Birthrates in the U.S. hit historic low in 2023, preliminary CDC data show

[Ana the Ist]

Suggest you look at a country with a similar economic and poltical system.

1. Calling S Korea a "similar economic system" is a bit off. How well do you know S Korean economics?

2. You're making my point for me if you're saying (politics and economics matter, not just poverty) my point originally in this thread....@iluvatar5150 made the point that its all about poverty and wealth....nothing more.

 

[wing2000]

1. Calling S Korea a "similar economic system" is a bit off. How well do you know S Korean economics?

Compared to N Korea, my use of "similar economic system" is correct.

2. You're making my point for me if you're saying (politics and economics matter, not just poverty) my point originally in this thread....@iluvatar5150 made the point that its all about poverty and wealth....nothing more.

I think you're oversimplifying the illuvatar5151's argument but I will defer....

 

[Ana the Ist]

Have at it.

Uruguay, Chile, Colombia shall I continue?

If the argument was that these people were a boon to the economy somehow because of their birth rates....I'm not seeing it.

South Korea's economy can be brutal. They've had to endure the worst aspects of neoliberalism.

Sorry, I didn't see you already made this point.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I think you're oversimplifying the illuvatar5151's argument but I will defer....

I don't think I am.

My original point that there was a complex series of factors, one of which was economic, and I was shot down pretty much straight away.

If we want another factor....income inequality. Where women are dependent upon men for economic stability...people have more children. The more dependent, the more children.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Uruguay, Chile, Colombia shall I continue?

Articulating an actual claim would be nice, as would some amount of detail regarding how these countries provide evidence supporting that claim.

If the argument was that these people were a boon to the economy somehow because of their birth rates....I'm not seeing it.

I didn't make that argument.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Articulating an actual claim would be nice, as would some amount of detail regarding how these countries provide evidence supporting that claim.

I chose nations far poorer than ours, per capita, with negative birth rates, per capita.

I didn't make that argument.

No but you did appear to be making the argument "poor = more children"

As expensive as it is to raise kids, that’s not really the main reason people wait. If cost were the main impediment, then affluent people would have more kids than poor people, but that’s not what happens. Anywhere. In virtually every country, regardless of the largesse of their welfare system, it’s the poor who have more kids.

If you'd like to reword this....feel free.

I recall you saying that it simply isn't a "western thing" but rather an everywhere thing. A sort of universal truth.

 

[iluvatar5150]

I chose nations far poorer than ours, per capita, with negative birth rates, per capita.

There's a very clear trend correlating poverty with birth rates:

Fertility rate vs. GDP per capita

The fertility rate, expressed as the number of children per woman, is based on age-specific fertility rates in one particular year. This is shown against gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, adjusted for differences in the cost of living between countries, and for inflation.

ourworldindata.org

No but you did appear to be making the argument "poor = more children"

That's generally how it works, yes.

If you'd like to reword this....feel free.

Nope, I'm good.

I recall you saying that it simply isn't a "western thing" but rather an everywhere thing. A sort of universal truth.

yep.

 

[Ana the Ist]

There's a very clear trend correlating poverty with birth rates:

Fertility rate vs. GDP per capita

The fertility rate, expressed as the number of children per woman, is based on age-specific fertility rates in one particular year. This is shown against gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, adjusted for differences in the cost of living between countries, and for inflation.

ourworldindata.org

View attachment 347061




That's generally how it works, yes.

To quote this guy from a couple posts ago.

No, as far as I’m aware, that’s not how the causality works.

Are we talking about correlation or causation?

 

[iluvatar5150]

To quote this guy from a couple posts ago.



Are we talking about correlation or causation?

Howsabout you just lay out a rebuttal and we can talk about that?

 

[Belk]

Right, but my point was that in order for the social security program to remain solvent (and adequately funded for people who actually need it), we're going to need to have some serious conversations about specifically who does and doesn't need it in order to remain "socially secure"

If someone owns 2 homes, has a nice bank account, and is in their 70's, they don't need to be getting a government check to be "secure", it should be reserved for people who actually need it.

As someone with all of that in his early 50s I would agree that I don't need SSA. The issue is that I am not willing to simply gift the government the 600K put into the system in my name. Heck, if I could even get my 300K from my individual contribution I would call us square. That , however, would have a huge impact on the solvency of the system.

 

[sfs]

Private schools are $17k for run-of-the-mill catholic schools

For some reason I first read this as 'nun-of-the-mill', which worked surprisingly well when I got to the next word.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Howsabout you just lay out a rebuttal and we can talk about that?

N Korea was about as good a rebuttal as I can state. Extremely poor....and a really low per capita birth rate.

I thought we were discussing causation....which means you can find a nice comfortable place to put that correlation graph and leave it there.

I can't imagine any serious examination of birth rates being caused by a single factor....unless the factor is some epidemic of infertility in some way.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

eh... Sure, some people use that as an excuse, but IME, a lot of people use it because they genuinely believe it. And part of the reason they believe it is because they have high expectations for raising a kid and they see their potential earnings being greater in the future.

The logic isn't hard to figure out - if you get out of college and get a job for $60-70k, you're probably saving for a car and a house, paying off some college debt, paying rent, and if you're smart, funding your 401k. That occupies most of your money. But you can look 10 years down the road and see that, by the time you're in your mid 30's, you'll probably be making whatever the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $100-150k is, then why not wait a few years until things are substantially easier?

But if you're making $25/hr now and, in 10 years, you'll only be making $27/hr, then why wait? Things won't be appreciably better then, and you'll just be older and more tired.

When you mention college, that brings up another interesting facet...

Which is that when you have a couple that are both degreed professionals, they often times just assume that it's a "given" that they'll need to send their kid to college. I see it a lot among co-workers. Their kid will be 10 and they're already acting like it's a given that they need to send their kid to college in 8 years (and are probably instilling that idea in their kids as well), and that's probably factoring into their decision making process.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

As someone with all of that in his early 50s I would agree that I don't need SSA. The issue is that I am not willing to simply gift the government the 600K put into the system in my name. Heck, if I could even get my 300K from my individual contribution I would call us square.

Hey!, that sounds mildly conservative

I'm teasing rough of course... that's the attitude that most people have about it.

But when you boil it down, what you're saying here isn't too much unlike some of the arguments against universal healthcare.

"Hey, did everything right and exercised and ate healthy and as a result, I don't need to go to the doctor that much, why should be taxed more in order to "gift" money to a program for people who didn't make the same good decisions I did".

That's why I said people are going to need to start thinking differently about it.

Sorta like how I pay quite a bit of taxes in order to have publicly funded special needs schools and nursing homes, but I don't have mindset of "I should be able to take one of those wheelchairs home with me, I paid for it"

For just about any other program, it's sort of "understood" that "I'm paying into it, but may not get a lot of it back". I've literally never been on welfare or needed snap, I've never been unemployed... yet, we understand that it's money that I've paid in and not going to get any of it back. But people think about the social security program very differently.

Some of it could be simply because it's one of the few social benefit programs for which it's its own line item on your pay stub and you can see that amount all by itself (whereas "federal withholding" and "state withholding" is more like a vague black box you money into)

 

[iluvatar5150]

When you mention college, that brings up another interesting facet...

Which is that when you have a couple that are both degreed professionals, they often times just assume that it's a "given" that they'll need to send their kid to college. I see it a lot among co-workers. Their kid will be 10 and they're already acting like it's a given that they need to send their kid to college in 8 years (and are probably instilling that idea in their kids as well), and that's probably factoring into their decision making process.

Yep. My kid’s 3 and her 529 could about cover her freshman year right now.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Yep. My kid’s 3 and her 529 could about cover her freshman year right now.

That could change for certain fields in the future, so hopefully you've research ways to transfer that into another type of tax-deferred account

When I first got into the IT field, it was the "norm" that people needed at a degree in computer science for such endeavors.... that's changed quite a bit. Over the last 2 years, we've hired more people with no college (but with certifications) than degreed people.

 

[Pommer]

Hey!, that sounds mildly conservative

I'm teasing rough of course... that's the attitude that most people have about it.

But when you boil it down, what you're saying here isn't too much unlike some of the arguments against universal healthcare.

"Hey, did everything right and exercised and ate healthy and as a result, I don't need to go to the doctor that much, why should be taxed more in order to "gift" money to a program for people who didn't make the same good decisions I did".

That's why I said people are going to need to start thinking differently about it.

Sorta like how I pay quite a bit of taxes in order to have publicly funded special needs schools and nursing homes, but I don't have mindset of "I should be able to take one of those wheelchairs home with me, I paid for it"

For just about any other program, it's sort of "understood" that "I'm paying into it, but may not get a lot of it back". I've literally never been on welfare or needed snap, I've never been unemployed... yet, we understand that it's money that I've paid in and not going to get any of it back. But people think about the social security program very differently.

Some of it could be simply because it's one of the few social benefit programs for which it's its own line item on your pay stub and you can see that amount all by itself (whereas "federal withholding" and "state withholding" is more like a vague black box you money into)

K-12 publicly funded schooling is A-OK but publicly funding school K-16[+] is the end of civilization as we know it. Isn’t it the Nation’s responsibility to ensure that its citizens are educated enough to run the country?
No? Well, so long, it’s been good to know ya!

 

[ThatRobGuy]

K-12 publicly funded schooling is A-OK but publicly funding school K-16[+] is the end of civilization as we know it. Isn’t it the Nation’s responsibility to ensure that its citizens are educated enough to run the country?
No? Well, so long, it’s been good to know ya!

There's a difference between the types of studies (and the costs) that happen between K-12 vs. college.

Everyone's largely getting the same types of education in K-12 (with some extraneously electives)...and the hope is that they'll have something of a well-rounded set of practical skills when they exit.

And I'm not even opposed to free college in the way that the Nordic countries do it.

Meritocratic based entry requirements, and an extremely rigorous selection process for the "specialized" degrees that are evaluated, by in large, by analysts looking at market conditions and job forecasts.

 

[Pommer]

Meritocratic based entry requirements, and an extremely rigorous selection process for the "specialized" degrees that are evaluated, by in large, by analysts looking at market conditions and job forecasts.

I ain’t never been in no college (I determined that had I attended an institute of higher learnin’, I’d’ve never escaped), but the myth that every American Child deserves/aspires to a college education is a factor in the inflation of college tuition.
IF future children need “more schoolin’” before taking their place in the workforce, the Nation would serve itself well to adequately provide such.
Once this becomes a policy-goal of a government, then the meritocracy model can be implemented.
Right now, it’s “can you afford it!? Sure you can, with these humongous loans!”

 

[Belk]

Hey!, that sounds mildly conservative

Ssshhh!! Don't tell anyone.

I'm teasing rough of course... that's the attitude that most people have about it.

But when you boil it down, what you're saying here isn't too much unlike some of the arguments against universal healthcare.

"Hey, did everything right and exercised and ate healthy and as a result, I don't need to go to the doctor that much, why should be taxed more in order to "gift" money to a program for people who didn't make the same good decisions I did".

Hmmm.. Maybe, but in the case of SSA your saying I get no benefit but with UHC I am still covered. Strikes me as different.

That's why I said people are going to need to start thinking differently about it.

Sorta like how I pay quite a bit of taxes in order to have publicly funded special needs schools and nursing homes, but I don't have mindset of "I should be able to take one of those wheelchairs home with me, I paid for it"

For just about any other program, it's sort of "understood" that "I'm paying into it, but may not get a lot of it back". I've literally never been on welfare or needed snap, I've never been unemployed... yet, we understand that it's money that I've paid in and not going to get any of it back. But people think about the social security program very differently.

Some of it could be simply because it's one of the few social benefit programs for which it's its own line item on your pay stub and you can see that amount all by itself (whereas "federal withholding" and "state withholding" is more like a vague black box you money into)

I have never expected to personally get a benefit from WIC. However if I have a sudden issue I can still count on it. I have been told I would get a benefit from SSA. If that is to change in the middle of the program the perception is going to be different then other programs,