Hacker News Reader

Comment by stainablesteel | Hacker News Reader

i'd like to see subsidies for people to start families

screw taking out loans to feed money to the college cartels

the equivalent of any bachelors degree is available online, minus lab hours - but you can actually get that if you really want it

have people finish with their education by or before ~18 y/o. people who would have earned meritocratic scholarships can instead be subsidized to start a family and have children for the next ~10 years, this would allow more of the best to have more children -> a breeding experiment with a good outcome

View on HN

Australia has had a ‘baby bonus’ for about 20 years now. It’s something like $2000 now, and is intended to subsidise the costs of child rearing, and bolster the country’s fertility rate.

It received some criticism when a small number of parents were reported to have bought flat screen TVs, but that was just a politicised attack on welfare recipients, who obviously don’t deserve our hard earned tax dollars, and should continue suffering in abject destitution.

The US has had a child tax credit since 1997.[1]

And (sometimes) personal exemptions for married couples since 1913. And (sometimes) an exemption or credit for dependents since 1917. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_tax_credit_(United_State...

[2] https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c1148/c1148.pdf [pdf]

>i'd like to see subsidies for people to start families

I remember seeing a proposal to that effect in Texas that was decried as "Handmaid's Tale" or something similarly trite

We really do need to incentivize families, or we'll end up like China and Russia with their impending demographic implosions.

Who is we here?

We as in the US, I'm sorry. I was unclear.

There are arguments that our large amount of incoming immigration has shielded us from demographic decline, but I don't think it's wise to rely on that forever.

US isn't on track to have any issues with this. We already subsidize children in massive ways. Half of my property tax goes to schools. Happy to give it, but it is a LOT of money (I don't have kids).

> Happy to give it, but it is a LOT of money (I don't have kids).

All workers pay lots of money into Social Security but are not retired - that's the deal we get for living in society - some of our tax money gets spent on things we don't directly benefit from, or possibly oppose. Pacifists taxes fund the war machine.

I'm not making an argument against it, I'm just saying I already spend an insane amount of my money subsidizing kids, and the US already has pretty good policies for this.

You were pretty clear you aren't against it. I was just pointing out that it's the norm, not an exception for kids

Korea already provides a subsidy of ~$230/month to families with infants in their first year.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1163341684/south-korea-fertil...

this doesn't seem like a lot tbh. What is it afterwards? Is it expected that the woman abandons her job and only cares for the child? There are a lot of costs involved

Laughable peanuts. What's the realistic burden of raising a child from 0 to 22 years in a developed country (including college)? $300-500k last I checked, possibly even more.

How much of that is covered by that $230 subsidy?

It's not peanuts. It's around 15% of the average yearly net salary of younger workers.

>$300-500k last I checked, possibly even more.

Not in Korea. Probably $100k-$250k.

It's going to happen. Societies around the world are going to start to realize that babies are the most valuable commodity for their continued survival, and parents will have to be incentivized well beyond the couple thousand dollars or so that is the norm today.

What "survival" are you talking about? There are more than 8 billion humans on Earth, more than at any point in history, in fact to the point where other ecosystems of the planet are threatened.

In most developed societies fewer and fewer babies are being born every year, well below the replacement number. The 8 billion people are going to age and will soon be unable to work. Who is going to support them?

The current band-aid fix is importing people from developing countries. But those countries themselves will run into the same problem soon enough.

With gains in worker productivity, we should be able to support more people per worker than we previously did. The strain on the economy is a problem of failure to adapt economic policy, not intrinsic to population growth leveling out.

Infinite population growth was never going to be sustainable. If you went back in time and told Malthus that in sufficiently prosperous societies people ended up having fewer children, he would have jumped for joy, as it's vastly preferable to society growing until all resources are depleted, then dying off in droves due to overpopulation.

This is a problem of broken economic models that assume infinite population growth. Not a problem of “societies” or of “survival”. Economics will need to change and hopefully we will reach a global population level that is more sustainable.

Here’s a thought: in the mid-1970s the global population was half what it is today. Did the world desperately need double the population it had back then or was society doing just fine?

Most countries' state pensions systems ("social security" in the US) aren't built with the expectation of ininite population growth, but merely of sustained population over generations.

You can't grow forever. Getting to a sustainable place today is better than blowing the problem up and making it even harder in 50, 100 years when it's even more lopsided.

The issue was caused by too many kids. Those kids are now getting old.

>well below the replacement number

Why is this bad?

>lab hours - but you can actually get that if you really want it

Where, exactly, are you going to get wet lab experience without a degree

you don't need a degree to get wet lab experience, you get it while getting the degree

you can google how to do things and buy the appropriate stuff, or find internships, its not impossible

>you get it while getting the degree

Yes, that was my point

> i'd like to see subsidies for people to start families

Why?

population collapse is a big issue for the world. in the west we've become too savvy with just importing people to offset our falling birth rate, but this is causing lower birth rates and high brain drain in the countries we source from. its a global issue

that's arguably a good thing

no its a terrible thing, you've been misinformed, likely by a teacher or professor. most of us have been at some point on this issue.

if a population pyramid is too top heavy, the economy won't be able to function

resources are getting more abundant as we get better at using them, not less, and we are at no risk whatsoever of running out of them. people are producing more resources per value with their work than ever before and its only increasing.

> people are producing more resources per value with their work than ever before and its only increasing

"Number has never gone down, therefor number will always go up" is an incredibly naive argument

Can't grow forever, and we shouldn't support forever growth.

you've been misinformed, likely by a teacher or professor. most of us have been at some point on this issue.

if a population pyramid is too top heavy, the economy won't be able to function

I've been misinformed that the planet can't support infinite people?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com