4 ms·

So the plan is to make the cost of living even more expensive for people without kids? Do they understand the problem in the first place? Many people can't af

So the plan is to make the cost of living even more expensive for people without kids? Do they understand the problem in the first place? Many people can't afford to have kids.

suddenlybananas 4mo ago
The point is to incentivize people to have kids.
- nekzn 4mo ago
  They could make not having kids more expensive than having them and I still wouldn’t have them. Most people I know with kids can’t afford them and still have them. And most people I know with money don’t have them. In a way it seems wealth is inversely correlated to having kids. It’s not about money, it’s about having interesting stuff to do with your life, and having the education to know what a terrible economic decision it is to have kids.
  - matchbok3 4mo ago
    What does "afford" mean in these cases? Do the kids have clothes? Food? Vacation?
    - nekzn 4mo ago
      That’s as if, in a conversation about the necessity of owning a car to buy groceries, you asked whether being able to afford a car means owning a Toyota or a Maserati.
  - lostmsu 4mo ago
    > it’s about having interesting stuff to do with your life This is the conclusion I came to as well. I do have kids. So I wholly agree with the sibling comment "compromise on lifestyle"
- kiviuq 4mo ago
  The Bundeswehr needs human supplies
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- Ancalagon 4mo ago
  You don't say?
- 7bit 4mo ago
  You do that by establishing support networks for parents, not by punishing those who don't have or cannot have kids
necro 4mo ago
I think the thinking is that if you had kids you created future cows for the tax plantation so you contributed more to the country.
- SkiFire13 4mo ago
  But I'm paying taxes for my pension, and my kids will pay taxes for theirs. I know that the economics don't actually work like this, but this is the social contract.
  - myrmidon 4mo ago
    You need to pay taxes and have kids for the numbers to work out. If your pension benefits are calculated based on a 4 workers/retiree ratio, but then your whole generation has like 1 kid per family then the system will obviously break down...
    - triceratops 4mo ago
      But why? That would imply a worker 30 years ago produces only as much as a worker today. Which is obviously untrue.
      - myrmidon 4mo ago
        No, it would only imply that the worker/retiree income ratio (and tax/pension burden) are somewhat constant which is arguably the case; german pensions specifically rise with wages and get adjusted for inflation. Productivity gains on the other hand get easily eaten up by increased consumption/expectations, or are overstated to begin with: producing 5 times more TVs/ipads does not make the plumber cheaper (nor a house), and unaffected professions actually suffer (=> baumol effect).
        triceratops 4mo ago
        > german pensions specifically rise with wages Is that because higher earners make higher contributions to the pension plan?
ahtihn 4mo ago
> Many people can't afford to have kids Wrong. Poor people have 0 problems having kids. People can afford kids, they don't want to compromise on lifestyle.
- bigballsbjorn 4mo ago
  almost always the case especially in germany where you are already incentivised with super low income taxes, free kindergarten and a shit load of other payments from the goverment. its basically impossible to be poor enough not to afford children unless you are doing it intentionally.
  - bushwart 4mo ago
    I wasn't aware that Germany had super low income taxes. It is certainly possible to game the welfare system and many people do, but if you want a decent standard of living then you need to be employed.
    - bigballsbjorn 4mo ago
      if you marry you basically half your income tax burden if your partner is not employed. there are also child support payments from the government of several hundred € per month that you get as well as free kindergarten, schooling and higher ed. if you are poor you get money from the state until you hit a minimum income threshhold which together with all the other payments is more than enough to have 2 children.
  - jceg 4mo ago
    Super low income taxes? The general income tax brackets break down in Germany is as follows: - Up to €12,348: 0% (Tax-free allowance) - €12,349 – €69,878: 14% to 42% (Progressive increase) - €69,879 – €277,825: 42% (Proportional rate) - Over €277,826: 45% (Reichensteuer or "rich tax") Source: https://www.expatrio.com/about-germany/german-tax-system https://www.expatrio.com/about-germany/german-tax-system IMO: that doesn't look "super low". A better tax system is the one used by Estonia: a flat tax rate of 22% Source: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/estonia/individual/taxes-on-personal-income https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/estonia/individual/taxes-on-per...
abc123abc123 4mo ago
The machine needs more tax payers to keep politicians flying around the world in private jets. Produce tax slaves people, produce them now!
- myrmidon 4mo ago
  This is reductive, and incorrect. You simply need working-age people to run stuff, full stop. Approaching a 1:1 ratio of workers/retirees is simply unsustainable (yet), for very obvious reasons. While wealth disparity is also a problem, solving it would NOT solve this one: In Germany, completely disowning (!) the richest 10% (!!) would not even pay for a decade of pensions.
  - triceratops 4mo ago
    > Approaching a 1:1 ratio of workers/retirees is simply unsustainable (yet), for very obvious reasons Society would be very dull with that many old people. But other than that the reasons aren't obvious to me. Let's say the worker ratio was 4:1 80 years ago, which was sustainable. If 1:1 is unsustainable, that means each worker today doesn't produce 4x as much as a worker 80 years ago. But that's not true! In fact in the US, labor productivity is 6 times what it was 80 years ago. [1] A worker today is equal to 6 from 1947, in terms of the value they create. So ask yourself: why isn't the math working out? 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHPBS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHPBS
    - myrmidon 4mo ago
      Rising productivity is a weak argument imo for several reasons: Pensions have to not rise with wages for this to be useful. Which simply isnt happening in practice (yet?) Also no meaningful increase in housebuilding, nursing, plumbing, childcare productivity; even worse, rise in general productivity increases costs (Baumol effect). I'm very confident that we can make the math work out one way or another, but this might involve sacrifices that people dont even want to contemplate (yet!).
eecc 4mo ago
Sound like “the beatings will continue until morale improves”
7bit 4mo ago
They don't. Chancellor Merz has an approval rating of 13 %. The German population almost unanimously thinks that he is doing a terrible job (https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-05/umfrage-bundesregierung-schwarz-rot-koalition-gxe https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-05/umfrage-bund...) They have no vision for the future and no idea how to bring Germany forward other that taxing the poor.
- laserdancepony 4mo ago
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  - deleted 4mo ago
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  - 7bit 4mo ago
    All foreigners are poor, huh? You racist
matchbok3 4mo ago
It's the cost, but also the higher expectations of living nowadays. Social media, phones, computers, trips, etc. The actual monetary cost of a child is high, for sure. But many people put that number higher due to lifestyle choices, not need. Social media certainly doesn't help.
- turtlesdown11 4mo ago
  right, its the phones and computers driving the high cost of raising a human being for 18 years + /s
  - matchbok3 4mo ago
    It... literally is? How much money did families spend on computers and phones in 1980? The snarky nonsense is not helpful, or appropriate, for this forum. Do better.
    - pibaker 4mo ago
      The median family did not have a computer in the 1980s. I can't find good data but the ones a quick google search returned suggests by 1990 computer ownership was around 20%. Computers also became ridiculously cheap in real dollars over the years, in the meanwhile education, healthcare, housing all shot up faster than overall inflation.
    - turtlesdown11 4mo ago
      > It... literally is? It.... literally isn't? the cost of computers are lower today (in today's dollars) than they were in the 1980s and 1990s? https://www.chicagotribune.com/2021/09/20/cost-of-a-computer-every-year-since-1970/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2021/09/20/cost-of-a-computer...
      - matchbok3 4mo ago
        Cellphones. Broadband. Airpods. TVs. Smartwatches. Obviously it's not about just computers. The point is we spend more on this stuff than we did in 1980. That is a fact.
jnovek 4mo ago
Now sure how things are in Europe where there is a bigger social safety net, but in the US, 36% of adults under 50 describe putting off having kids due to financial reasons. https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/07/29/fewer-adults-having-kids-price-child-care-affordability https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/07/29/fewer-adults-ha...
- azan_ 4mo ago
  Asking people why they don’t have children is worthless. We should look at revealed preferences, not stated.

So the plan is to make the cost of living even more expensive for people without kids? Do they understand the problem in the first place? Many people can't afford to have kids.

suddenlybananas 4mo ago

The point is to incentivize people to have kids.

nekzn 4mo ago
They could make not having kids more expensive than having them and I still wouldn’t have them. Most people I know with kids can’t afford them and still have them. And most people I know with money don’t have them. In a way it seems wealth is inversely correlated to having kids. It’s not about money, it’s about having interesting stuff to do with your life, and having the education to know what a terrible economic decision it is to have kids.
- matchbok3 4mo ago
  What does "afford" mean in these cases? Do the kids have clothes? Food? Vacation?
  - nekzn 4mo ago
    That’s as if, in a conversation about the necessity of owning a car to buy groceries, you asked whether being able to afford a car means owning a Toyota or a Maserati.
- lostmsu 4mo ago
  > it’s about having interesting stuff to do with your life This is the conclusion I came to as well. I do have kids. So I wholly agree with the sibling comment "compromise on lifestyle"
kiviuq 4mo ago
The Bundeswehr needs human supplies
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
Ancalagon 4mo ago
You don't say?
7bit 4mo ago
You do that by establishing support networks for parents, not by punishing those who don't have or cannot have kids

necro 4mo ago

I think the thinking is that if you had kids you created future cows for the tax plantation so you contributed more to the country.

SkiFire13 4mo ago
But I'm paying taxes for my pension, and my kids will pay taxes for theirs. I know that the economics don't actually work like this, but this is the social contract.
- myrmidon 4mo ago
  You need to pay taxes and have kids for the numbers to work out. If your pension benefits are calculated based on a 4 workers/retiree ratio, but then your whole generation has like 1 kid per family then the system will obviously break down...
  - triceratops 4mo ago
    But why? That would imply a worker 30 years ago produces only as much as a worker today. Which is obviously untrue.
    - myrmidon 4mo ago
      No, it would only imply that the worker/retiree income ratio (and tax/pension burden) are somewhat constant which is arguably the case; german pensions specifically rise with wages and get adjusted for inflation. Productivity gains on the other hand get easily eaten up by increased consumption/expectations, or are overstated to begin with: producing 5 times more TVs/ipads does not make the plumber cheaper (nor a house), and unaffected professions actually suffer (=> baumol effect).
      - triceratops 4mo ago
        > german pensions specifically rise with wages Is that because higher earners make higher contributions to the pension plan?

ahtihn 4mo ago

> Many people can't afford to have kids Wrong. Poor people have 0 problems having kids. People can afford kids, they don't want to compromise on lifestyle.

bigballsbjorn 4mo ago
almost always the case especially in germany where you are already incentivised with super low income taxes, free kindergarten and a shit load of other payments from the goverment. its basically impossible to be poor enough not to afford children unless you are doing it intentionally.
- bushwart 4mo ago
  I wasn't aware that Germany had super low income taxes. It is certainly possible to game the welfare system and many people do, but if you want a decent standard of living then you need to be employed.
  - bigballsbjorn 4mo ago
    if you marry you basically half your income tax burden if your partner is not employed. there are also child support payments from the government of several hundred € per month that you get as well as free kindergarten, schooling and higher ed. if you are poor you get money from the state until you hit a minimum income threshhold which together with all the other payments is more than enough to have 2 children.
- jceg 4mo ago
  Super low income taxes? The general income tax brackets break down in Germany is as follows: - Up to €12,348: 0% (Tax-free allowance) - €12,349 – €69,878: 14% to 42% (Progressive increase) - €69,879 – €277,825: 42% (Proportional rate) - Over €277,826: 45% (Reichensteuer or "rich tax") Source: https://www.expatrio.com/about-germany/german-tax-system https://www.expatrio.com/about-germany/german-tax-system IMO: that doesn't look "super low". A better tax system is the one used by Estonia: a flat tax rate of 22% Source: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/estonia/individual/taxes-on-personal-income https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/estonia/individual/taxes-on-per...

abc123abc123 4mo ago

The machine needs more tax payers to keep politicians flying around the world in private jets. Produce tax slaves people, produce them now!

myrmidon 4mo ago
This is reductive, and incorrect. You simply need working-age people to run stuff, full stop. Approaching a 1:1 ratio of workers/retirees is simply unsustainable (yet), for very obvious reasons. While wealth disparity is also a problem, solving it would NOT solve this one: In Germany, completely disowning (!) the richest 10% (!!) would not even pay for a decade of pensions.
- triceratops 4mo ago
  > Approaching a 1:1 ratio of workers/retirees is simply unsustainable (yet), for very obvious reasons Society would be very dull with that many old people. But other than that the reasons aren't obvious to me. Let's say the worker ratio was 4:1 80 years ago, which was sustainable. If 1:1 is unsustainable, that means each worker today doesn't produce 4x as much as a worker 80 years ago. But that's not true! In fact in the US, labor productivity is 6 times what it was 80 years ago. [1] A worker today is equal to 6 from 1947, in terms of the value they create. So ask yourself: why isn't the math working out? 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHPBS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHPBS
  - myrmidon 4mo ago
    Rising productivity is a weak argument imo for several reasons: Pensions have to not rise with wages for this to be useful. Which simply isnt happening in practice (yet?) Also no meaningful increase in housebuilding, nursing, plumbing, childcare productivity; even worse, rise in general productivity increases costs (Baumol effect). I'm very confident that we can make the math work out one way or another, but this might involve sacrifices that people dont even want to contemplate (yet!).

eecc 4mo ago

Sound like “the beatings will continue until morale improves”

7bit 4mo ago

They don't. Chancellor Merz has an approval rating of 13 %. The German population almost unanimously thinks that he is doing a terrible job (https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-05/umfrage-bundesregierung-schwarz-rot-koalition-gxe https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-05/umfrage-bund...) They have no vision for the future and no idea how to bring Germany forward other that taxing the poor.

laserdancepony 4mo ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- 7bit 4mo ago
  All foreigners are poor, huh? You racist

matchbok3 4mo ago

It's the cost, but also the higher expectations of living nowadays. Social media, phones, computers, trips, etc. The actual monetary cost of a child is high, for sure. But many people put that number higher due to lifestyle choices, not need. Social media certainly doesn't help.

turtlesdown11 4mo ago
right, its the phones and computers driving the high cost of raising a human being for 18 years + /s
- matchbok3 4mo ago
  It... literally is? How much money did families spend on computers and phones in 1980? The snarky nonsense is not helpful, or appropriate, for this forum. Do better.
  - pibaker 4mo ago
    The median family did not have a computer in the 1980s. I can't find good data but the ones a quick google search returned suggests by 1990 computer ownership was around 20%. Computers also became ridiculously cheap in real dollars over the years, in the meanwhile education, healthcare, housing all shot up faster than overall inflation.
  - turtlesdown11 4mo ago
    > It... literally is? It.... literally isn't? the cost of computers are lower today (in today's dollars) than they were in the 1980s and 1990s? https://www.chicagotribune.com/2021/09/20/cost-of-a-computer-every-year-since-1970/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2021/09/20/cost-of-a-computer...
    - matchbok3 4mo ago
      Cellphones. Broadband. Airpods. TVs. Smartwatches. Obviously it's not about just computers. The point is we spend more on this stuff than we did in 1980. That is a fact.

jnovek 4mo ago

Now sure how things are in Europe where there is a bigger social safety net, but in the US, 36% of adults under 50 describe putting off having kids due to financial reasons. https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/07/29/fewer-adults-having-kids-price-child-care-affordability https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/07/29/fewer-adults-ha...

azan_ 4mo ago
Asking people why they don’t have children is worthless. We should look at revealed preferences, not stated.