<p>I’ve long thought that the advent of the two-income household drove up the real estate prices. Arguable, also the cost of college.</p>
<p>“Bay, Your idea is interesting. I would have income caps. I know a lot of families that make plenty and only one parent works.”</p>
<p>To think, I was going to say dstark was right, until I read this line. So how do we work that income cap anyways? What would the cap be? Okay, maybe we could also make a law that two high income people couldn’t marry, you have to marry someone with a low/no income so we can equal it all out, and then forget bettering yourself. Perhaps the companies that hire could take care of this…ie Mr/Mrs Doctor, if your spouse already makes plenty of money, then instead of the 500K we were going to pay you, now it’s 50K. So that might encourage you to stay home and take care of the kids. Oh, your kids are grown or you don’t have them? Bummer, guess you’ll have to do something else. So much for the freedom to pursue your dreams, no matter who you are. Well, I guess you could still pursue them, you just wouldn’t be allowed to get paid for them if you married the wrong person.</p>
<p>Sounds to me like you would merely deter people from marrying. If you have a family income cap, then you just don’t marry, you live together. Trying to control people’s behavior will not work.</p>
<p>This all just sounds like the end game of getting women back into the kitchen, even if you try to frame it in non-sexist terms. And if you’d ever tasted my cooking, I guarantee that you’d want me OUT of the kitchen.</p>
<p>I think I’m all for an income cap. 100% income tax on everyone whose family makes one dollar more than mine.</p>
<p>I think dstark meant that a tax credit for couples with a non-working spouse would not be available to couples above a certain income, not that there should be a 100% marginal tax rate for couples above some income.</p>
<p>Also, the people who can afford to not work because they are in a stable relationship and have resources which allow them not to work for pay often have a skill set that is NOT interchangeable with many of those who are unemployed. This is ONE REASON why some of them choose to continue to work. </p>
<p>Another reason is that somehow people are often treated with more respect if they are “employees” rather than “just a volunteer.” This distinction is unfair but often does exist. Volunteer work is often horribly undervalued in the US.</p>
<p>Another issue is that some folks CANNOT volunteer. H retired and if he wants to be able to help at his workplace, he HAS to be either an employee or a contractor. He has chosen to be rehired as an employee and they are delighted he was willing to return. His workplace does NOT allow any volunteers on their premises for ANY reason.</p>
<p>It’s hard for me to KNOW what the future holds. I think it holds a lot of collaboration and new ways to address many issues we are currently facing. I have no idea what these new ways are and don’t believe all of them will be outsourced or handled by robotics or increasing technology.</p>
<p>“I think dstark meant that a tax credit for couples with a non-working spouse would not be available to couples above a certain income, not that there should be a 100% marginal tax rate for couples above some income.”</p>
<p>Well, that is what a reasonable person would think. But no, I don’t believe he was talking about tax credits…dstark doesn’t care for tax credits too much. I think he was talking about a cap on income, really.</p>
<p>I agree with Bay’s idea here, if I’m understanding correctly. I actually pretty much lived her idea --</p>
<p>Masters level engineering education, worked seven years in industry then quit when first baby born. I was the higher earner but my DH managed to support us. I would take on some contract/project stuff I could work from home from time to time but somehow managed to stay with my kids until the oldest was a junior in hs and younger one in 8th grade. Even then, I chose contracting work I could leave for summers to be home with the kids and frankly to enjoy my summers. :}</p>
<p>So yeah, everyone told me I was committing career suicide, blah blah. Well, I have never had a problem jumping back into work, including this past year when unemployment is so high. I have found that having a technical degree plus having good communication skills generally gets me jobs when I want them. Could I have earned more? Well, duh. But I earn quite well and contribute in a meaningful way to our retirement and kids’ educations, etc.</p>
<p>That said, there’s a lot of my female friends who would shoot themselves staying home with kids. And so would their husbands. So I don’t know how to implement Bay’s plan. I think it would be good if people who honestly don’t want to be intensively with their children would think more carefully about whether or not parenthood is right for them. I think a lot of people have the big careers AND the kids because the kids are just one more check mark on the to-do list. </p>
<p>Here’s a radical and probably offensive idea for some – maybe making some sort of governmental incentive or even law that one parent be home with kids for childrearing would actually end up improving our educational outcomes. I think some daycare sort of turns kids off to institutional learning before they’re even potty trained.</p>
<p>I think the cat is already out of the bag on this and there is no putting it back. However, it’s my opinion, that women entering the work force, en masse, in the 60’s, who were hired at much lower wages, has depressed everyone’s wages, forcing most families to need two income earners now. </p>
<p>I have been a SAHM for 20 years and it’s doubtful I couldn’t be hired doing anything like what I was doing before - especially since I am in my mid-50’s now. I’m sure I could get a job working in a store or something - to keep busy or active - but, it’s my opinion I would be taking a job away from someone who needs it way more than me.</p>
<p>Yes, I can attest to difficulties that I and others have had when we stopped out to raise our families. Fortunately for us, we were still able to maintain an OK standard of living while I have had a series of part-time jobs, which help supplement the family income and are interesting and challenging to me. I know others who have great difficulty re-entering work force and when they do go back, it is often at reduced pay.</p>
<p>I worked full-time at my career when I graduated law school for 5 years & until we had our 1st kid. After he was 4.5 months, I stopped out of the labor force (except for some minor contracting jobs) until they were both done with grade school & then I got the first of a series of part-time jobs. I feel very fortunate that we had the resources so I COULD stay at home with my kids and feel we all benefitted from it, but I know several friends who would have gone crazy & driven everyone around them nuts if they had stayed at home with their kids. For them, good quality child care (including nannies for some) was the best option.</p>
<p>To me, there is no clear BEST answer. Am glad to have skills that have enabled me to pick and choose part-time jobs I have loved, which have allowed me to supplement our family income, and that H has had a steady job through the entire time period so that our family had a secure source of income.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, Post 63. Beliavsky is correct.</p>
<p>^^Don’t see anything in your posts that support tax credits, dstark, in fact you seem to be arguing against them. I don’t think I recall you supporting tax credits in particular at all.</p>
<p>“Here’s a radical and probably offensive idea for some – maybe making some sort of governmental incentive or even law that one parent be home with kids for childrearing would actually end up improving our educational outcomes. I think some daycare sort of turns kids off to institutional learning before they’re even potty trained.”</p>
<p>Yep, I don’t know if I’d call that offensive, but talk about impinging upon people’s freedom. You’d need big buck government incentives to coerce people not to work, good luck paying for that, and as far as passing a law, how are you going to enforce that? Throw families in jail if they both dare to work? Fine them so they have less money? There are many families that would be in poverty if they didn’t have two wage earners. So many families that are not out in the streets during this recession because many women still kept their jobs, often with health insurance.</p>
<p>Do you really want the government to control every single aspect of our life? Have them tell us who is allowed to work and when? I think the women’s rights movement was about having the freedom to do what we want, to make our own choices. I can’t imagine having more government know-it-alls telling us what we must do with our lives. People should do what they think is best for their families, whether it is to work or stay home. There is not just one choice that is right for everyone.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, I don’t really like tax credits, but If I was running things I would look at the idea Bay has. (I like the earned income tax credit…a conservative idea).</p>
<p>When did I ever say I was supporting 100 percent tax rates?
Never.</p>
<p>You are reading things that don’t exist.</p>
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<p>Even if they are on the right track here, it may not exactly be the situation. Another possibility is that changes in the types of jobs in demand happen more quickly than workers in obsoleted jobs can retrain for the new jobs that are begging for workers. Employer attitudes that they will only take a fully trained worker even when the job type is new and most people in it are learning it as they go along can also create labor market inflexibility.</p>
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<p>Isn’t this backwards. In two income families if one spouse loses their job they at least have the other income. In a family with only one breadwinner if that person loses their job than they are really in trouble and unemployment benefits are even more important than for a two income family.</p>
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<p>That is offensive. </p>
<p>It delays the child’s point of entry into government preschool, which would slow the rate of increase in government employment.</p>
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<p>So how would widowed parents comply? Divorced parents (not everyone realizes that marrying someone was a mistake before having children)? Would it require some sort of governmental welfare to keep them out of the labor force?</p>
<p>How about two parents who go out to work but leave the kids at live-in or nearby grandparents for day care (in return, the extra pay that they earn helps support the grandparents)? If the lower paid parent earns more than either of the grandparents could earn out in the labor force, forcing that parent to stay at home would be a net loss for the family (and probably the overall macroeconomy as well).</p>
<p>“When did I ever say I was supporting 100 percent tax rates?
Never.
You are reading things that don’t exist.”</p>
<p>True, I have never seen you say that. Which is why it threw me when you said, “income caps”, because it did not appear to be in reference to a tax credit. I retract my statement, and my nausea has been eliminated. How’s that for a classless way of admitting I was incorrect?</p>
<p>“So how would widowed parents comply? Divorced parents (not everyone realizes that marrying someone was a mistake before having children)? Would it require some sort of governmental welfare to keep them out of the labor force?”</p>
<p>And how about parents in my families situation? We worked opposite schedules for 18 years so someone could be home for the kids. Should we be fined, legislated out of a job or sent to jail because we both worked?</p>
<p>The problem is when someone decides, this is what is right for ME and my family, so therefore everyone should do what I think is best. The same solution is not right for every family, and trying to regulate and legislate those sort of things are inappropriate and part of the ultimate government nanny state.</p>
<p>“True, I have never seen you say that. Which is why it threw me when you said, “income caps”, because it did not appear to be in reference to a tax credit. I retract my statement, and my nausea has been eliminated. How’s that for a classless way of admitting I was incorrect?”</p>
<p>:)</p>
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<p>3togo,
It isn’t backwards, because the idea is that we would be at 100% employment (excluding the stay-home spouse/parents). It would be less likely for people to lose their jobs due to lay-offs and easy to find another, and if the working spouse did have to stop working, the other spouse could go back to work relatively easily, because all workers would be in demand (unlike now, when its tough to find a job).</p>