Comments on: Poor Children Cause Poverty

By: a Christian

a Christian — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:52:56 +0000

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.

By: Poor Person

Poor Person — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 06:11:06 +0000

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.

By: thatsrightnate

thatsrightnate — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:28:58 +0000

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?

By: Naz

Naz — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:38:22 +0000

“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.

By: thatsrightnate

thatsrightnate — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:25:05 +0000

That’s indeed correct. I mean in terms of percentage. Once again, great blog!

By: NotYourDaddy

NotYourDaddy — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:44:08 +0000

“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.