[crpatino]

> ... daycare workers cannot have a middle class income. Also, if they had, lots of people couldn't afford child care.

I know this will sound terrible, but if you cannot afford to pay child care, maybe the economy is telling you that your marginal job is not worth be done or held. The reality in US and many countries following it's economic model is that unemployment is a chronic, ignored problem. Marginally useful jobs can exist because there is always a big pool of desperate people ready to take poverty wages. You will do yourself and everyone a favor by not competing in that race to the bottom.

As long as the child is being raised by a family with at least 2 adults, a stay at home mom or dad is perfectly capable of providing care while at the same time engage in all types of frugality and household economy activities that will extend the salary of the sole breadwinner beyond what is normally possible for a couple of overstressed careerists. They can also engage in education and creative activities that will allow them to pick up a career later, when the kids are old enough to attend school (which is a sort of mandatory daycare, anyways).

Also, it is important to recognize that a single parent raising children is a extraordinary and unsustainable situation (though sadly common through history). Subsidies, charity and informal help from extended family, friends and neighbors should be directed to this cases, instead of being spread out trying to benefit as many people as possible.