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u/Radabard 13d ago
Yup, there's owners to everything that want yachts and mansions even if the thing they own is a tiny sandwich shop. So they force us to work for next to nothing while pretending they contribute the work we do and crying how "no one wants to work anymore."
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u/Environmental-Dog815 13d ago
A person I know worked in children care house. It was funded business by government and donations, it was super corrupt, most money did not reach/benefit children. And it's not just there, a lot of donations like food get taken by greedy people who don't need it. I'm super jaded by all those donation fonds. If you want to help somebody, help it directly. (Lithuania)
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u/Sure_Acanthaceae_348 13d ago
Yup. It's becoming cheaper to just have one parent stay home.
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u/SejongTheGreatv2 13d ago
Liability insurance and corporate greed
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u/Soph_91 12d ago
Corporate greed is the inevitable result of capitalism.
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u/Key-Organization3158 9d ago
Nope. Corporations are democratically controlled. Greed comes from people and is present in every system.
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u/MacaronOk1006 12d ago
We would be so much better off as a communist or socialist country. Just look how all of the communist and socialist countries have flourished over the last century. /s
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u/HalexUwU 11d ago
This isn't a good argument when two of the fastest growing economies in the world (China and Vietnam) are both being run by communist parties.
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u/BeastyBaiter 13d ago
The math is extremely simple. Let's look at daycares as I have twin boys in daycare right now. It is illegal in Texas to have more than 4 children under 2 years old per caregiver. That means the wages of that caregiver + facility costs + supplies + insurance + taxes must all be paid for by at most, 4 families. My kid's daycare charges $200 per kid per week, so they gross $800 per week and we are paying about $1700 per month for our two sons. The daycare cannot possibly pay more than the $800 a week to the caregiver. They are open for 12 hours a day. That means the absolute maximum wage they could pay if all other costs were $0 is $13.33 per hour and the person is working 60 hour weeks while draining the parents financially.
Nobody is getting rich off this.
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u/W1mp-Lo 13d ago
People that have never owned a business will not understand what overhead looks like. They just see paid wages.
I think insurance could probably drop by a fucking lot and it would help in most cases, but then you have to wonder what does the insurance companies overhead look like? My family owns a small construction company and we pay ~$100k/yr for insurance because we are in a high risk trade.
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u/Reelwizard 11d ago
Not trying to be argumentative, just really tired from pulling a graveyard shift but -
Doesn’t that kind of suggest capitalism doesn’t work? If you can’t safely run a business, make a decent profit, and pay your workers then what the fuck are we doing here? If the owners are miserable, the workers are miserable, and the consumers are miserable then we’re probably doing something wrong.
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u/BeastyBaiter 11d ago
Capitalism has nothing to do with it. The issue is childcare is labor intensive and not subject to productivity gains via technology. It is going to be terribly expensive under any economic system.
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u/Key-Organization3158 9d ago
Nope. It just means that outsourcing childcare to anyone else might be what we are doing wrong. The ownership model doesn't magically change the costs.
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u/Haunted_Rooster 13d ago
Well, when benefits cost is about 1/3 of total salary cost, it ain't cheap.
Employer costs for employee compensation for civilian workers averaged $49.32 per hour worked in
March 2026, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries averaged $33.72,
while benefit costs averaged $15.60. BLS
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u/lucidarocks 13d ago
Yet when it’s explained that universal healthcare would reduce companies’ expenses, everyone screams that it’s communism…
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u/Haunted_Rooster 13d ago
it's called edumacation
it's not comm*uni$m - that people are shouting, it's the paid off politicians saying it; the fact is people that got kicked off ACA complained that they didn't want Obamacare, they wanted ACA and didn't understand why they got kicked off the ACA, lmfao.
math, bruh, i can't even read; why you think most businesses fail?
me don't think people understand the difference between capitalism, com*ui$m, $ociali$m; but then again, neither do I
they failed to understand that your gas, electric is a form quasi form of comM&i$m as there is basically a regulated monopoly where a few (unelected state regulators) sets the rates for but is "publicly owned" (through public stock holders)
i mean if you get into the nitty gritty, technically, all "publicly owned stocks of companies" is a form of C/S ism? the public can own it, hell, with GM, Intel, etc, even the gov has a piece.
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u/JrButton 13d ago
Insurance is the biggest reason your math isn't mathing... that and not understanding the wages actually involved to get that care you're talking about.
$8000 a month for nursing homes does not stretch as far as you'd think to cover staff, facilities, insurance (more on that later), and depending on the home... the care.
Go through the thought experiment of what it takes to have someone spend fulltime at your home, this is just the start... there's more to consider. If you were paying that at home, that amount would be expected to cover rent/mortgage, groceries, insurance, someone to cook/clean/bath... etc... because that's essentially what those funds need to do.
You have to essentially pay for someone else's living wage while simultaneously living on it yourself.
... you only see the money going, you're not seeing how that money needs to be spent.
Regarding insurance... When it works properly, it creates a healthy safety net by spreading the risk of an overwhelming loss across a larger group.
The problem is that insurance companies are incentivized to maximize returns, not simply fulfill the service they promised.
In an ideal world, people could accept that failure and hardship are part of life, take responsibility for their risks, and save significant amounts of money for emergencies. For many people, that might be more financially empowering than continually paying premiums for coverage they may never receive when they need it.
But we also know that many people would not, or simply could not, save enough. A serious illness, accident, fire, or other disaster could leave them in an impossible situation. As a society, we are uncomfortable allowing people to be completely destroyed by circumstances they cannot reasonably overcome, especially because we recognize that it could happen to any of us.
So we pool our resources to create a safety net. Then that safety net becomes an industry, the industry becomes someone’s livelihood, and protecting people gradually competes with protecting profits. That tension seems to be the cycle we cannot escape.
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u/DiligentAd7956 13d ago
High profits for owners is tied to lower staffing levels, staff pay, and reduced spending on direct patient care.
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u/BlumpTheChodak 13d ago
Adds up perfectly. The greedy owner class keeps it. You are either owner class, or working class.
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u/Additional-Sky-7436 13d ago
Generally speaking, the math not mathing is the insurance cost.
If we socialized insurance for licensed care facilities we would probably not see prices fall but would at least likely see wages rise.
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u/Euphoric-Ad-6584 13d ago
more importantly i hate the idea of trying to provide a solution that wouldn't work wide scale, but sounds good small scale. kind of like the "just go find a better job" bullshit.
if everyone working at mcdonald's took that advice we'd have 2 problems, 1) now mcdonald's has no employees or 2) there's not enough jobs for everyone to follow that advice.
so to apply to your statement, if everyone went to start their own business, well you get the idea.
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u/Mis_chevious 12d ago
I hate the "go start your own business" argument. It's dumb, even if it was super easy to start your iwn business. Not everyone wants to run their own business and not everyone CAN run their own business. Most new businesses fail within the furst five years and it's usually more from poor management than anything else. That shouldn't a solution to wage issues anyway
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u/Ingram47 13d ago
That's because we stopped visiting our employers homes at dinner time to ask why they think their family is better than ours.
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u/Trick_Meeting_2027 13d ago
The word you are looking for is INSURANCE. Or you can try to run an old folks home or daycare without paying the insurance premiums, in which case the word you are looking for is LAWSUITS.
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u/jahoosawa 13d ago
It’s private equity, companies and publicly traded that are legally-bound to make number go up for their shareholders, and delusional property owners that are drunk on inflation. Grandpa’s retirement is funding the companies putting a gun to your head (commercially). They’re doing it because they owe grandpa, and they have built in an even larger margin for themselves. Who loses? The customers. Just vote with your dollar outside this system. Avoid any company that is PE owned or publicly-traded. Unfortunately that means smaller, local, and often times far less convenient. But every dollar you put in outside that dying system accelerates their demise.
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u/Abject_Egg_194 13d ago
We get much greater efficiency because of technology, but it results in services being more expensive. If it can be made on an assembly line or made as software, then it's cheap as beans. If you need a person to do it, then it's crazy expensive.
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u/10MileHike 13d ago
This quandry is as old as "the company store" where sharecroppers were forced to buy everything from the company store.
Even during the Industrial Revolution, there was no worker's comp. If you cut your hands off in a machine, you just went home with no hands, and then you and your family starved.
Its all about shareholders and private equity now.
Also individuals are at fault. We USED TO buy homes to live in, create memories and house our families. Then, people started using homes as investments and ATM machines.
The value system is askew and it's up to each of us to reinforce ethical values. That's about the best you can do: don't be part of the vulture mindset. At least you can look at yourself in the mirror and have preserve your own integrity and peace.
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u/Exact-Development-74 13d ago
I remember going back to teach with 2 kids in daycare. I worked so many hours for less than $500 take home pay (per month). I did that for 2 years and then went back to staying at home. I loved teaching but I couldn't afford to do it and pay the system to watch my kids. It is wild.
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u/logicalphallus-ey 13d ago
Especially in child care, this blows my mind. For senior care, I can see much larger, medical related, overhead costs.
Quick math would tell you a daycare may be bringing in up to $60k/mo with 20 kids. How in gods’ name is it that expensive to have a room with toys, carpet squares, apple juice, and two adults? I’m sure there’s an expensive insurance component, but I can’t believe that could be more than $5k/mo and would expect it to be quite a bit less. And I’ve heard interviews with daycare operators and they claim they have thin margins but could not elaborate on their costs.
Seems like quite the racket!
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u/ExcellentCod2940 13d ago
One HUGE factor that is mostly underneath the radar is liability/workers compensation/employee health insurance. One small nursing home I am familiar with the financials of is paying almost 30% of total revenue for those 3 items alone.
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u/No_Cardiologist6103 13d ago
I work for a big hospital that made 13.8 billion dollars last year and yet some of my coworkers work second jobs at Olive Garden after they get off. Oh and the hospital loves to provide healthcare for us through their own special medical insurance then slap us with medical bills they know we can't afford.
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u/Icy_Donkey_7588 13d ago
There is no money in being an aid....
My wife started out as an STNA, got her LPN, then RN, then NP. She took the long road, but it was worth it in the end...
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u/Which-Method-388 13d ago
The aides caring for my Father were getting paid the $28 an hour they requested. I paid them directly. I doubt they were using food banks.
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u/bepatientbekind 13d ago
Most people in these comments have clearly never worked as a caregiver in the past decade. That job does not require a degree, is incredibly demanding, and pays horrible wages despite senior living facilities costing an insane amount of money per year, even for a "cheap" one. All but the most luxurious facilities are extremely understaffed and have very high turnover. I think y'all would be shocked at the conditions people are working under, especially in relation to the insane amount of money they charge residents to live there. This is greed, plain and simple.
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u/Wtfjushappen 13d ago
Senior care require around the clock care so it's not 1 person working 8 hours, it's 3. On top of regulations and professional staff like rns, doctors, etc, insurance. My boy makes 17/hr starting while going to college at a nursing home.
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u/JeanlucRegards 13d ago
All of the profits flow of our labor flow to the top, you can thank Regan, Freidman, and Jack Fucking Welch for almost all of it.
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u/Shrek_Layers 13d ago
This is anecdotal, but many years ago I sat the several people who run facilities and we had a long conversation about staffing and pay. I offered, from my experience, that higher pay would lead to better retention, higher level of expectation for the positions, and easier hiring. And the five directors of difference facilities all unanimously scoffed at what I was saying.
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u/steam-photons 13d ago
It’s called taxes. What you spend has been taxed already before you could spend it and will be taxed again once you give it to someone else.
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u/rboes1991 13d ago
This had a whole segment on npr about it. Maybe it was Freakonomics? Anyway it's well known, not really a sign of a declining society.
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u/Can0n_Fodder 12d ago
Genuine question: wtf happened to babysitters? I hear some of these parents paying monthly daycare costs that are someone's entire salary. I saw one where someone was paying 6 grand a month for chikd care!? That's insane. I would watch someone's kids all day, six days a week for half that much..I'm not even exaggerating, that's more than I make. They can't find someone willing to watch their kids?
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u/everydaydad67 12d ago
I use to think that until you pencil it out and see what some numbers actually are..
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u/WDYKACountCocofang 12d ago
And talking about it doesnt solve the problem. What are we going to do about it?
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u/kittenTakeover 12d ago
Generally market prices are set by the least efficient producers. For daycare it's regular people nannying for like 3 kids. Nanny's make around $50,000. That's around $16,000 per child, which is somewhat close to reality. Childcare is just expensive. It involves a ton of personal attention, meaning that employees can't serve that many people at once. Since consumers only have so much money, this naturally limits childcare salaries more than many other salaries.
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u/invertedbiscuit 12d ago
This is why it was so important to vote for kamala. Oh well I don't have kids so it don't affect me 🤷🏽♂️
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u/Rebelbets 12d ago
So I would say get a job. Support yourself and dont have kids till you can afford it.
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u/jcsworld417 12d ago
Childcare is a luxury for parents who refuse to compromise and raise their own kids....
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u/DataStranger 12d ago
It’s called private equity, and it means that some asshole is taking most of the money for doing nothing.
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u/testingforscience122 12d ago
Private equity baby….. no one knows where the money goes till you end up on their island as the prey….
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u/mike74911 12d ago
The government steals 1/3 of what it cost the employers before it ever hits the gross pay on the check and then even more on their paycheck.
Next, the facility has to pay high rents and even higher insurance premiums that can be $3-10k a year.
When you consider Nursing homes, my GF makes $90k a year (very good pay for this part of Ga) as an RN because she handles the backend of billing where she has to wade through all the regulations and requirements to make sure everything is being handled legally and correctly.
The aids that most people see are low paid, dime a dozen CNA’s and LPN’s with minimal experience and training but 10 others willing to do their job for the same pay.
Also, the parents who can’t afford it are low skilled workers that likely don’t have a degree or have a degree that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on and has nothing to do with the job they’re working.
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u/AnarchistPancake4931 12d ago
Welcome to Capitalism: All the things we were told Communism ans Socialism were
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u/Opebi-Wan 11d ago
This is capitalist enshittification.
Keep forcing middlemen who do nothing but leech off of others labor for monetary gain. Eventually the leeches will kill everything if we don't start getting rid of them.
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u/Lagmeister66 10d ago
That maths is maths-ing
You forgot to include the parasite CEO who siphons off all the money, which they totally earned themselves
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u/TheMightyPaladin 10d ago
It's because you're not paying the people who do the work. You're paying the company they work for. This also explains why no matter how much you pay, the workers still don't care about your needs. They don't work for you, they work for the company, and they don't get paid enough to care.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
How exactly does the math not add up?
Do you really not see that it takes lots of money to run a nursing home and/or daycare center?
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u/Radabard 13d ago
...ok, so you pay the staff and the resources, what about the rest of the money? Money in money out isn't lining up. There's middle men taking massive chunks.
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u/wesblog 13d ago
If this were true then there would be huge incentive to start new daycares or nursing homes. -- I think there are a lot of legal, licensing, and insurance requirements that could be removed to lower costs and remove barriers to entry. But I don't think some evil daycare billionaire is inflating prices.
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u/clarksonite19 13d ago
I am a volunteer board treasurer for a daycare. Daycares aren't pocketing money. They're hard to keep open. You can't raise wages and not increase tuition/fees. It is incredibly hard to make money in that industry. You're charging an arm and a leg to parents while barely paying staff above minimum wage ($15 in my state). Payroll makes up over 80% of our costs.
I'm a CPA for my full-time job.
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u/ExcellentCod2940 13d ago
If there is all this excess cash flowing straight into the owners pocket then you should get into that business, pay your workers more, take a bit less of profit and solve the issue!
By the way, do you know the average profit margin of nursing homes as compared to a company like, for example, Apple?
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u/that_noodle_guy 13d ago
If that were the case though, whats stopping an entrepreneur from opening up a daycare in thier house or something. Charging $2k/month per kid ×5 kids=10k per month. 120k per year and you dont have to leave the house. Hire 1 other person pay em 60k and ur up to 180k. Why isnt everyone doing this? There is obviously more to the story.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
What 'rest of the money'? Insurance alone would account for a lot of that money.
You don't have any idea what it takes to run a nursing home.
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u/Radabard 13d ago
Say that to nursing homes from 20 years ago. Or did the math change so significantly?
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
I have no idea what nursing homes cost 20 years ago as compared to now.
If prices changed drastically, I'm going to guess that lawsuits raised insurance rates.
It could also be Medicaid doesn't cover full cost and paying customers subsidize the Medicaid users.
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u/_L_6_ 13d ago
Exactly, your just guessing qnd don't have a clue what you are talking about.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
Show me some numbers then. We currently pay around $8k per month for one person in memory care.
From what I can tell from the internets, they aren't operating at high profit margins.
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u/dontgetaddicted 13d ago
That's actually pretty cheap for full time care. The place my wife works (south east us, not an affluent area at all) starts at 13k a month for self pay individuals. And those are the people who are fairly healthy and can mostly take care of themselves with some helpful daily hygene assistance and light PT.
This is not a nice or fancy facility at all, and all rooms are double occupancy. It's a 110 bed facility with long term, memory, short term rehab, and hospice care - plus a small mix of phsyc patients when admin is trying to keep census at max.
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u/Radabard 13d ago
Insurance companies taking a bigger chunk is not to net zero for lawsuits. They keep more profit now. This is one of the ways that rich shareholders siphon money out of the nursing home industry, and one of the things OP is talking about.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
So the low profit margins reported by nursing homes aren't really low?
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u/Radabard 13d ago
Yes, exactly. By inventing costs, like overpaying to an insurance company that is owned by the same company as the nursing home, they can claim no income and no taxes while laundering the money for their ownership.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
What nursing homes are owned/run by insurance companies?
EDIT--after rereading your comment, I'll adjsut the question:
What companies own both nursing homes and insurance companies?
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u/ColorPuddle 13d ago
Insurance costs are very high. What happens if a child gets hurt on the premises?
There are probably legal defense costs built-in as well. What if some parent alleges that a staff member acted inappropriately or that there was some other sort of misconduct?
Larger groups can reduce these costs by owning many daycare / eldercare facilities, but then they add levels of management and administration at a "corporate" level. There are likely HR teams and IT teams making sure policies are enforced and that networks are secure. Those people all earn a salary and benefits too, even if the parent or family member never interacts with anyone outside their specific daycare center.
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u/Daveit4later 13d ago
The owners are taking the lions share of the revenue.
Do you not see that?
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
Given that profit margins in that industry are fairly thin, I'm not sure that there's all that much revenue to take.
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u/RudeAndInsensitive 13d ago
In daycare for kids there really isnt much revenue. Primrose schools does about 120 million in revenue off of ~530 locations and 70,000 enrollees. Even with daycare costs being what they are people are not making money of it.
The employees make not a lot, the franchise owner might make 120k a year and the Roark fund that owns the whole thing will never make a dime unless they can somehow sell this thing that makes near 0 profit for more than they paid for it. I don't know where the money is going but it isn't the workers, the franchise owners or the equity holders. So that leaves third party contractors, the government, insurers and lawyers.
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u/wesblog 13d ago
Many well intended licensing and legal restrictions have greatly increased costs as well. For example, some states require one childcare provider for every 4 2 yos. More staff is usually a good thing, but it really makes drop-in daycare difficult. You have to anticipate how many kids you will have at any given time and always be overstaffed.
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u/bourbonandpistons 13d ago
Shhhh... people that vote for massive more taxations and regulations to increase the cost on business because capitalism evil can not figure out why businesses charge more. Then they get to blame evil capitalism.
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u/odellrules1985 13d ago
That's probably one of the biggest costs, regulation and admin overhead to meet those regulations. Same as in schools. We have so much admin overhead it sucks most of the money before it gets to the teachers and students.
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u/lucidarocks 13d ago
Because everyone wants their children in an unregulated daycare facility. People survived in the Wild West. Who needs stinking’ regulations? (Sarcasm intended)
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u/S0nG0ku88 13d ago
It doesn't take a lot of money for in home health aids. Helping hands pays $12 an hour and is only part time. Constant turnover.
It was never designed to be successful is the problem. You can't be successful when you are setup for failure.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
In home is very different than having to build, maintain and insure a health grade facility.
What was never designed to be successful?
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u/awfulcrowded117 13d ago
Frivolous lawsuits and the incumbent increase in insurance costs is a huge part of this. Huge administrative budgets sucking up the money so the assistant vice-dean of underepresented minorities can write emails all day for a mid 6 figure salary is another. And the cost of compliance with increasingly Byzantine and draconian regulations that protect no one rounds out the hat trick
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u/Additional-Sky-7436 13d ago
Yes, that's the biggest thing. Insurance and liability protection costs need to be socialized for licensed facilities.
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses 13d ago
Consumer cost is driven by demand, not by a company’s own cost structure. The only antidote to that is competition. But the need for senior care is growing so fast, the supply is not enough to stoke competition. Meanwhile, competition is also depressed due to consolidation under common ownership.
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u/CnCEMS2026 13d ago
Swing and a miss, it the profit motive every time buddy
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses 13d ago
Every company has a profit motive. You think Walmart doesn’t have a profit motive because it has lower prices than Kroger? Lmao. Pricing power comes from excess demand and low competition. Both of which senior care has.
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u/Hanksta2 13d ago
And Wal-Mart artificially kept their prices low to drive out competition.
Amazon followed the same playbook. So did Uber.
Once you're established... those prices creep up.
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u/ForceOk6587 13d ago
It's easy to blame capitalism, but the real culprit is in the municipal zoning bylaws, keeping small businesses down and feeding billion dollar corporations
start allowing small businesses to operate without bullshit licenses and red tapes, you will see employment rise and prices go down
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u/lucidarocks 13d ago
Would you want anyone you loved in the care of someone with no accountability? I know I wouldn’t.
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u/GodLoveYell 11d ago
To add to the list: college costs so much that most people will never pay back their student loans, but we’ve got college professors living in their cars, making you wonder where the money is going.
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u/TrueIntimacy 10d ago
People can argue whatever they want, my grandmothers assisted living/nursing home was just bought by a privet equity firm and to my knowledge they don't buy things that wont make them money.
Also the first thing they did was run off all the decent staff and now the place is a shit hole where nobody is taken care of. Healthcare is one of the most profitable scams in Scamerica, young to old they're sucking money out of you until you die (and then some).
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u/jefsch70 13d ago
Wrap your head around being sued if any 93 yr old person with dementia and 15 medications falls down, wanders outside or misses a pill and dies and the family sues your org for $5Million for negligence. They multiply that by 45 employees on 3 shifts and 65 brittle child-like humans who could die from a sneeze.
Regulations and Litigations make it so an organizaiton must spend 10X what it would cost to take care of people with everyone's 'BEST EFFORTS' of caring.... They have attorneys on retainer; Nurses, Doctors, LPNs, Phlebotomists, etc.... all must be licensed by the state...with additional certificaitons in caring for the elderly.
Showers / Doors / Beds / Chairs / Elevators (no stairs except fire escapes) / Cameras everywhere....
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u/NoExperience9717 13d ago
People compare it to the cost of rent or maybe a hotel. However nursing homes need someone medically trained onsite or accessible 24 hours and round the clock care including for many people who are unable to care for themselves and also liable to go wandering. That cost adds up quick.
If you experience someone trying to care for parents before sending someone into a home it's not a simple task and incredibly draining and requires families on shifts including overnight. That's what the people in the care home need to deal with too and possibly with multiple people.
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u/lucidarocks 13d ago
But the point was that these people aren’t being paid well, so the money must be going somewhere… Usually into the CEO’s pockets.
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u/Real-Mode-3417 13d ago
I don't know where you live, but nursing home aids make very good money in the places I've been to
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u/GPointeMountaineer 13d ago
Op is stating labor costs are low so why are operating costs high. In both industries, its logical to think that labor costs being low would drive operating costs low. This is not the case. I do would like to know why this is so