Poor Children Cause Poverty
I read a brilliant blog entry last night and I wanted to comment on it this morning. On the Government is not Your Daddy Blog http://notyourdaddy.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/how-to-stop-propagating-poverty/ the author does a great job of laying out certain unfortunate facts:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2006), 10.8% of adults in the U.S., and 17.4% of children, live below the poverty line. As long as the poor reproduce at a higher rate than the non-poor, it stands to reason that the rate of poverty will increase. We’ve tried for years to reduce poverty by subsidizing it. That hasn’t worked. No matter how much money we pay poor people to have more children, the numbers of the poor keep increasing. It would seem that a more effective approach would be to try to reduce the rate of reproduction among the poor.
She then goes on to do a lot more than any of the Presidential candidates by laying out 4 concrete steps to stop this:
- Stop paying people to have babies. Those who can afford to raise children don’t need to be subsidized, and those who can’t shouldn’t have them.
- Make birth control readily available. Providing birth control does not encourage immoral or irresponsible behavior. Obviously, that behavior happens anyway. I’m far more concerned with the consequences to society of the lack of birth control than with making sure people who don’t care are aware of our disapproval.
- People who are too irresponsible, or stoned, or whatever, to use birth control are likely to be too irresponsible, or stoned, or whatever, to raise a child. Any children they end up having are at a high risk for the kind of irreversible neurological defects that exact a huge toll on society. While I’m opposed to abortions of viable fetuses, I do not oppose early-term abortions. In some situations, there are worse things than not being born.
- Sterilization should be made an option for people seeking abortions. For women seeking abortions at government expense, I’m in favor of offering a monetary incentive for voluntary sterilization. It would be far more cost effective in the long run to pay a lump sum up front than to pay indefinitely after the child is born, and it would reduce the overall number of abortions as well as the number of future children to be raised at taxpayer expense.
Good stuff! However, I don’t think she goes far enough. In order to balance out these kids being born in poverty it is the responsibility of those of us with means to produce more wealthy offspring. Every child that we have lowers the number of children living in poverty. Furthermore, there are an awful lot of people who have been slacking in this department and its hurting this country. Rush Limbaugh has never fathered a child. How can we let him get away with this. Its time for him to train an offspring to take his place. Bill O’Reilly only has two kids. If our great thinkers produce two kids between them our country loses. What’s more, I am sure if I examined othere great people in this country I’d find a similiar lack of kids. As I think about this, I am more impassioned ever to get married again and have more children.
“Every child that we have lowers the number of children living in poverty.”
Umm, not sure how that works, Nate… Perhaps you meant the percentage?
While poor children do perpetuate poverty, it’s poor adults who cause poor children. And, paradoxically, the poor reproduce at a significantly higher rate than the rest of the population. This is counterintuitive; one would expect that the people who can least afford children would have fewer of them. However, when you consider that the government pays them for every child they have, it all starts to make sense.
I’m just suggesting that, unless poverty is desirable, we should consider reexamining the rewards system and start rewarding behavior that reduces poverty rather than rewarding behavior that propagates it.
NotYourDaddy
March 9, 2008 at 1:44 pm
That’s indeed correct. I mean in terms of percentage. Once again, great blog!
thatsrightnate
March 9, 2008 at 2:25 pm
“Every child that we have lowers the number of children living in poverty.” Actually, that makes no sense. There is not a limit to the amount of children the world can have. You may have meant to say it lowers the Percentage. However, I’d say that the more children people with jobs have, the more children will grow up to work as adults. These adults will produce more taxes and external benefits, which will allow poor people to reproduce even more.
Humans, as any animal on this planet, didn’t evolve by not taking advantage of conducive reproductive environments. (The fact that poor people don’t have to work, yet can successfully reproduce shows they have a beneficial reproductive strategy.) Until we change the environment to make it less attractive to have children, they have no reason to stop reproducing.
Naz
February 17, 2009 at 8:38 am
What if we allow them to have children, but take them away if they make below a certain ammount of money. Won’t that provide a disincentive for them to reproduce as well as supply children to childless couples who would pay handsomely for the priviledge?
thatsrightnate
February 17, 2009 at 9:28 am
In my opinion, people should not have children they cannot afford to raise. Creates too many problems for the kids and society. I’ve seen illegal immigrants with up to 12 children all paid for by the taxpayer and I don’t believe its sustainable. The state I live in is sinking (e.g. California) under this sort of nonsense and nobody’s really doing anything to stop it except raising taxes on a people with the highest taxes in the nation and a modern liberal public indoctrination system that’s now 3rd from the bottom (years ago it was number one in the nation). It makes me sick. We can still implement welfare if we require the painless procedure of sterilization to both male and female as part of the application process. It’s only fair in my opinion. Poor people shouldn’t be having kids they can’t afford to raise in my opinion. By the way, I’m poor and would subject myself to that requirement if I decided to accept welfare.
Poor Person
December 30, 2010 at 12:11 am
But, what if they had twelve kids before they got poor? Would those children have to be euthanized? That seems only fair if you are going to punish childless poor people with pre-emptive sterilization.
a Christian
December 30, 2010 at 12:52 pm