[jrno639]

and your second income is taxed at your marginal rate, to pay for a $1 of child care you need around $1.33 to $1.50 in income. Put another way, avoiding $1 in expenses is like earning up to $1.5 at work.

But the real issue is what the article points out, that this often leaves the stay at home parent “trapped” and dependent on the working spouse. What do you do when you’ve been out of the workforce 20+ years, kids out of the house (no child support), and you need to support yourself now?

[rolobio]

I work, my wife is a homemaker with our kids. I love the fact that her work is not taxed. If she had a job, that labor would be taxed, and then the person who we would pay to watch our children would have their income taxed as well. Government would double-dip (triple-dip?) if my wife was working.

[throwaway4aday]

If the earner dies: life insurance

If the earner leaves: alimony

It's not like we haven't solved these problems before. Yes, we could improve legislation around this but the basic idea is that if you have a contract with a partner where one of you earns the income and the other does the work at home then part of that contract is to recompense the person who is not working if the one who is fails to live up to their side of the bargain for whatever reason.