We don’t need more slaves to capitalism.
And that is exactly what they’re concerned about.
And yet, not concerned enough to make the quality of life any better where people want to have children. Its like the greed is getting in the way of their ability to be more greedy in the future.
Cheaper to just force you to have children
And a falling human birth rate is good for the environment
Yeah as long as that loss in workforce isn’t replaced by massive AI computing. Corporations are far worse for the environment than people.
A man working an average job used to earn enough to buy an average house and comfortably support his wife and kids.
Now you need two people in full-time work just to pay rent to the landlord.
The problem is inequality of wealth and the solution is make work pay.
No no, you’re wrong. The problem is taxes are too high and the people on the absolute top don’t get enough money. If we just make them a bit richer, the wealth will finally start trickling down on us.
Wait! I think I feel it trickling down right now!
Nope. Just piss. Again.
And too many immigrants. Surely if we keep them out, all those low wage manual labor jobs will still get done, and our population will increase
Yeah, Florida just did it wrong. They’re not having major farming and trucking issues because they scared away a bunch of immigrants. It’ll work this time everywhere else.
The problem is that we aren’t sending enough money to the wealthy … we need to send them more money because they haven’t been able to trickle some back to us.
/s sarcasm, this is sarcasm if anyone is wondering
Yacht tax deductions were a good start! Now we need coal and gas subsidies. Those poor capitalists haven’t had new subsidies in over 4 years!
Lol. How much does it cost to have a child in the hospital in the USA again? Oh, $18,865 you say? Huh. What if they need an ambulance to get there? Oh, $500 to $3000 depending on distance you say? And you say also that US Bureau of Labor and Statistics is letting us know that in four short years our grocery prices have risen 22.04% and are expected to rise another 5.11% per year indefinitely? Meanwhile corporate profits increase every single year and minimum wage has been stagnant for decades? Someone should get them quick!!! I think I figured out why no one wants to have babies anymore! I would like to also comment on how obscenely expensive daycare is and how fucked up it is we have to put children in school 40 hours a week just so we can keep working more than half our lives away but I feel like anyone reading this gets the idea. They will be begging your ass to have babies in the next 100 to 200 years if we make it that long and I’ll bet you all those obscene expenses will be an even greater cost to income ratio then, too. I mean if birthrates are a problem you have to ask yourself are they just fucking stupid or just fucking greedy?
The future is bleak. The least I can do is not create another person to inflict it on.
While the cost of children, lack of support and stagnant wages are definately a factor, birth rates have declined even in countries where income inequality is lower and support for parents is higher.
It is not going to be an easy problem to solve.
Its not a problem. A consistent population is much easier to plan for financially and socially.
Yea it’s only a problem when you need to perpetuate a pirimid scheme.
For us and everyone we know it was under $200. I’m not saying that everyone is going to have our levels of insurance but you are greatly exaggerating.
The biggest cost by far is childcare hands down.
Edit: I know I know, a $2500 median out of pocket expense hurts everyone’s head cannon.
is this written into the law as covered before deductible and maximum out of pocket?
Yes and yes although the latter can be quite high. I’m not saying our healthcare isn’t insane, I’m just saying it costs nowhere near 18k outside of edge cases. In reality full time daycare will run you 22k/yr for a moderate cost of living area and is, by a long shot the most expensive portion until college.
I mean if i get to maximum out of pocket its a bit over 7 grand now which tends to be about the same as my monthly cost on the insurance for the year and one kid will raise my monthly cost from spouse only to family (although keep em coming as after that they are all free). One decent surgery can pretty much push to max out of pocket. Of course that is max out of pocket for what is covered. Like this machine that automatically ices and puts pressure on an area and is proven to have better outcomes from surgery is not covered (one of the many health insurance chicken contests. sure we will pay more because you will have more issues if you don’t get it but you will have to live with lower quality of life). Anyway just some perspective on cost because while not 22k it can get up there.
Hey GOP assholes, taking away bodily autonomy doesn’t get you more babies.
you want more kids make houses affordable and give people time off from work.
If you want to further subjugate women so rich people can get away with more creepy sex crimes then you do what the GOP is currently doing.
Hey, falling birth rate means lots of empty houses. House prices will go down. Problem solved!
Bullshit, we have lots of empty houses now because they are owned by corporations to pad out their balance sheets.
It was a joke.
I keep hearing stories about falling birth rates, USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and on and on.
The articles often pose many questions about why younger generations dont seem to care about having kids, but very few articles actually say the real reasons:- Being able to afford a house or stable long term rent without either option competing for money to buy food or other essentials
- Further to this the cost of a child once you can get by with enough money for the above
- Climate change & future conditions for their children anxiety
The first one is the main reason we could afford to have kids.
We were able to buy our first house because of three things. First the housing market crash in 2008-9. My wife’s car was totaled by a rich bitch in a Mercedes. Our rented duplex was robbed and we had renters insurance. The combination of insurance payments and cheaper prices allowed us to purchase our first home.
My house payment hasn’t changed since 2009. It made up 36% of our take-home income then. Today it makes up less than 11%. I pay less per month than it costs to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in my area.
The older I get the more I see that landlords are a parasite on society. They extract huge amounts of wealth from the suffering of others.
The real reason is more educated people worry to much, and less educated people just go for it.
Too much? 🤣
They have 17 kids.
A lot of women I meet dating think there is no point to having a kid unless you can you are a 8 figure millionaire. it’s absurd to me, since i grew up on a family income of like 30K.
After having a kid, I can confirm younger is better. 5 years ago would have gave me a lot more energy, and not significantly less money.
im not sure I would call the last point anxiety. As existential threats go its not like nuclear war. Which might or might not happen based on our actions. Its something that is definately happening and extreme good action by us might mitigate it but we by and large have been taking worse actions or at best our beneficial vs non beneficial actions cancel each other out. Heck even without climate change pollution alone has the same ending.
Also, wouldn’t increasing the population cause more inflation. Like if you look at Japans decline in Japanese born citizens it overlaps with the “lost years” of economic growth, which was a surprisingly stable period where depreciation ruled the economy… Prices for every day items were stable for decades on end.
education and healthcare costs too
A big one is that pregnancy and child birth SUUUUUCK. Women finally have the ability to avoid it entirely, and I don’t blame them.
I’d love to have kids. I think it would be wonderful to be able to be a foster parent as another option.
I can’t afford it. Its impossible. We can barely afford living as it is. How the fuck am I supposed to raise a kid?
I’m shrugging at falling birth rates not out of indifference, but out of a lack of ability to do anything about it.
Hope? Things could improve, or at least hope that the next generation will be able to improve things. At the very least I see movement to try to do something about housing and college expenses. Maybe they’ll succeed. Renewable energy and electrification seem to be coming, regardless of active resistance. Too slow and too late, but maybe they’ll succeed. We’re in the middle of a wave of enthusiasm about high speed rail. Maybe they’ll succeed
If politicians want people to have more children, maybe they could do something to make having kids less ruinously-expensive.
The only reason economists say immigration can offset falling birthrate. Is because the system is designed for low wages to keep the system running
I heard on NPR that every day, like 30,000 30 something’s come into parenthood. Just imagine that number not getting a job, but having a single baby each.
The problem with capitalism is you run out of other people’s labour
As a species we have the tools, technology, education, knowledge, cognition, and intelligence to override an animal instinct to reproduce willy nilly. We’re more than that now. People should know what it means to choose to have children and weigh the benefits vs the costs to their lives.
Have children when you want to and when it makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense, then don’t do it. Humanity will survive thinning down to many billions fewer humans sitting around consuming resources. A person who never existed in the first place because healthy adults decided to put their time and resources into something else shouldn’t be lamented, but a choice respected.
My family has a long history of not having many children. Our family tree is one of marrying in people and then just not growing larger generation to generation. We have plenty of childless couples in the tree and they make the coolest aunts and uncles a kid can have.
Clearly your family has a long history of enough children since you’re here to talk about it.
I feel like the opposite. My grandfather was one of 13, my mom was one of six, I was one of four, but the next generation only has my two. So far the odds of one more generation are not looking good.
Sure, the world is overpopulated but that’s a short term problem. Every estimate has a peak within 50 years, then a drop. It would be better for us all if that drop were a slow decline to something more sustainable rather than steep, chaotic, disruptive, if the slow drop were uniform, rather than much steeper for some
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Theme to lean into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement
Get all your right wing nutcase friends to have more babies “for the cause”, then get all your left wing nutcase friends to have more babies because “oh noes, Project 2025”. Pretty soon your social security will be funded and you can retire in peace, far from either
Or instead of overpopulating we can increase immigration to fund social security without having to wait multiple decades.
Ha! I thought the plan was to kill off the workforce before they could reach social security.
That’s fewer kids on my damn lawn! (shakes fist)
And more fucking! I wish I had done more fucking.
Definately not me. Im cheering it.
Don’t play the game if it’s rigged
You don’t want to pay ever increasing prices on one of the most expensive undertakings a person (or couple) can do… An undertaking which may also act to increase inflation its self!?
