MrSquished
Lifer
- Jan 14, 2013
- 26,563
- 24,758
- 136
Pre-K is clearly good for kids and also good for many parents. So obviously the GQP will be against it, and so will their dumbfuck base of rube deplorables.
SO - Do YOU have any data (not unrelated bullshit) to my original points of the glass-ceiling effect and how beneficial children are to lower-income?
So it's pretty simple then; if this is true countries with much greater benefit systems than the US (i.e. every other rich country), should see vastly higher birth rates! Especially for poorer people. Scandinavia?! People must have 8 kids each!? Imagine the benefits!
Oh, turns out it's not true? How strange! All of scandinavia, and the EU overall is actually LOWER than the USA. And poor, lower educated countries with no benefits have higher birth rates. Well this makes no sense now..![]()
Always amusing how right-wing talking points always forget that the rest of the world exists.

There's a lot of reasons. At the low end most of the costs of having children are absorbed by the government, yes, so people can have kids if they want to. At the high end you can just get a nanny and money isn't really a constraint on having them either. In the middle though, you have the government picking up less but you aren't wealthy enough to afford expensive child care and if you stay home it's a big hit to your household income anyway. That's why if you look at the curve it's basically high numbers of kids for the poor, a big dip in the middle, and then increasing fertility at the top.You're kidding, right? Having children is infinitely beneficial to lower-class individuals - because any and all subsidies, incentives, tax benefits, etc... increases eligibility substantially.
Obvious ones being - Increase in SNAP, Increase in TANF, subsidized housing - In addition to other federal/local programs that help subsidize energy/utility bills, cell phone bills, and internet/cable bills. Tax benefits include: Child Tax Credit, and especially the Earned Income Tax Credit disproportionately benefits the lower class. See the picture below that shows eligibility for the EITC and realize the degree to which a person are royally fucked if they start making slightly more and then their benefits are cut across the board.
View attachment 43731
These are just off the top of my head - I'm sure there are plenty of other "programs" such as free-school lunch programs, free/subsidized daycare and pre-k, etc.. . Next is how we disproportionately allow student loans for families that are broke - so there is an obvious expectation for anyone who makes any decent amount of money to somehow save up $50k+ for their kids to be able to attend college.
The overwhelming majority of these programs are basically 100% eliminated by the time someone reaches any reasonable amount lower-middle class household income - say - 30-50k. It's absurd to have these levels of glass-ceilings above people's heads, because no one wants to come out of them and take on all of those items I mentioned.
So what ARE you saying then? Because it sounded like you were saying either poorer people have more kids for tax "benefits" OR poorer people have glass ceilings so they have more kids...?That's not at all what I was saying lol. You continue to look like a complete idiot.
So what ARE you saying then? Because it sounded like you were saying either poorer people have more kids for tax "benefits" OR poorer people have glass ceilings so they have more kids...?
One of those? Something else?
Really glad to see you taking a cue from pcgeek here.I'm not here to spoon feed you children. If you want to learn in life how to debate worth a shit, then read my post and try not to strawman it with arguments that were never stated.
I asked because I thought I understood your point, but your subsequent posts responding to others made me think maybe you had a different point than what I had thought.I'm not here to spoon feed you children. If you want to learn in life how to debate worth a shit, then read my post and try not to strawman it with arguments that were never stated.
He hates that the liberal sheep here jump down people's throats when they sayI asked because I thought I understood your point, but your subsequent posts responding to others made me think maybe you had a different point than what I had thought.
Clearly others here are also having a similar difficulty fully understanding your point judging by your responses to them.
Is it that difficult to explicitly state your point in one sentence? (instead of calling us children, etc)
I was happy to get out of lower middle class. Yeah I lost some of those things but I'm good,I can afford them now. But I don't begrudge those who can't afford them like you.You're kidding, right? Having children is infinitely beneficial to lower-class individuals - because any and all subsidies, incentives, tax benefits, etc... increases eligibility substantially.
Obvious ones being - Increase in SNAP, Increase in TANF, subsidized housing - In addition to other federal/local programs that help subsidize energy/utility bills, cell phone bills, and internet/cable bills. Tax benefits include: Child Tax Credit, and especially the Earned Income Tax Credit disproportionately benefits the lower class. See the picture below that shows eligibility for the EITC and realize the degree to which a person are royally fucked if they start making slightly more and then their benefits are cut across the board.
View attachment 43731
These are just off the top of my head - I'm sure there are plenty of other "programs" such as free-school lunch programs, free/subsidized daycare and pre-k, etc.. . Next is how we disproportionately allow student loans for families that are broke - so there is an obvious expectation for anyone who makes any decent amount of money to somehow save up $50k+ for their kids to be able to attend college.
The overwhelming majority of these programs are basically 100% eliminated by the time someone reaches any reasonable amount lower-middle class household income - say - 30-50k. It's absurd to have these levels of glass-ceilings above people's heads, because no one wants to come out of them and take on all of those items I mentioned.
Only when you contrast those who got an inferior education with those who didn't.
Give everyone the best education possible, and it costs a premium to churn out self-entitled brats while menial work still needs done. Everyone wants to be a rock star but if everyone tries to climb that mountain, much time and resources are wasted.
Nothing to do with the advanced kids being held back by the non-advanced kids... It's hard to teach some kids base 10, multiple digit operations, while others in the class can't count to 20.
Because of COVID my daughter did private Pre-K this year. She just turned five and can do very basic reading, can do basic math, count to any number, etc. Some of her friends that didn't do Pre-K can't count to 10 or do their ABCs, things she's been doing since 2. It is insane the difference in kids that have had life time early education and especially pre-K vs not.
It's also a very big claim by one paper published in a little known journal, where they make the claims that Pre-K actually made kids less successful in school. I'd like to see some more evidence before I start believing that keeping them home and keeping them dumb is the best method for success. It's also mute on whether the control group attended Pre-K privately.
Also: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/american-enterprise-institute/
I got in on early childhood education and turned out ok. Made the same things happen for my kids and they are all quite advanced. Not geniuses, but do really well in school.
Students make the schools. The so-called gaps do not cost a premium to remedy, and are just generally from educational policy being run by some really incompetent people. For example, I had to do effectively two more years of academics because my high school offered no AP and very little college level courses (that had to be paid for but since it wasn't -- it didn't count). And for many of these same schools, senior year tends to be a complete joke with joke electives and study halls that do not count for anything. Diploma with Advanced Regents? Haha, it would have been much better for me to just get GED at 16 and go straight to college.
For some reason, school admin doesn't really see that as a problem. All these lower class sizes for each grade yet little differentiation nor really any interventions to suggest moving up kids a grade even if they were redshirted. A lot of advanced kids are 18 (never got moved up) yet there are also those in calculus that are still just 16.
Redshirting gives a waaaaaay bigger advantage than whether someone did pre-k or not.
Did you know affluent parents do redshirting not because the kid is really behind but they want them to be at the top of the class academically and physically?
I didn't see that part in the article I posted, but what I posted about any advantages fading very early has been well-established.
ERIC - ED562417 - Preventing Preschool Fadeout through Instructional Intervention in Kindergarten and First Grade, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2015
A substantial literature documents the benefits of early childhood education and formal preschool experiences on children's school readiness, with low-income and otherwise disadvantaged children benefitting the most from these programs. However, these academic benefits often fade out as children...eric.ed.gov
A substantial literature documents the benefits of early childhood education and formal preschool experiences on children's school readiness, with low-income and otherwise disadvantaged children benefitting the most from these programs. However, these academic benefits often fade out as children age, and most disappear by the end of kindergarten or first grade. The authors suggest one reason for preschool fade-out might be that children's elementary school teachers continue to teach content that children already learned during preschool, thus curtailing academic growth.
So what ARE you saying then? Because it sounded like you were saying either poorer people have more kids for tax "benefits" OR poorer people have glass ceilings so they have more kids...?
One of those? Something else?
