[akafred]

In Norway, there is a max price on child care which makes it affordable and the best option for most people. The government subsidizes somewhere around two thirds of the costs. I guess labour costs are 70%+ in most cases. There are both public and privately run child care centers/kindergardens. The privately run are subsidized on more or less equal terms as the publicly run, and the norms for employee density and other minimum quality requirements are the same. About one third of the employees are pre-school teachers (three years of higher ed), the rest are either skilled (there is a child worker professional vocation ed you can take) or unskilled. I don't think there are many cases where employees can not afford to have their own kids in child care. In my municipality parents of all children in child care are surveyed every year and the reports from the survey are public. My guess is that the whole thing is more or less funded by the increased taxes paid by keeping a larger part of the population working. (I could also mention that parents share about a year of paid leave for each birth so most kids are around one year old when they start in child care.)

[vasilipupkin]

makes a lot of sense to subsidize childcare heavily, it's one of the most pro growth policies one can come up with - let's people actually work and not worry about what to do with the kids. Norway is oil rich, though, so not clear how relevant this is for US

[vacri]

The US is extremely wealthy, and not all that far behind Norway on the PPP scale of things.

[sitkack]

In Germany, kindergarden it also free.

[qznc]

Depends on the state you are in. Education in Germany is federal business.