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@ Brain User
2025-05-01 19:22:43Recently I was talking with a friend whose wife gave birth to their first child in 2024. In the past he mentioned feeling rushed to start a family because he and his wife were both in their 30s and the biological clock was ticking. I asked him when they planned to start trying for their second child and he told me they were forced to wait because they couldn't afford daycare for two children under 2 (rates are higher for children below 2). He and his wife make what most would consider good money and they're firmly in what would most consider the middle class. They own a modest home in a quiet neighborhood that belongs to a decent school district. It was rough to hear they'd like to add to their family now, but simply couldn't afford it.
Anecdotally it seems like that's the case for the majority of the middle class. When the topic of family comes up in conversation with couples in my circle I'll often ask how many kids they plan to have and the answer is always something along the lines of "We're going to have one and see if we can afford another." or "We can probably only afford one or two.” There's almost always a monetary restriction on family size. I'm not arguing money shouldn't be a factor and couples on modest incomes should be able to have unlimited children, but a middle class family shouldn't be limited to one or two kids.
Over the past year or so the topic of declining birth rates has been popular online and recently the Trump administration's proposal tothrow money at the problemhas been heavily debated in natalism circles on Twitter, but it's a deeper problem than just low birth rates. There's also an issue withwhois having kids.
The graph shows a general trend of the poorest households having more children than middle and upper class families. Now before you start lambasting me for being classist, I'm not suggesting making more money means you're a better person. I'm not even suggesting that someone who makes a great living always provides more value to society than someone who earns a modest wage. The WFH Tik-Tok class raking in six figures responding to a few emails and planning the Zoom holiday party in their pajamas certainly isn't adding more value than the guy hauling junk all day, but unfortunately there isn't a bulletproof metric for value created and income is the best proxy we've got. What I can say is that the class of society who doesn't work at all is certainly not providing more value than the working class and on top of that requires government handouts to continue to exist, but that's exactly who's having more kids than anyone else. The monetary lid on family size that plauges the vast majroity of the working class doesn't apply to those who don't work. Having more children means the government gives them more money to pay for that child. A child who is raised in a household on welfare ismore likely to live on welfare when they become adults. The current incentive structure is increasing the percentage of government dependants in the future. That's probably an issue for a country who's alreadysubmerged in liabilitieswith no way out other than a production miracle.
So is there a solution? Trump's proposed baby bonus isn't likely to make a dent. There likely aren't many working couples who, for financial reasons, have decided not to have a child who would change their minds for a one time payment of $5,000. Rolling back government assistance is political suicideregardless of which side of the isle that politican is on.The only solution is to stop printing money and erroding the working class. When trips to the grocery store get more expensive for those on government assistance, the government will just hand them more money to help. After all, no politican can withstand the blow of allowing children to go hungry. They have no choice but to continue to cover the cost of inflation for the poor, but what happens when those not on government assistance see their pay not keeping up with rising costs? They have no politicans backing them with printed dollars. They have to go to their employer for a higher wage, but the employer sees their costs rising around them as well and they don't have a red button to hit and create dollars out of nothing like the government does. This slow drain will continue over time. The ability of private business to pay the wages of the lower and middle classes can't compete with the government's ability to print money and slowly but surely it won't make sense to work for what you can recieve from the government for not working.
There is no realistic solution to the birth crisis plauging the working class that will come from a politican outside of adopting Bitcoin. Luckily, we don'tneedthe poltiicans to make this decision for us and we can adopt bitcoin to protect the purchasing power of our families. Having children is becoming cheaper when denominated in bitcoin.