Why Can't I Afford to Have Kids?
It's not culture. It's arithmetic. The extractions compound.
TL;DR
US fertility: 3.65 children per woman (1960) → 1.62 (2023). Below replacement since 2007. A couple earning $90,000 faces: housing ($21,600), healthcare ($8,000), student loans ($6,000). Add a child: $20,000+ in childcare alone. The costs hit precisely when biology makes family formation optimal.
1973: Dayton, Ohio
The Family
- • Shift supervisor at parts plant
- • Wife at home (COO of household)
- • Three children
- • One income
The Math
- • House: $24,000
- • Salary: $18,000
- • Ratio: 1.3×
- • Mortgage: $156/month
This was possible because one income was enough.
The Math Inverted
Between 1973 and 2000:
The things a family needed—shelter, health, education—rose five to six times faster than the wages a family earned.
By 2000, the shift supervisor's son could not do what his father had done.
The Two-Income Trap
Elizabeth Warren, before she was a senator, was a bankruptcy scholar. She found something counterintuitive:
1973: One Income
- • Running at 50% capacity
- • 50% held in reserve
- • If husband loses job → wife enters workforce
- • Safety margin exists
2000: Two Incomes
- • Running at 100% capacity
- • No reserve
- • If either loses job → can't cover fixed costs
- • Safety margin gone
The two-income family earned more. The two-income family was poorer.
The costs had risen to consume both incomes. The option to have one parent at home had been eliminated—not by preference, not by ideology, but by arithmetic.
The Vise: 2024
A young couple in Dayton today, both working, combined income of $90,000, looks at the arithmetic:
Current Extractions
Add a Child
Of $90,000 gross income:
62%
consumed before taxes
They do the math. They can't afford it. Not comfortably. Not safely. Not with any margin for error.
So they wait. They wait until they've saved more, until their incomes have risen, until the arithmetic improves.
The arithmetic does not improve. The costs rise faster than their wages. They wait longer.
The Cruelty of Timing
Biology
A woman's fertility peaks in her twenties. The biological window for having multiple children safely: ages 22-35.
Economics
Student loan payments peak in the twenties. Housing costs peak as share of income in twenties/early thirties. Career pressure peaks late twenties/thirties.
The costs that make family formation impossible hit at precisely the moment when biology makes family formation optimal.
The vise closes on the window.
By the time they can afford a child, they're in their mid-thirties. They have one child, perhaps two. They wanted three.
The economic constraint became a biological constraint. The children who would have existed in another economic arrangement do not exist.
The extraction stole the years.
The Trajectory
Fertility rate (children per woman)
Replacement rate: 2.1
3.65
1960
1.84
1980
2.12
2007
1.62
2023
Below replacement since 2007. Each generation smaller than the last.
Fewer children means fewer workers. Fewer workers means lower economic output. Lower output means less tax revenue. Less revenue means an inability to fund the obligations made to the larger generations that came before.
Workers per retiree (dependency ratio)
5:1
1960
2:1
2030
<2:1
2060
The Line Ends
The Dayton family across generations:
3
1973
5
Their children had
2
Grandchildren have (so far)
Three became five became two.
Politicians debate "pro-family values" while presiding over an anti-family economy. They are either ignorant or dishonest.
We cannot have a pro-family culture with an anti-family economy.
The birth rate collapse is not a cultural problem with an economic dimension. It is an economic problem with a cultural symptom.
A society that cannot afford to form families cannot continue.
The economic operating system must change, or the demographic math breaks the nation.
See the Solution →Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't I afford to have kids?
A couple earning $90,000 faces: housing ($21,600), healthcare ($8,000), student loans ($6,000). A child adds $20,000+ in childcare alone. The extractions compound—62% of income consumed before taxes. The fertility rate collapsed because families did the arithmetic.
Why is the birth rate falling?
US fertility: 3.65 children per woman (1960) → 1.62 (2023). Below replacement since 2007. This isn't preference—it's economics. The costs that make family formation impossible hit precisely when biology makes family formation optimal.
What is the two-income trap?
Elizabeth Warren found that in 1973, a one-income family ran at 50% capacity with the other parent in reserve. By 2000, two incomes were required just to cover fixed costs. If either parent loses their job, the family can't cover basics. Two incomes, less security.
Why is childcare so expensive?
Childcare costs $15,000-25,000+ annually in most markets—often more than college tuition. Unlike other countries, the US has no universal childcare infrastructure. Parents compete for limited spots at market rates. For many families, a second income barely covers the childcare required to earn it.
What happens when birth rates stay below replacement?
Fewer workers to support more retirees. Workers per retiree: 5:1 (1960) → 2:1 (2030) → <2:1 (2060). Less tax revenue, inability to fund obligations. Either immigration fills the gap or the math breaks the nation. The extraction economy made the choice for us.
