this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Well, in a couple of years, some countries more than 50% of the population will be retired. Even a perfect democracy would not pass a law to improve young people’s lives so they can have time and money to have kids.

Just like in a perfect democracy, no affordable housing law will be approved because 66% of the population are homeowners.

Its unsolvable.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 hours ago

Based on data presented here: https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-true-cost-of-raising-a-child

It takes a minimum of $200K USD to raise a child from birth to 18; which works out to ~$1K/mo.

If the Government were serious in wanting to address the aging population issue, the best way to tackle it would be to provide family funding at this level for a family’s first ~3 children.

Would it be expensive? Absolutely it would be in the initial term - but the increase in economic activity would arguably more than cover it in the long run.

Would it lead to inflation? Not if the costs were derived from taxes due to the government (which currently get dodged), rather than through national debt.

Would it lead to a positive outcome for the nation? Arguably yes, but there may also be unintended consequences to the negative. Human greed knows no bounds, after all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

Add an extra zero to that. Then we might consider

[–] [email protected] 46 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

That's a weird way of wording "You'll only have to pay 95K out of your 100K bill of your hospital stay for giving birth"

5K PER MONTH and paying for the full hospital bill would be a great place start. But of course, they aren't really pro-life to begin with.

Pro-Birth =/= Pro-Life

They don't care what happens after birth.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

Let them get braces.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

I sometimes joke with my kids and call them Lamborghini 1 and 2, because that's how much money it was suggested you would need for each kid, and I'm sure that has doubled or tripled by now.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

We had this in Australia for a while, where there was no hospital costs for birth, and almost 20 years ago, so it was a considerable help. The conservatives started claiming people were having babies just to get the money and then spending it on big TV's and other luxuries.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago

Sounds like classic Conservative projection.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 hours ago

Which is hilarious because iirc it was a fucking Howard policy

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

My personsl hypothesis is that when couples are living in times of prosperity or growth, they can see a future and can comfortably grow a pension, then they are likely to consider having kids. This also happens to be the time they are getting a share of the wealth society generates.

In recession and uncertain times, couples tend to hold of on getting kids, and if they do get kids, they do it much later in life, when they have saved some money.

Of course couples need free time as well. If both parents need to work full time, it's gonna be a lot less palatable to have kids.

I think the global low fertility is the problem of infinite growth self correcting.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 hours ago

No matter the state of the economy, if you look at birthrate stats in various countries, it goes down with women rights and access to contraception. People just don't want kids.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 hours ago

You're right, when they have the choice, which is also why the Reich Wing wants to limit abortion and contraception and LGBT+ (non-accidentally-reproductive) relationships.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 hours ago

After he rolls this out he'll start pushing to drop the child tax credit arguing, "they already get so much investment up front. They're so greedy."

[–] [email protected] 23 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

This has been tried elsewhere I believe. It ends up being a gift for those who can afford kids anyway, and does not incease the number of couples deciding to have children. A small gift for upper middle class.

Better wealth distribution however; that works.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 hours ago

It was done in Australia quite a few years back and widely mocked. There was a bit of a bump in "XBox babies", but it was mostly from the kind of people who don't understand that a one-off cash bonus spent on a bigger TV doesn't cover the costs of raising a kid.

That is Trump's demographic, but he's being very optimistic if he thinks these kids will be going to the polls while he's still alive.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

Why only after the baby is born? Is there something significant about the moment of birth or something?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Yeah, clearly an embryo/fetus is a child with rights at the moment of conception (/s), so why wait until after delivery?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 12 hours ago

More ineffective Band-Aids.

The core issues never get addressed. Prices keep going up.

And those issues will get worse under a corpo like Trump.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago

I mean I like the direction, but this is far cry from other countries.

Give us UHC, improve working rights, guaranteed housing for parents, daycare.

But Its good they at least bringing it up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 12 hours ago

This is a great summary of exactly why I won't have kids. I don't want to spend all my waking hours working so a billionaire can afford a private island.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

The USA should copy the Swedish maternity leave.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

USA should probably copy a lot of Swedish things, but we won't

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

Nobody can afford health care and they want us in the office no remote work making it even more difficult. It's almost like they want to run us all into the ground while they sit on gold toilets and enrich themselves beyond all measure of reason. Oh and they're building bunkers in New Zealand, the billionares pulling the strings so when they get us into a nuclear war you won't hear from them again.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago

as always, trump's face is in it.

they should have plated the purse in gold to complete the package.

[–] [email protected] 92 points 13 hours ago (5 children)

That won’t even cover half of the (insured) cost of even the smoothest birth with my plan, and I work for a multi-billion dollar company.

This country, man. Having traveled abroad a bit, you start to realize how tunnel-visioned people stateside can get. Don’t even realize how much they/we are getting fleeced.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Having traveled abroad a bit, you start to realize how tunnel-visioned people stateside can get. Don’t even realize how much they/we are getting fleeced.

It's the classic of someone having to visit a doctor while in Europe. And they're always shocked at how cheap it is in comparison. Even people who know it's much cheaper tend to think it's like 50% , not 99-100% less. I had an emergency room visit with blood and urine testing, painkiller injection, private exam room, etc.. It took a few hours and was about $25 that you could pay at a machine on your way out.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 hours ago

I was gonna day $5k is just a handout to insurance companies for just the birth of the baby.

Which is, well, the end of Republicans giving a shit about babies and children.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 hours ago

Meanwhile Id kill for those 5k bucks. But thats becausw the right to stay alive doesnt cost me a kidney

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