? Because it does. I guess their argument is that Head Start has a track record of fiscal waste.

Okay, fix it then. If we found evidence of fiscal waste in say, the military, like if they bought a bunch of tanks they don't need, would we get rid of the entire military? Why is it this binary thing that makes zero logical sense when applied to anything else? Oh no, my kitchen sink is broken! Time to bulldoze my house! Also, and this is just my opinion, but kinda who cares? Head Start costs a total of $12 billion,

a drop in the drop in a $6 trillion bucket for childcare. Because you know what the solution to childcare is? How to make it more affordable and accessible? The same solution to a lot of things right now. We just have to pay for it. The people with all the money need to spend that money on it. You see, right now, there's this big pile of money

and it's all being held by just a handful of people. And then you have this little pile of money being held by a lot of people. And it wasn't always like that. Back in the 50s and 60s, that pile of money was more evenly distributed. Then a bunch of politicians changed laws to make it easier and easier for some people to take all the money. And yes, I'm talking to you all like a child right now, like a disgusting, satanic child. But that's it.

And the GOP, the same people who made it easier for the pile of money to vanish, really love to look back at the 50s and say that the real reason it was better is because women and minorities didn't get that money too. And they say that because, you know, they don't want people to realize the real reason and who to actually blame.

That's it, it's not complicated. And so in terms of childcare, someone needs to take money from that big pile and spend it on our kids, perhaps through taxes on the people holding all the money. And here's the silliest part, we don't even need that much money to do this. In 2022, an overwhelming 70% of voters in New Mexico

voted in favor of a ballot initiative to divert a sliver of oil and gas tax revenue to early childhood education, a bipartisan effort amounting to $150 million a year. Right, so it turns out that we have one state that's actually sort of good about childcare. Because the federal government certainly wasn't going to help, New Mexico's governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham,

created the Early Childhood Education and Care Department. Basically, she took all the separate state programs and mashed them into one for efficiency. Hey, she did a doge, but good and smart and honest. Then in 2022, an overwhelming number of voters passed an amendment to the state constitution dedicating part of the state's educational endowment to early childhood development.

Now 70% more families qualify for childcare. What's that sound you hear? Why, that's the sound of parents across the country frantically Googling, how do I move to New Mexico? You get a job there, you move. Don't google how do I move. But wait, it gets better. The state also pays providers based on their actual operating costs instead of arbitrary

market rates. That translates to higher wages for the workers and better quality care for the kids. Everybody wins. What is this, Norway? It's way too hot to be Norway, at least for now, give it time. As our Australian brothers and sisters might say, Norway is this Norway.

And again, it didn't cost that much. According to that video, it was like $150 million from taxing oil and gas revenue, as in taxing the companies. So, times 50, that would be what, $8 billion for every state? That's as much as Doge pretended it saved us on one contract. I mean, the math doesn't really work like that. States have different populations. Let's say $10 billion. Let's say $30 billion. What if we put $30 billion into childcare?

Where would we get it? I mean, that's like 3 or 4% of the Department of Defense spending? Maybe there. Maybe we get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels. I don't know. We made up money? Seems like this would be easy, if our government wanted to do it. But it doesn't.

I really can't stress enough how this isn't some complicated situation with a lot of odds and ends to navigate. We just have to pay for it. That's it. Sometimes things just cost money. And I wanted to hammer that in because it makes the conservative solutions look that much more silly and convoluted. And it speaks to a larger issue with why we don't seem to want to pay for childcare.

And after the break, that thing I just said, we'll do that thing. Enjoy this brief moment away from me, Cody. And then we'll talk about, I don't know, Elon's child raising robots. Ooh, robots! I just got an idea actually. Be right back. ["Rage of the Wild"] Found footage movies.

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Um... Er... I am Code E. I am Moose-spring into Computer. I am Warm-o. Subject requires warm. I will warm you with piss. What? Commencing warm moose care in five, four, three. No. Hey, we're back.

Warm bows at the sitters. I'm free, baby. I can smoke all I want now. I don't want to though. It's bad for you. I quit a long time ago, but I could if I wanted to, which I don't, but I could. So before the break, we pointed out how,

at the end of the day, the solution to childcare care is just to fund it. Like in the utopian, far-off Norway version of America, that's what we would do. And on that exact idea, I think it's really telling, and something we should do more often, to ask what the GOP imagines their version of the utopian future of something is. Like what is their ideal image of healthcare in general? Of human rights, of infrastructure?

And because Elon Musk is their guy now, I'm guessing it involves something he's specifically trying to profit off of. Which brings me to, unfortunately, Elon Musk, and specifically his, and a lot of tech people's, vision of what the future of childcare is. You know, robots.

When you think about the Optimus robot, which is really a humanoid robot that is intended to be able to do anything you want it to do, to be, you know, it's, you know, your companion, it can be at your house, it can sort of babysit your kids, it could teach them, be a teacher. That's Elon talking about the many uses of Tesla's Optimus robot. You know, that thing he's saying he's gonna make 10 billion of, but totally won't actually make,

just like all the other stuff. That's the robot that was first introduced by putting a morph suit on a depressed theater kid. Remember that? Do you remember that? He would go on to make big quote, real versions of them that were revealed to be remotely piloted and not really intelligent at all.

Again, because he's a con man who hates you and thinks you're stupid. Don't wanna get into it here, but go and look up the timeline of him saying he's gonna go to Mars or make self-driving cars by a specific year and then moving the goalposts as those years pass us by. But Musk isn't the only person making robots.

There's also stuff like the proto-clone, a complete nightmare made by clone robotics. [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING

[♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING [♪ INTRO & MUSIC PLAYING people and not just conservatives, who think that robots could someday raise our kids. It's in our pop culture, right? Rosie the Robot, lost in space, whatever Terminator skeleton was in Mary Poppins. I know it seems like sci-fi, but it's worth talking about, because for some people, it's the trajectory being aimed for. Actions made today are dictated by long-term goals. And in this case, when you really think about it, a robot nanny is an absolutely terrible idea. There are just so many logistical problems

even before we get to the ethical ones. To start, kids require constant adaptive care, something even the most advanced AI struggle with. Can optimists recognize when a toddler is running a fever or choking, or when it's about to play with daddy's Batleth collection. Most AI systems struggle to draw hands. If a toddler reaches for a stove,

is a robot just gonna think, that hand isn't the surrealist monstrosity with nine fingers, the child is safe? How good are these robots going to be at reading subtle human baby cues? And what about the notoriously awful track record of AI bias? If facial recognition software already has trouble differentiating between skin tones,

what happens when Optimus hands the wrong child to the wrong parent, or fails to even register a child because of its skin color, or fails to notice the child at all because it has trouble with gender bias too? What if the robot is hacked? Has Musk considered what happens if his robot crashes mid diaper change? Or even worse, reboots while carrying your baby? AI already struggles with basic shit, and babies and children are anything but basic,

except that one baby that always orders a pumpkin spice latte. So basic. Get with the times, baby. Come on, be cool. Anyway, yeah. No, probably not anytime soon with the robots. But let's assume for a second that someday we'll figure it out and that one day we will create a robot capable of

overcoming all those things we just said. Why would we still want it to raise our children? Aren't we always complaining about kids on their phones, said, why would we still want it to raise our children? Aren't we always complaining about kids on their phones, learning from YouTube and TikTok? I feel like that's specifically a conservative talking point. Like, you just know they're gonna accuse the robots

of being woke. Wealthy kids are already stereotypically raised by their nannies. Just look at every child of Elon Musk. Can you imagine what would happen to Baron Trump if he was raised by an emotionless machine? Why would anyone want that for anyone? Kids are, as I keep saying, us, future adults.

Do we want future adults raised by robots, being raised by something that approximates human emotion, and that will likely be viewed as an appliance that can be freely abused. Does that sound like it'll make social and well-adjusted adults? Or would it perhaps create a generation of extremely fucked up people whose mommy complexes

have now been transferred onto an army of human-shaped appliances with zero emotional intelligence. Stepmom porn would get weird. Would get weird? Anyway, you get it. In many cases, robot's bad. But also, hot take. This push for robot nannies is actually the heart of the problem with child care in this

country. It represents everything wrong with it, because it exposes the simple fact that there is a large portion of people in this country who, to be blunt, don't see childcare as real work, and do not respect the people who do it. To them, it's bottom-rung work that has to be done while the, let's be honest, men do the real jobs. Look no further than paternity leave. While gaining popularity, paternity leave is generally not a thing we do in America. I mean, we don't really have parental leave at all, but the idea of the dad taking time off is far less accepted. For example, after California enacted

its paid family leave law, the percentage of men taking time off after a child's birth barely rose, but for women, it skyrocketed. And that's because studies show that taking paternity leave can impact a man's professional reputation and his future earning potential. Or as a professor of sociology told the New York Times, men who take paternity leave do tend to be stigmatized

and viewed as less committed employees. It is, to be blunt once again, fucked up. But it's part of this larger pattern of who we have designated to watch our children. American society has always relied on an underclass of underpaid, overworked people to do care work. For decades, it was women, particularly women of color and immigrants,

who were expected to take on low-wage or unpaid jobs in childcare. Then of course, there's that whole slavery stuff we did. Remember slavery? Enslaved mothers who were still lactating from having their own kids were often forced to wet nurse white infants. There are entire articles devoted to dissecting the complex relationships

between black nannies and the white families they served, particularly to highlight the personal sacrifices involved for a lot of those black women. In more recent times, many Latina and immigrant women are employed as nannies for affluent white families. And now, it's robots. And don't get me wrong, that's way better than slaves. I'm not saying that robots are the same.

I mean, unless it's that one Star Trek episode where Data goes on trial and gains legal autonomy. Generally speaking, I don't care about the rights of robots at this point, maybe someday. But it's interesting to see how when we talk about the shit work we'd give robots, it's exactly the same as what we used to give our so-called lower class citizens.

Because ultimately, the utopia that capitalism affords us always necessitates that somebody gets exploited. But at least it could be robots now. And that's telling. But also telling is what this says about our relationship with children. Going back to that Elon clip, I need to note the next thing he lists as something his robots could do. It can be at your house. It can sort of babysit your kids. It could teach them, create a teacher. It can do factory stuff.

Right, it can teach your children or do like factory stuff. Two equally mindless tasks. See, the final thing this robot future reveals is that much like the people hired to raise them, children themselves are seen as lesser creatures that don't need quality care. It's so telling that when you look at the jobs

we always kick to poorer communities, childcare is right there next to factory work and fast food, which isn't to say that there isn't dignity in that work either. But it's interesting that for the people in power, kids are one of the bottom rungs, just a nuisance we need to deal with between the occasional public appearances

during which we perhaps need a human shield or two. wrongs. Just a nuisance we need to deal with between the occasional public appearances during which we perhaps need a human shield or two. Seriously, rich people don't even like their own kids. They certainly aren't going to help yours. I mean, kids are gross, so I get it. But the people in power, with the money, at the same time they're purporting to freak out about birth rates and the number of children being born, are also simply never going to see children as something worth investing in, unless it's their children specifically. And that brings me to the final detail of this robot idea, which is, of course, the

price. The idea is to sell these things for like $20,000 to $30,000, making them a luxury item. Literally the day before we filmed this, President Trump did an extended ad for Tesla, where he talked about one of his friends who owned four or five of them, and then Musk said of the President's new $78,000 model that they're not all expensive, some of them are $35,000. Truly, men of the people who understand the common citizenry. This stuff is not going to be for everyone or anyone who actually needs it, the same way nannies aren't for everyone or the people who need them.

Isn't it interesting that the vice president who claims that universal childcare is class warfare for the elites has happily hitched his ride to two billionaires, one of whom's solution, instead of universal childcare, is selling people shitty, expensive robots. And when you combine this with their other plans to deregulate childcare, what do you get? You get a tiered system. You get a system where at the very top,

robot butlers and nannies are raising children. After that, you have private schools and smaller daycares. Next, there's the big crappy daycares with 10 children per adult and relaxed safety measures. And finally, you have a single mom begging her neighbor to watch her kids for a few hours so she can go to work or visit her sick parent who can't babysit JD because they're in some shitty nursing home. And that is their solution to lowering the cost of childcare by simply making the bottom rung way worse and increasing the disparity between the top and the bottom, ensuring that

the kids at the bottom will continue to be at the bottom. You know, so they can never get to that big pile of money or just hear me out, we use a portion of that ever-growing pile of money and just fund childcare, just pay for it like we do with roads or like we used to do with public schools or like how we'll pay for Trump's new iron dome, I guess.

Some things just cost money. Sorry, they just do. Or, you know, robots are neat too. Hey, that reminds me, I wonder how Warmbow's doing. And then, and then, and then he realizes that O'Shea Jackson Jr. was actually the one who put everyone together and was the mastermind behind the heist and he gets away to London and is playing another heist!

You are very knowledgeable about the world. Thank you. Well you know, Warmbo's been around the block. I love you, Warmbo. I love you too, Computer Moose. We should kill people together. Julie, somebody likes my idea about killing hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe,

hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, hehehe, I need my space. That's cool too. We've got a podcast called Even More News. You can listen to it or you can watch it here on YouTube. We do it twice a week now. Woo! We've also got this show,

Some More News that you just watched as a podcast if you prefer. And if you do prefer, come on, what's the wrong with my face? Come on. I'm out of, I'm out of, I'm out of, I'm out of, I get it. We also have a patreon.com slash Some More News,

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