Now let’s see 2022 and 2023.
Edit. Oh wait! It’s back down.
https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
The FAO Food Price Index* (FFPI) stood at 119.1 points in April 2024, up 0.3 points (0.3 percent) from its revised March level, as an increase in the price index for meat and smaller upturns of vegetable oil and cereal indices slightly more than offset decreases in those for sugar and dairy products. Although it registered a second monthly uptick in April following a seven-month long declining trend, the FFPI was down 9.6 points (7.4 percent) from its corresponding value one year ago.
It’s not back down to 2019 prices
I can’t understand why anyone would expect most people to want to have kids. I can hardly afford to take care of myself, things look like they’re only likely to get worse, and all indicators are that if I did have kids, they would be facing an even worse future when they hit adulthood. Why would I do that to them?
I have kids. I love my kids, and being a parent is the best decision I ever made for myself.
I can’t say I would recommend it, though.
A man working an average job used to earn enough to buy an average house and comfortably support his wife and kids.
Now you need two people in full-time work just to pay rent to the landlord.
The problem is inequality of wealth and the solution is make work pay.
No no, you’re wrong. The problem is taxes are too high and the people on the absolute top don’t get enough money. If we just make them a bit richer, the wealth will finally start trickling down on us.
Wait! I think I feel it trickling down right now!
Nope. Just piss. Again.
And too many immigrants. Surely if we keep them out, all those low wage manual labor jobs will still get done, and our population will increase
Lol. How much does it cost to have a child in the hospital in the USA again? Oh, $18,865 you say? Huh. What if they need an ambulance to get there? Oh, $500 to $3000 depending on distance you say? And you say also that US Bureau of Labor and Statistics is letting us know that in four short years our grocery prices have risen 22.04% and are expected to rise another 5.11% per year indefinitely? Meanwhile corporate profits increase every single year and minimum wage has been stagnant for decades? Someone should get them quick!!! I think I figured out why no one wants to have babies anymore! I would like to also comment on how obscenely expensive daycare is and how fucked up it is we have to put children in school 40 hours a week just so we can keep working more than half our lives away but I feel like anyone reading this gets the idea. They will be begging your ass to have babies in the next 100 to 200 years if we make it that long and I’ll bet you all those obscene expenses will be an even greater cost to income ratio then, too. I mean if birthrates are a problem you have to ask yourself are they just fucking stupid or just fucking greedy?
For us and everyone we know it was under $200. I’m not saying that everyone is going to have our levels of insurance but you are greatly exaggerating.
The biggest cost by far is childcare hands down.
Edit: I know I know, a $2500 median out of pocket expense hurts everyone’s head cannon.
is this written into the law as covered before deductible and maximum out of pocket?
Yes and yes although the latter can be quite high. I’m not saying our healthcare isn’t insane, I’m just saying it costs nowhere near 18k outside of edge cases. In reality full time daycare will run you 22k/yr for a moderate cost of living area and is, by a long shot the most expensive portion until college.
Fewer people means increased wages. Fuck em.
My kids don’t want kids. I’m cool with that. It’s not my decision and I’m definitely not interested in playing grandma daycare.
Neither me nor my sister really want kids, but my parents want to be grandparents. Makes for some awkward family dinners
Theme to lean into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement
Get all your right wing nutcase friends to have more babies “for the cause”, then get all your left wing nutcase friends to have more babies because “oh noes, Project 2025”. Pretty soon your social security will be funded and you can retire in peace, far from either
Or instead of overpopulating we can increase immigration to fund social security without having to wait multiple decades.
We don’t need more slaves to capitalism.
And that is exactly what they’re concerned about.
you want more kids make houses affordable and give people time off from work.
If you want to further subjugate women so rich people can get away with more creepy sex crimes then you do what the GOP is currently doing.
Don’t play the game if it’s rigged
As a species we have the tools, technology, education, knowledge, cognition, and intelligence to override an animal instinct to reproduce willy nilly. We’re more than that now. People should know what it means to choose to have children and weigh the benefits vs the costs to their lives.
Have children when you want to and when it makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense, then don’t do it. Humanity will survive thinning down to many billions fewer humans sitting around consuming resources. A person who never existed in the first place because healthy adults decided to put their time and resources into something else shouldn’t be lamented, but a choice respected.
My family has a long history of not having many children. Our family tree is one of marrying in people and then just not growing larger generation to generation. We have plenty of childless couples in the tree and they make the coolest aunts and uncles a kid can have.
Clearly your family has a long history of enough children since you’re here to talk about it.
I feel like the opposite. My grandfather was one of 13, my mom was one of six, I was one of four, but the next generation only has my two. So far the odds of one more generation are not looking good.
Sure, the world is overpopulated but that’s a short term problem. Every estimate has a peak within 50 years, then a drop. It would be better for us all if that drop were a slow decline to something more sustainable rather than steep, chaotic, disruptive, if the slow drop were uniform, rather than much steeper for some
If young Americans had financial stability, better mental health, hope for the future, etc. I’m sure that birth rate would go back up.
It’s not like people don’t enjoy fucking anymore. It’s just that they’re more careful than ever not to reproduce, because they can’t afford parenthood.
We have an endless supply of illegal emigrants we don’t need to have kids.
Believe it or not, Earth’s population is not ∞ and most of the people who live in places other than the U.S. don’t plan to come to the U.S.
It is endless enough for us. We literally need to put up walls and barbed wire to keep people out.
Is it? Because I don’t know where you live, but there’s plenty of space around here.
It’s not endless. Birth rate is declining everywhere and standards of living are generally rising, meaning fewer people with incentive to uproot their lives for another place they’ll be treated as criminals. That flow could easily stop and any interruption switches us instantly from growth to serious shrinkage
