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More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

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Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#31

Post by tomatofarmer »

holonomically wrote: post #28
tomatofarmer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is sensible only to you. I love how policies are designated as 'common sense' to try to promote acceptance. Let me decide what is common sense.

What exactly in what I said is not sensible?

There is substantial untapped and underutilized potential already within the country. Using tax money to support immigration of those that possess neither skills nor funds, is frankly a slap in the face to all tax payers, and a signal to Americans that we are giving up on them.

But of course one powerful group needs cheap labor, and the other powerful group needs more voters. Thus, with collaboration of the media apparatus, what you suggest will continue to be branded as sensible.

Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#32

Post by holonomically »

tomatofarmer wrote: post #31
holonomically wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly in what I said is not sensible?

There is substantial untapped and underutilized potential already within the country. Using tax money to support immigration of those that possess neither skills nor funds, is frankly a slap in the face to all tax payers, and a signal to Americans that we are giving up on them. But of course one powerful group needs cheap labor, and the other powerful group needs more voters. Thus, with collaboration of the media app…

I really don't get how you inferred all that from what I said. A social safety net and better education programs are better for everyone, including the people in whatever country happens to be implementing those programs and policies.

The issue with media bias is another matter entirely and is unrelated to what I was saying but I recommend you stop viewing everything with a conspiratorial lens. It is not helpful for having a productive discussion.

Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#33

Post by toomuchtodo »

mercy_dude wrote: post #19
holonomically wrote: post #2

The world is expected to have ~11B people by the year 2100. There are plenty of people even if some countries have declining birth rates. [1] Better immigration policies solve any problems that nations with declining birth rates might have but that requires having politicians that are willing to put aside xenophobic concerns to implement sensible immigration policies. 1: https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-g…

Declining birth rate is a symptom, not a disease. Immigration may be a workaround but not a fix. The key reason why young Americans don’t want to have children is because the cost of living including raising a child has been exploding for last 20yrs. Housing, healthcare, insurance, student loans and cost of education- all have gone up exponentially when the actual wages have not gone up. Immigration is a workaround b…

How do you square this with the fact that the birth rate is also low in European countries with reasonable cost of living and robust safety nets.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Maybe people just don’t want kids when they’re educated.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain...

Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#34

Post by riversflow »

I’m surprised to see so few responses of the state of the world and climate change. huh.

Also, whats up with Pew’s sample? ~9,700 people 18+ in the sample and only ~3,900 are 18-49. Surely that should be the bulk based on demographics… or at least more than 40%?

Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#35

Post by Soapysmith »

holonomically wrote: post #2

The world is expected to have ~11B people by the year 2100. There are plenty of people even if some countries have declining birth rates. [1] Better immigration policies solve any problems that nations with declining birth rates might have but that requires having politicians that are willing to put aside xenophobic concerns to implement sensible immigration policies. 1: https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-g…

Not to mention that even absent immigration, internal populations will rebound due to the high reproductive rate of certain segments(read religious) of the population.

Given current projections, 200 years from now most of the population in the United States will be Amish.

Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#36

Post by gruez »

jl2718 wrote: post #23

Anecdotally, the problem is much worse among those that contribute more in taxes than consume in public benefits. This is the real problem. Low-skill high-fertility immigration will not solve it. Child tax credits will not solve it. Welfare programs will not solve it. These problems all exacerbate the problem by growing the population below the net-income line. You may say that these people are more necessary or usef…

Your numbers do not check out.

>Child support: The minimum guideline is 33% of income for a single child, non-deductible.

Where are you getting the 33% figure from? Using the figures from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_raising_a_child, see that for the $59,410 to $102,870 before tax income group (Average = $79,940), the average spent per year is 13,050, or 16.3% pre-tax. The percentages for the Less than $59,410 and More than $102,870 groups are 24.7% and 12.0% respectively, which suggests that as your income goes up, the percentage devoted to rasing a child goes down.

> US/CA taxes take ~55%, so that leaves 12%. If you have a great tech salary of $150k,

How are you getting 55%? According to https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator, at $150k salary, your effective rate is 32.3% and your marginal rate is 34.75%. This includes FICA. Playing around with the numbers, even a salary of $500k, your marginal rate is only 48.65%.

>that leaves you with a living budget of $1500/mo.

Using the numbers from the sources I've mentioned, you actually have a budget of $6287, and that's with 2 children.

gross income: $150,000

take home (includes federal, FICA, state): $101,545

cost of 2 children: (234,900 / 18) * 2 = 26100

remaining: $75,445/yr, or $6287/month

Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#37

Post by medium_burrito »

jl2718 wrote: post #23

Anecdotally, the problem is much worse among those that contribute more in taxes than consume in public benefits. This is the real problem. Low-skill high-fertility immigration will not solve it. Child tax credits will not solve it. Welfare programs will not solve it. These problems all exacerbate the problem by growing the population below the net-income line. You may say that these people are more necessary or usef…

Strong agreement here. For the net-contributor class, it's absolutely brutal.

1) Incomes are lower than they used to be in the US and Europe than they used to be. Lots of talk about Europe's social saftey net, but less about the lack of well paying jobs (especially compared to the US).

2) Instability of work- our generation does not expect to have one job their whole life. We face being laid off without warning even from very well paying jobs. Unless you are financially independent, this makes it scary to plan for the future.

3) Living far away from parents + family that provide free childcare.

4) Several massive recessions that have severely damaged the professional prospects of the younger generations, to the point where they have significantly less wealth than previous generations did at the same age.

Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#38

Post by dionidium »

vmception wrote: post #18

Finally one of these surveys that even allows for the answer that people just aren't interested. It is always hilarious how this sociology field only attracts people that think children are the most fulfilling thing they ever did and everyone else must want that so there must therefore be some other problem like economics. Turns out the onion satire article was spot on https://www.theonion.com/study-finds-american-wo…

I can't read that article, because I don't have a WaPo login, but previous evidence indicates that people are having fewer children than they'd like to.

See here:

* https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/american-fertility...

Matthew Yglesias also touches on this in this interview about his book, One Billion Americans, which argues (in part) for more pronatalist policies:

* https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21449512/matt-yglesias-on...

It turns out that it's really difficult and expensive to raise children and more people will want to do it if you make it less so.

Re: More Americans say they’re not planning to have a child, U.S. birthrate declines

#40

Post by jl2718 »

gruez wrote: post #36
jl2718 wrote: post #23

Anecdotally, the problem is much worse among those that contribute more in taxes than consume in public benefits. This is the real problem. Low-skill high-fertility immigration will not solve it. Child tax credits will not solve it. Welfare programs will not solve it. These problems all exacerbate the problem by growing the population below the net-income line. You may say that these people are more necessary or usef…

Your numbers do not check out. >Child support: The minimum guideline is 33% of income for a single child, non-deductible. Where are you getting the 33% figure from? Using the figures from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_raising_a_child , see that for the $59,410 to $102,870 before tax income group (Average = $79,940), the average spent per year is 13,050, or 16.3% pre-tax. The percentages for the Less than $59,…

That’s my point actually. Court-ordered child support payment minimums are massively greater than actual costs.

Any by the way, even those USDA costs are ridiculously inflated. It’s based on survey data, not actual expenditures, and the people they ask have every reason to inflate the numbers (child support, welfare, tax credits, deductions, etc.). It’s mostly childcare and housing costs, but even the other categories are ridiculous, like hundreds a month per child on clothing and books. Come on. So far, I’ve gotten almost everything second-hand for almost nothing, and my son does just fine in a garage apartment with me.

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