Japan has an aging population and tried a lot, with not much success…
Prosperity = less kids, so we shouldn’t be surprised what Trump is going to try…
That tracks. I’m paying about $15k for pre-k/daycare throughout the year, which really only covers about 7-8mo, then there’s camps, babysitters, etc. I easily spend $25k on each kid and I’m not in New York or somewhere.
lol at one point I was paying more for daycare than my mortgage.
5k, these people are 🤡
May barely cover the hospital bill for those many without health insurance. But of course the proposed bonus is intended for middle class white babies
Average cost for an uninsured birth is 19,000.
There’s literally been bipartisan efforts to expand the child tax credit ($1000 per year baseline, expanded to $2000 for 2018-2025 and expiring this year, plus COVID era provisions or up to $3000 or $3600 for 2021), and the bills to do so keep dying without a vote.
If they were serious about this they’d expand the 2021 program to where parents were getting $300 checks every month, and make that permanent and indexed to inflation.
So much of the Trump presidency is announcing a new program that sounds good, but isn’t even enough to make up for a program that he already killed.
300$ a month is already way below index.
Well we already lost that in 2022, when it dropped back down to a $2000 annual credit you get when you do your taxes the year after, and after this year it’ll drop again to $1000 unless the law is changed.
Yeah but it’s fucking something man. At this point I’ll take anything. That’s a good grocery haul right there every single month.
Still waiting for healthcare to be “fixed”. Definitely going to be any day now…
“I mean it’s one child, Michael. How much could it cost? Five thousand dollars?”
Remember all the garbage about welfare queens? I thought this was something that was morally wrong in the 90s to support people who have kids?
Only among the very stupid
So half the population
More MAGA!
40k/year sounds premium. But what little do I know, I am German and pay about 3k/year for a very nice Kindergarten.
Here’s typical day care rates for Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is one of the lowest cost of living states in the nation, because it’s a hell hole with no social services and has been already doing Project 2025 for the past five years. This means salaries are similarly depressed - as a teacher, my first year take home pay per month was $2200. If I had a child then I would have nothing between day care and rent. (And I also would have needed the daycare, first year teaching is 60-100 hours a week.)
The people working at the facility are likely barely qualified and probably not making enough to support their families - likely on welfare.
This could be “premium” childcare like a Waldorf school or it could be the cost of putting 2 kids into regular daycare in an expensive city like San Francisco. It would certainly be cheaper in less expensive places, but incomes would also be lower.
Here are some estimates by state: https://illumine.app/blog/how-much-childcare-costs-by-state-in-usa
My friend went to a Waldorf school and she told me they didn’t teach her to read.
Where is all this daycare money going? My daycare was like 8 ladies that just sat around in a playroom doing arts and crafts with us all day and took us to the pool and library in summer. They could have covered that on 2/3 kids each at 40k a year/kid. They didn’t seem to be particularly well off…
Daycare workers can cost about $30/hour, if you include taxes, insurance, benefits like paid time off, etc.
A typical daycare needs about 50 hours per week of coverage, and something like 8am to 6pm is about right.
Each worker can reasonably be expected to look after 4 kids.
So with perfect staffing (no overtime pay, enrollment at a perfect whole number multiple of 4), labor costs alone would be something like $375 per kid per week. Throw in rent, insurance, food, operational costs, administrative costs including certification and licensing, furniture/equipment, utilities, etc., and it’s not unreasonable for that cost to balloon to $750/week, or $39k per year.
This might give some clues: https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Two-Pager-Understanding-Private-Equity-in-Child-Care.pdf
It’s amazing how they get away with paying so little. My field is adjacent, and I’ve been open to working with elementary age, but the positions I see as “master teacher” at daycares are usually around $9-10 an hour - what I was making working at a fast food restaurant in 2015.
Giving everyone 5k would more meaningfully improve birth rates than asking educated young people worried about their future childrens’ standard of living to take a leap for the cost of one small medical emergency.
5000 is genuinely nothing when it comes to raising a child.
I can’t tell if sarcasm or not. But no this won’t do anything.
Russia/Asian countries do this already it has barely any effect at all. Again it comes down to both money and culture. Can’t throw money at a problem without changing the culture you’re just half assing it.
Oh there will be a boom of… abandoned babies for the fostercare system.
See: Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania
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In Germany the parents (and later, the children themselves) receive a little over 250€ per month until the child is 25 or finished an apprenticeship or uni.
Germany has a very low birth rate.
Edit: copy of a text where I laid out the benefits we get in a similar discussion:
In Germany we have protection of pregnant people from when their doctor deems them unfit for work until delivery – continued payment of full wages. Two months after delivery with 70% wages and 12 months to split between both parents, which can be taken together and stretched by taking half the money for twice as long. Until your child is six you may (with some exceptions) take unpaid leave for parenting. Your employer has to keep your position for you. Childcare from 1 till school is affordable (ca. 250€/M). Healthcare is paid as a percentage from your income (ca. 15%) and has very little extra cost. You get 250€ per child per month just for having a child. Tax credits. If you are still struggling: Assistance for rent, school materials, clothing and more.
We have (compared to the US) pretty solid workers protection laws. We have a (not great but you won’t starve) state pension. We have unemployment benefits, that don’t run out (conditions apply). We don’t have the weird Japanese shut-in young men on a scale that’s worth a mention.
We also have one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
Yes, the oppressiveness of a capitalist society is a factor – Germany is far from free of that, and getting worse. But compared to the US we should be popping out babies like crazy. But it’s emancipation of women and it’s education, that afaik are the most decisive influences of a low birth rate.
Sociatal factors suppressing birth rate in Germany may be high rents, inability to find places big enough for a child considering today’s standards, and bad outlook. Also work life balance is skewed for some.
But it’s emancipation of women and it’s education
Hey, so, funny story about what MAGA is working hard to eliminate…
I think the Germany benefits are amazing but I suspect people undersell how important baseline pay is for deciding on if you want to have kids. I’m a software engineer in Germany, I get paid a decent thriving wage, but I’ll never own a home as long as real estate is an investment option for large businesses and conservative governments continue to get elected.
Who would raise a child without a home to call their own? That’s what goes through my head. Even if all the costs for raising a kid were offset, I’d still be behind what I need to be in my opinion. I think some people answer that question and say “I would” and I think a greater percentage agree with that sentiment.
Couple that with the predictability of the political climate and you get an even more clear picture. Who would raise a kid in a world that’s getting worse? I might need to leave Germany if the CDU and AFD stay in power for too long. I may need to leave to a country that is making progress against inequality instead of expanding it. At the current pace of the world we are approaching another major Multi-national war in the next two decades, why would I have a kid in such an unstable time.
Having spoken to a couple women now in Germany about this subject - some of them broach the subject from a place of never wanting to but the few I’m spoken to also claim the factors above as major reasons against it.
I think countries need to start considering that extra pay and benefits for parents is not as effective as fixing the economy and political system for everyone is if their goal is to have kids.
I don’t think you need to own your own place to call it a home. Having grown up in East Germany, most kids I went to school with didn’t grow up in a house their parents owned. It’s different in the countryside, but in the city I grew up in easily >90% rented.
It would be nicer though, for sure. For me it’s also not on my financial horizon to ever own a house or flat.
I’m with you on everything else. The question remains: leave for where? Everywhere is going to shit.
I apologize, I think we’re getting tripped up on terminology.
Where ever you live, you are correct in believing you should strive to make that a home. Make a community, make a place of comfort and security and artistic energy etc. But that’s not what I mean.
Owning your place allows you the freedom to make your home better in a way that renting it doesn’t. How many people with they could add AC to their flat but can’t because the landlord doesn’t want them to? How many people wish they could add solar panels to their roof but can’t because the landlord doesn’t pay the electricity bill and therefore doesn’t care if it’s inefficient? How many people want to renovate a bathroom, tear down a wall, install permanent fixtures or shelves, etc etc but can’t because they don’t have permission or the rights to the place they live in?
The relationship between landlord and renter is one whose major purpose is to drain money from the poor to the wealthy. I don’t really wanna turn this into a rant against landlords, but they should be outlawed or taxed out of existence. Landlords are deincentivized to improve their properties, they are deincentivized to help you make your house a home, they are deincentivized to charge you the cost of that housing. The system should be abolished.
Going back to your ancedote, relativity is not a good measurement of objective truth. The fact that most people didn’t own their homes where you grew up doesn’t change the fact that that meant they were losing money every year, that they weren’t building wealth every year. Things should be improved based on and towards objective truths/metrics - not comparatively to bad examples. The US has worse public transit - does that means we shouldn’t strive for better train networks and services? It’s illegal to be a homosexual in Singapore - does that mean we should allowed gay rights to worsen simply because they’ll still have it better than other countries?
I make this point because this argument of relativity often hinders progress. Humans are creatures of relativity and if we allow our systems to be judged relative to others we will make progress slower than is possible (and arguably necessary).
You should be able to own a home. You should be able to own a home within the first 5 years of working at least and it shouldn’t cost you a loan that’ll last a lifetime. Housing shouldn’t be an ever growing cost. We can make this the reality if we vote correctly and hold our politicians accountable (and our neighbors).
If the CDU/SPD/AFD remain in power there will be plenty of countries that are at a similar quality of life and that are improving or worsening at a slower rate. Some country will eventually crack the code of taxing the wealthy and banning landlords and focusing on the working class (the 99%). It’s only a matter of time. The goal is just to avoid needing a WW to get us there.
So that’s $5k per month, right? Right?
What’s interesting is 5000$ today is about 129$ in 1860.
Slaves were, on average, worth about 800 bucks in those times. I’m not sure how much a baby would be worth, but even if it comes to a quarter of what a full grown slave is worth… that means that they literally think we are worth less than slaves…
Place where I live also gives about the equivalent of 5000 USD for a birth. My wife got a single room in the hospital (very basic public hospital, but not a room with 4 other mothers). The 5k just about covered the medical costs for the pregnancy, birth and the additional cost for the room for 3 days …
🤔 is your country having an election soon
Nah, this system has been in place for years.
