I would like to challenge some of your assumptions regarding costs of raising children and the net benefit/cost to society.
By all means!
To a certain extent, there are economies to scare for having more than one child: Likely you can pass along some clothing, toys and equipment that the older child has outgrown to the younger child.
Thanks for agreeing! Food also. It's cheaper to buy in bulk, and cooking costs per meal go down if you make more meals.
But you have to be able to buy in bulk. This is not a problem for most middle class families but it's a pretty big hurdle for poor and working class families. AND you have to have the space to store your bulk purchases. For a lot of poor people, it's a struggle to cook at home because they don't have cookware, and because it's expensive to purchase basic staple items. I can say this with some confidence, having helped a couple of my kids in their first apartments by providing cookware and buying some staples that I and most middle class people simply take for granted that they will have in the cupboard (or really, pantry if you're talking middle class). It's much cheaper to buy meat in bulk, especially if you can buy a side of beef. BUT you need to have a chest freezer ($$), space for the chest freezer ($$$) and cash on hand to purchase a side of beef that could take your family mostly through the winter. Unless you have teenage boys. At which point, all bets are off. Take it from someone who raised a houseful of teenage boys. Food disappears faster than lightening.
Toddlers still grow fast. They are more active though. Their everyday play clothes will probably get worn out but clothes that gets less use will probably hardly be broken in.
All of toddlers clothes are play clothes. In certain families, particularly those who are well off, there might be some special outfit that Grandma bought for the family photos but that's not most families who are poor or working class or even middle class. As a kid who wore handmedowns and whose kids wore handmedowns: Clothes last at best through 2 kids. Especially if the kids are active. The third kid tends to get a lot of new stuff because the first two destroyed a lot of the original sets. And of course, it depends on how kids grow---I had kids who were big for their age and kids who were small for their age--and that changed as the kids changed ages. SOME things were passed down but some things could not be passed down because they were too worn out or were never the right size. By the time the kids are in upper elementary school/middle school and certainly high school, their body shapes might be so different that it is really hard to have Sally wear Marge's hand me down dress because Marge is big busted and Sally is flat as a pancake. Or the other way around. I was surprised at how much my kids' body types diverged by the time they were 9 or 10. Some things could be passed on but most could not. And that's not even talking about growth spurts! One of my kids grew 10 inches in one year. I could barely keep him in pants. His waist size didn't change but every couple of months, there would be an inch or two of ankle hanging out of the bottom of his pants. Or your kid could be like me who never met a pair of pants she couldn't put the knees out of, PDQ.
I live in a very working class town. There are thrift shops and charity shops and buy nothing groups, etc. People around here pinch pennies very, very hard.
I am not saying that the marginal cost of children is zero, but that the marginal cost of the nth child goes down with increasing n.
That's why the benefits that are the same for 1st and 5th child are stupid. They should taper off and go away past 5th child.
Not really. Except for daycare, older kids are more expensive than younger kids. So by the time the fifth kid rolls around, the oldest one's needs just cost more--and they wear out their clothing. And they eat more. Shoes! OMG trying to keep a kid in shoes! Babies don't need shoes and they don't care if their outfits match but a 10 year old almost certainly does care very much if their clothes fit with whatever is the standard for their cohort at school. The older the kid gets, the more expensive the kid.
That also does not take into consideration things like vehicle size, or home size. It's doable to have 3 kids sleeping in one bedroom while they are small but beyond that? It gets pretty tight. And the sleep schedules of an infant are different than a toddler which is different than a kindergartener or a grade school kid or a middle schooler or a high schooler. My kids all shared rooms during a big portion of their growing up years, as I did. It works out depending on age of kid, genders, temperament, sleeping schedules, study schedules, etc. Same with bathrooms. We hosted exchange students and at one point, I had FOUR (!!!!!) teenage boys, two grade school kids and 1 and a half bathrooms. My kids know how to share. Food disappeared as soon as my back turned. EVERYBODY showered daily--no exceptions. It was doable but boy!
If that is the case, it is probably beneficial for that parent to stay home with the small child(ren). With availability of remote work, that parent would even be able to make money. And again you see economies of scale. If you have to hire a babysitter for a date night, they will not charge triple for three children vs. one. If one parent stays home, their lost income is not any more if they care for three children vs. one. Sure, retail daycare would be linear with n, but that is not the only option here.
Yes, this is what I did and why I did it. Initially, I returned to work full time 7 weeks after my first was born via c-section (do not recommend) out of financial necessity. But because things changed for my husband and because we were coming to grips with the serious deficits in terms of our child care giver's....way of handling certain things, it was decided that I would stay at home. Which I did...and almost immediately began providing in home day care (not licensed. That wasn't really a thing back then). Then there were stops and starts as I finished my degree, moved hundreds of miles a couple of times for husband's career---and took whatever job would fit in with the kids' schedules until the youngest were old enough to make dinner for themselves if necessary and to be home without supervision for a couple of hours after school. Which meant that I did not get the career I wanted and while I certainly was paid well at my last job--the only job that paid well and provided benefits---my career/earning potential was permanently stunted. So it is good that hubby and I decided to make our marriage work. I'm not complaining: we are much better off than the vast majority of Americans. I'm just saying that I had options that many people with less means simply do not have.
When we first moved to this town for husband's job, I was an extreme rarity in being a stay at home mom. Almost everyone I met was working at least one job and pretty often 2 or 3, staggering shifts with the other parent to avoid paying for daycare, which was nearly impossible to find. This was necessary in order for them to keep a (rented) roof over their heads, food on the table (thanks to food shelves) and the lights on (most of the time). I wish I were exaggerating. Sadly most families now refer to daycare centers as 'school' and regard K-12 as daycare because they must rely on that in order to be able to work enough hours to afford to live.
Day care is difficult to find, period. GOOD daycare that is conveniently located and has openings for all of your children who require it: That's a unicorn. And it's a flying unicorn with a diamond horn if it takes assistance and provides a subsidized meal plan. Just typing this out, I cannot help but be overwhelmed by just how fortunate I was.
True, but there is employee health insurance which is not any more expensive whether you have 1 or 3 children. And if you don't have employer healthcare, Medicaid is basically designed for people with children (it's virtually impossible to qualify when child-free).
True but almost all insurance coverage requires co-pays and the number of doctor visits and co-pays and vaccinations and medications is cost multiplied by number of children. The chances that any of the kids will get sick increases if they are in daycare or in school or have siblings in school or daycare. Also the chances Mom and Dad get sick.
Poor insurance covers much less and does its best to avoid paying for any normal healthcare needs one would expect it to pay for. True story: One of the jobs I had when my kids were young was in the business office of our town's clinic. I remember one instance in particular when a mom brought in her 6 month old who had a mild fever, was very fussy, runny nose, not sleeping and pulled at her ear. This is a classic sign of: an ear infection OR teething. It turned out the child was just teething--so the insurance company refused to pay for the visit. Which was required in order to determine if the kid was sick or teething. Now, most middle class income families can absorb that cost but a working class family? That can be a disaster. One of my kids spent a couple of years working locally and the insurance his employer offered was so costly to employees and such poor quality that my kid, who was earning only a little over minimum wage, contacted an insurance agent and purchased better and cheaper health care insurance on his own, declining the piece of crap his employer (and most employers in my town) offered. I've been fortunate. Except for very early years, we've always had good health care insurance. Not everyone I know is so fortunate.
Medicaid depends on what state you live in. I know adults with no dependent children who are on their states (different states) Medicaid program. In some states, it's pretty easy for children to qualify for Medicaid and also for pregnant women. In other states, not so much.
FWIW, day care for an infant costs about the same as tuition at a public university.
Again, retail daycare is not the only option.
Eh, try finding daycare. It's really, really, really hard. And it's harder and more expensive if you have an infant. Or if you have more than one child and want them in the same daycare. It gets much harder if you must rely on state assistance to help you pay for daycare as not all daycare providers accept state assistance.
I get the need for some support for children. Free K-12 public schools. Subsidized public colleges. I'd even support free community college.
But what I am against is this ratcheting of ever increasing demands for more and more subsidies. Esp. cash given to parents with no strings attached.
So, earlier, you advocated for parents to just stay home/not work while their children are young. For a lot of families, this means being on much more assistance: subsidized housing, subsidized/free health care, WIC and other supplemental food support, assistance with utilities, Medicaid, and more. But I don't remember you being particularly in favor of paying for all of these other people's kids.
What I think: I think that there should be universal health care and it should be paid for by taxes. I think there should probably be universal basic income--something that I've only recently started to really support. I have a few individuals in mind whose circumstances changed my mind about UBI.
Early childhood education should be free and available to all. Some families really, really, really do need interventions/help with learning about child developmental stages, what is a nutritious meal and how to prepare one, resources within the community, etc.
If early childhood education and parental support classes are universally available, then the better off parents will insist on higher quality programs and everybody will benefit. Children will enter K-12 much better prepared and their parents will also be better prepared to help their children succeed in school.
Providing well for children helps society to continue to function and to function well. Rather than spending money on maintaining incarcerated individuals, we enjoy the labor (and taxes from the labor) of a well educated, healthy, productive population.
That's a myth. Even if $300-360/month of additional subsidies had passed, some of those children would nevertheless grow up to be "incarcerated individuals".
If you're going to tell me that's a myth, you need to back that up with some data. And yes, some kids will become incarcerated individuals. Guess what? That happens in families at ALL income levels and all levels of education. Again, I'm thinking of some specific individuals that I know personally.
I'd like to interject here what in a way is off topic but I think is actually extremely pertinent. Almost all crime in the US is a result of substance abuse, whether that is alcohol or some drug, legally obtained prescriptions or street drugs or whatever. I know enough people in the legal system to know that this is simply a fact. I read my local newspaper which lists police calls and arrests and it is extremely rare for the citation to NOT include reference to alcohol or drugs. This includes traffic violations, assaults, breaking and entering, stalking, sexual assaults, murders. This affects people across all social and economic classes.
Whatever we can do to help prevent people from abusing substances we must do. Some people are more biologically inclined--there's a strong genetic component to substance abuse. But there's also a strong social component. People who don't feel they have much of a future to lose by getting drunk or high....tend to be more likely to get drunk or high. Whatever we can do to ensure that children growing up can see a bright future for themselves before them will definitely cut down on the amount of crime and devastation caused by substance abuse.
Realistically, in the infinitesimally unlikely case I live to 93 (I resemble the Fat Bastard, remember?) I reckon it will all be robots by then.
I don't disagree that as society we need to support children. That does not mean giving in to every harebrained idea by the Squad et al about giving more and more entitlements to parents that we can ill afford given our deficit and national debt.
So, do you want to be in a nursing home when you are 63? Please do your best to get healthy, Derec. I need you to out live me and to stick around to argue with until I can't type anymore...
Walz' free meals program in MN is not limited to needy children. And the Squad-backed expanded child tax credit would be capped at $150k of family income. That means that if you are making $30k but are child free, you are paying for $300/child/month for a family making 5x as much as you do. Is that really progressive?
First of all, free meals is an excellent idea. Too many children are being/have been shamed because their lunch accounts fall into arrears because their families can't pay or forgot to pay. A dear friend of mine recalls that her older siblings used to have to work in the cafeteria--in elementary school--to pay for their 'free lunches' which was made necessary when their father was out of work for a while. ALL of the kids were bright and excellent students and all grew up to be very productive adults. But my friend's siblings still burn with shame they endured over 50 years ago, and so does my friend, to be honest. There is nothing gained by making children ashamed for something they cannot help.
I really cannot imagine where you get the idea that if you are childless and earning $30K/year, you are paying $300/child/month for a family making more money. Show your math but that's ridiculous and untrue.
As shocking as I find it, it is true that today, a family of 4 with an income of $150,000/year is....middle class and not wealthy. Oh, on that income in my town, you'd be doing really well but in NYC or LA or Chicago or Miami or Houston or Boston? Nope. You're struggling to make ends meet. Doing much better than someone making half that, sure.
As a final comment:
I do not think that our society and our tax system should allow anyone to become a multi-billionaire. People like Bezos and Musk simply are behaving as though they do not need to play by any rules but can make their own and run their own private kingdoms. And they do it with our tax dollars.
I remember optimistic projections of its progress in the 1970's and thereabouts, but such progress hasn't happened. We've gotten lots of other nice things, but not strong AI.