Comment by taurath

The number of people I know in their 30s who can only just afford food and shelter is so high - these are people in the same economic class who'd have had kids 20 years ago. We do extremely little to make a society that encourages people having kids, or honestly just living a life doing much other than working. Daycare is expensive for the same reason that everything is expensive - money to investors and landlords. The workers are still being paid under a living wage. Keep in mind its mostly privileged people who can afford a single income that have the option to exit the workforce. Unless we can make cost of living more affordable for everyone we can't expect anything to get better. In 1985 a median wage worker would spend only 55% of their check on housing healthcare transportation and education, now its 105%.