Sailorman, you’re a lot funnier on Percocet, but I wish you a speedy recovery.

Everyone else: I don’t see any societal benefit to encouraging people to make babies. Sure, we need workers, but people will make them whether we help or no. We need carbon dioxide, too, but I see no need to create a special fund to encourage its creation.

However, I do see an enormous societal cost to letting people create poorly socialized, poorly parented kids. Making sure that parents have the resources to be able to spend time parenting seems the cheapest (and kindest) way of averting those costs.

I really don’t get your example here. We’re talking generalities, you’re talking about a specific example child. SOCIETY needs to be self sufficient; society can easily (and does) include individuals who are, on their own, not self sufficient.

Yes, but the question is is it a benefit to society when you increase the number of those not self sufficient? (ie, to have more poorer people) My simplified example was just to clarify what I meant a tax payer being self sufficient. Paying enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits you use.

As far as i can tell, your post basically boils down to “I don’t believe there is enough evidence that we need to have more children and/or more working parents.” Is that a correct summary?

No, its that I don’t know that increasing the rate of having children is enough of an economic benefit alone to justify subsidizing it.

I am not sure I buy that simply having kids is an enormous enough benefit to society that we should subsidize it. It might be, but its more complicated than that. But if that really is THE argument, then it seems like we should consider some big picture cold hard economic facts.

sure. I love facts. facts is tasty.

Generally, economically, society benefits with “workers” who pay more in taxes then they use in public benefits.

Assuming you mean what i think you mean, sure.

For instance, even if you discount all the other public benefits that taxes provide, if you have just one child in a public school and it takes $8K per child per year, then you need to be paying that much in taxes just to be self sufficient. Otherwise you are an economic drain on society, though your child may or may not end up being a benefit.

I really don’t get your example here. We’re talking generalities, you’re talking about a specific example child. SOCIETY needs to be self sufficient; society can easily (and does) include individuals who are, on their own, not self sufficient.

In fact, providing for those who are (temporarily or permanently) less than self sufficient is sort of the point of society in the first place. that’s why we tend, generally speaking, not to let our 2 year old children starve because they can’t hunt, farm, or pay anyone.

Another thing to consider is that more workers drive down wages, which reduces the taxes paid by those workers and increases the likelihood they will be an economic drain rather than a benefit. OTOH more cheap workers means lower priced goods and that does benefit other areas of society.

‘Sure, though it’s a bit more cplicated than that.

So its debatable whether or not simply having more children is a huge public benefit.

Are you familiar with what is referred to as “stagnation”?

Though people will continue to have children whether or not it is subsidized, as the rule goes you get more of what you subsidize.

True.

Maybe a better reason to do it is less rational and more emotional: It’s compassionate to financially help families through a transitional hardship. I might be able to get behind that if the benefit was means tested and it was administered by the current welfare apparatus.

I prefer not to hang my hat on emotions, if facts will work.

As far as i can tell, your post basically boils down to “I don’t believe there is enough evidence that we need to have more children and/or more working parents.” Is that a correct summary?

Generally, economically, society benefits with “workers” who pay more in taxes then they use in public benefits.

The economy isn’t limited to taxes and public benefits.

…Other than things where the nation clearly benefits (and with an aging workforce, we benefit from having future workers), people should be expected to plan for their future, not expect someone else to wipe their nose.

Sailorman:

the government should fund it.

Right now, the benefits of having people work and have kids accrue to society at large; they also obviously accrue to the individuals who benefit from selective work assistance programs. But as a society/country/government, we WANT people to 1) work, 2) have kids, and 3) retain the benefits of their education and experience “even though” they do #2.

I am not sure I buy that simply having kids is an enormous enough benefit to society that we should subsidize it. It might be, but its more complicated than that. But if that really is THE argument, then it seems like we should consider some big picture cold hard economic facts. Generally, economically, society benefits with “workers” who pay more in taxes then they use in public benefits.

For instance, even if you discount all the other public benefits that taxes provide, if you have just one child in a public school and it takes $8K per child per year, then you need to be paying that much in taxes just to be self sufficient. Otherwise you are an economic drain on society, though your child may or may not end up being a benefit.

Another thing to consider is that more workers drive down wages, which reduces the taxes paid by those workers and increases the likelihood they will be an economic drain rather than a benefit. OTOH more cheap workers means lower priced goods and that does benefit other areas of society. So its debatable whether or not simply having more children is a huge public benefit. Though people will continue to have children whether or not it is subsidized, as the rule goes you get more of what you subsidize.

Maybe a better reason to do it is less rational and more emotional: It’s compassionate to financially help families through a transitional hardship. I might be able to get behind that if the benefit was means tested and it was administered by the current welfare apparatus.

Right now, the benefits of having people work and have kids accrue to society at large; they also obviously accrue to the individuals who benefit from selective work assistance programs. But as a society/country/government, we WANT people to 1) work, 2) have kids, and 3) retain the benefits of their education and experience “even though” they do #2.

But the costs of such programs are borne disproportionately by employers. Workers are, generally speaking, reasonably fungible: there’s no advantage to ME that Joe is happily taking care of his 2 month old on my dime, if I could hire childless John who will do the same work. It is entirely predictable that if you put a disproportionate cost on people, they constantly attempt to define the boundary of the law, and/or break it entirely. people don’t like paying for things that don’t benefit them.

The government makes more sense. Everyone benefits, so everyone pays.

I’m a big fan of mixed market economies. However, I think the scaling back of regulation over the last ten years has obviously led to bad consequences for the US economy; although we’re obviously not completely deregulated, we’re too near the “unregulated market” side of the spectrum.

By equitable, I meant without discrimination based on unjust prejudices, and with accommodation for the non-market needs of our society (such as taking care of families).

you can’t insure something that is predominantly a matter of choice for the buyer

You can if the premiums are high enough, no?

There are things that the market is good at (distribution of nuts and bolts, for instance, congestion pricing) and things it sucks at (providing medical care for everyone, providing a stable economy, providing equitable access to good jobs).

What level of economic stability are you looking for? Mixed market (no one uses pure capitalism) has done pretty well for the west over the last 80 years. The business cycle’s still there, but it’s not that big a deal.

Also, what do you mean by equitable?…sorry longer comment delayed by baby waking up.

Are you seriously advancing this as a point, or just being free and easy with your language?

It was already explained to you why paid parental leave insurance is a non-viable idea (you can’t insure something that is predominantly a matter of choice for the buyer, as the buyer will reliably game the system and buy insurance only when they are going to use it), and proposing a subsidy for such insurance is completely irrelevant. Making the insurance mandatory would solve the problem, if for some reason we were going to go through private insurance companies.

If the government were going to subsidize paid leave, it would make far more sense to directly subsidize paid leave, either directly subsidizing the employer, or directly subsidizing the employee. For instance, parental leave could be treated as eligible for unemployment insurance, which is funded through a mixture of employer, employee, and state money, and which serves the insurance-like function of spreading the one time costs over a long period of time.

Your superior tone with mythago is simply embarrassing. Do stop making an ass of yourself.

It’s absurd to think that the private sector has the slightest interest in a “natalist effort”. Why should it? In the long term, of course we all want more consumers buying our stuff, but that gets stacked up against (at least the perception of) lost productivity from workers who divert their attention to family matters. If natalist policies are an advantage to private companies, why aren’t they all doing it?

I don’t see any evidence that “generally speaking, private effort is the way to get it done.” There are things that the market is good at (distribution of nuts and bolts, for instance, congestion pricing) and things it sucks at (providing medical care for everyone, providing a stable economy, providing equitable access to good jobs). That conservatives are so convinced that the market is the way to go 99% of the time is a major reason our economy’s going down the toilet.

There is an apparent feeling among this blog’s readers and authors that parents should get some kind of assistance. I wrote to that feeling, suggesting that there are ways for that assistance to be provided without a government mandate of behavior, but rather through private effort. That private effort requires money - money that the government mandate system basically extracts from everyone by requiring inefficiencies in hiring and staffing - and so I suggested that if there is a general feeling that society should assist the specific group called ‘parents’, then the way to do that consistent with private effort is to subsidize the insurance offering (or whatever mechanism).

You’ve responded to that with snippiness, first in asking if I was working for the insurance industry, and now by asking when I started advising the Fed. If you don’t want to address the MEGO of this whole subject, then don’t, but don’t be snippily cute with me and then act shocked when I’m irritated with your foolishness.

I am all for “be fruitful and multiply”. There’s nothing wrong with a natalist policy and I generally think we should pursue those policies. Doing so in ways that are consistent with the values we want for our government is not always easy or straightforward. Generally speaking, private effort is the way to get it done, and in the areas where we really do want to explicitly create a society-wide encouragement to do something, then an explicit subsidy is both transparent and politically debatable.

It’s fine to tell people to pay for their own damn babies, as long as you don’t mind when people then react by not having babies, or having fewer. I was under the impression that BE UNFRUITFUL AND DON’T MULTIPLY! was not a rallying cry of the Right, but perhaps I am out of touch.