Let's take the beautiful state of Massachusetts where I live. For foreigners: it's a liberal mecca, a pocket of Americans with a yearning for european lifestyle. Let's look at the government from a systems perspective and say that we prioritize individuals based on dollars spent on them, shall we?

- How much does the state spend for a pre-k child? <10k/year/child

- An incarcerated inmate? >100k/year/inmate

- Drug-use rehab? >50k/year/user-seeking-rehab

- How much does that leave parents to pay? >30k/year/child (again average, any place where there's a job it's closer to 50k pre-tax)

We don't prioritize children and our societies are actively hostile towards them in terms of dollars spent. As simple as that.

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aurareturn 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Doesn't explain countries like Japan, China, SK where drug use is extremely low and incarceration rates are far lower. Still no babies.

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matthewaveryusa 4 days ago | parent [-]

That's a fine argument, but if we're trying, let's start by spending on it first. We're america, that's what we do when we have a problem.

	▲	binary132 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Actually what America usually does first is prioritize GDP growth over the interests of natural American citizens. I expect that trend to continue.

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HDThoreaun 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I find it really hard to buy that this is the reason people have 0 kids. Less sure, but if youre worried about cost youll just have 1 instead of 2 or 3. Seems to me that some people are just less interested in having kids now because theyd rather do other stuff.