Lbjen

Also, kids don't go to nursery here - they start school at 5 for kindergarten, and in most districts anything before that comes out of your own pocket. And it can get quite expensive, if that's something else that will be important to you.

Bob

Aye... Full time in Maine $400 a month, down my way $1300-1500 a month for 3 half days a week.

So just like everything else, really depends on location.

NatashaB

$400 a month for childcare!? Wow. We pay $230 per week.

For all the companies I've looked at/interviewed for here in MI it seems like most corporate jobs offer 120 hours (15 days) as a starting point, rising incrementally after 5 and 10 years and with public holidays on top. My current company calls it 'combined time off' which means you have to take your sick leave out of that too. I moved over from the UK branch of the company so they agreed to honor my UK allowance, so I get 200 hours.

Pulaski

In our experience price and quality varies a lot even in the same city. Five years ago, when we were looking for a place for little Miss P, Mrs P looked at several places from $800/mth. They were good places in the $900 and up range, but getting quite "iffy" at the lower end. Below that there is the option of "in home daycare", which is a state recognized and inspected type of daycare facility which is much cheaper (anecdotally, I hear in the $500 range), and below that there are undoubtedly "friends and neighbors" unofficial unregulated daycares operating.
The daycare we chose for little Miss P was better equipped than most infant schools, a modern purpose built building, with rooms well equipped with a range of age appropriate toys, and segregated outdoor play areas for the different age groups, also with age appropriate toys and play equipment.

scrubbedexpat091

My sister pays 800 a month in So. California for a home based daycare, the school type day care seems to run over a 1,000 a month in her area it seems.

Her older kids get free after school and before school care from the state for free, but the little fellow not in school yet she has to pay for.

Gillymonkey

We have daycare already set up for our new baby (he has not arrived yet). Due to his age ours will be $400 per week. That's for a center we really like. I just wouldn't be comfortable with an unknown home daycare for a 12 week old.

dlake02

Cos they're Americans ? The culture here is geared around WORK. Work (or rather lack-of) has a far more serious impact on your life than anywhere else. You are defined by your job, your status. You have healthcare due to work.

There is NO safety net worth talking about - even things like public transport are more geared around getting people to/from work; not for car replacement as has been the focus in Europe for the last 10-ish years. For example, the three bus lines we have round here only operate to the offices between 7-9am, from the offices between 16.00 and 18.00 and not at all at weekends ! There is NO public transport to a community of roughly 10,000 people outside these times. Hardly promotes leaving the car at home.

Any holiday time you get has been divided between time you want to go on (shock - horror) "holiday," time you will spend sick (there is NO sick leave allowance), bank holidays (often not included in the leave pool) and mandated works shutdowns. For example, my company has just announced that "you will take 4 days at Christmas" - that is illegal in the UK and the rest of the EU.... leaves me with 15 days holiday for the entire year and 7 public holidays (there are 9 total, so I'm 2 in debt).

BTW, my leave is seen as an "exceptional" amount cos I went ape when I found out I'd be downgraded to the US norm.

So, forget the norm in the rest of the developed world of 2 weeks summer holiday with the kinds and a week at Easter or another half-term plus a couple of days of at Chrimbo - I have American work colleagues who have never taken more than 3 days off work 'cos their sh*t scared someone will come and take their job.

If, like me, you work to live, forget it. You're backing the wrong horse.

scrubbedexpat091

Its a money thing, holidays cost the economy money, and the US wont have it.

scrubbedexpat097

You should edit your post to say this is not true for every working person in the US.

Some of us do actually get a reasonable amount of paid vacation, holiday and sick time. It is not all work and no play

Gillymonkey

Yup, totally depends on the company and the ethos.

Bob

True, but he's not entirely wrong that holiday entitlement is generally not that great here with the obvious exceptions here and there.

I'd say his experience is more likely to be the norm compared to yours, on the entitlement front at least.

scrubbedexpat091

Some gov't stats on vacation and time off in the US.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/leave.t01.htm

Pulaski

Yup, you're right. I might get a few days more if I was still in the UK, but I get more now than at my last job in the UK, though of course no sick leave (but that was never more than 1-2 days when I worked in the UK) but now I can work from home if I have a cough or cold, or something minor, so the lack of sick leave isn't a big deal for me. I get 8 of the 10 public holidays on top (10 = 1/1, MLK, Pres's, Mem' Day, 7/4, Labor Day, Columbus, 11/11, TksGivng, and Xmas. .... no Pres's or Columbus for me, but I got two more vacation days when they took those two away! .... I wish they'd take the other eight away and give eight more days to take when I want to!

Pulaski

I think it's more evenly divided than you think, with manufacturing & retail, blue collar, rust belt, and/or east coast/ mid west tending to less leave, and professional/technology, white collar and/or west coast tending to more leave.

kodokan

Definitely a west coast, white collar, professional thing going on. Hubby works for a megacorp, and by 5pm here the car park's empty; it's 3pm on a Friday. People here take their leisure quit seriously. He gets 4 weeks plus bank holidays, because he's worked for them for more than 10 years overseas so transferred that seniority. Can't quite recall the sick pay arrangements, but they weren't that dissimilar to what we had in Europe. He definitely doesn't have to use holiday for sick days.