Boosting Birth Rates ...

[jon-nyc]

Free or heavily subsidized child care and college. The two biggest expenses of parenthood.

[LuFins Dad]

I think they do enough damage to the kids in the 13 years they have them in the public school system. Giving them an extra 4 years? Sorry, no thanks.

[Rich]

@jon-nyc Is it really finances that contribute to low birth rates? (I mean other than at the margins)

On average, people with lower incomes (and can least afford it) tend to have higher birth rates. On average--and despite how people may answer on surveys...people who want kids have kids whether or not they can afford a baby sitter.

@LuFins-Dad Look on the bright side. To have near universal childcare, it'd be more like 4 years early on, and then four years after high school. So an extra 8 total.

[Axtremus]

Hungary's ideas:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/opinion/trump-fertility-birthrate-sexism.html

It included government loans of 10 million Hungarian forints (at the time almost $35,000) to women under 40 when they married, which would be forgiven if they had at least three children. Large families would receive help buying cars and houses, and women who had at least four children would be exempt from personal income taxes for life.

[jon-nyc]

@Rich

Yeah good point.

Related:

[89th]

This would also cost $18 billion per year just to pay people already having babies (3.6 million births each year without any incentives in place).

[Horace]

That can be partially offset by the taxes the babies will pay from day one. The parents won’t pay those taxes. The babies will pay the taxes. Navarro and Lutnick have some very interesting ideas around this.

[LuFins Dad]

To Rich’s point, it really takes a societal shift. A culture that reveres parenthood. One that doesn’t demean and diminish it. One that promotes the concept of family and reveres all of the members of it.

[jon-nyc]

One commentators list. Pricey but probably would help.

[Doctor Phibes]

Do you get a free copy of Brave New World with every kid?

[LuFins Dad]

@jon-nyc said in Boosting Birth Rates ...:

One commentators list. Pricey but probably would help.

Good lord, forget about pricey, think of the inflation!

[89th]

Quick math brings that to about $462,000 per kid. I stopped a few things (like grandparent care) after 5 years, and didn't even include whatever prenatal/postnatal care is or citizen fast tracking.