Time to create federal policies that support larger families

It may be just as possible as ever, as Winship says, to raise a family on one income if you are willing to accept a 1970s standard of living. But the wealth and income gap between the couple with three kids and the couple with one child (or no kids) has, it stands to reason, expanded. That’s especially because the more kids in a family, the greater the likelihood the mother is forgoing income. A family of five today may have a higher income than one did 50 years ago. But its relative income, and status, has declined.

That would be a straightforward economic explanation for part of the decline of birthrates, albeit not the one favored by most social conservatives. But even if it’s right, it doesn’t really point to what should be done. We could say: Life is full of trade-offs, and if you want a standard of living close to that of your peers, you have to have fewer kids than you want.

Or we could say that the opportunity cost has gotten too large, and we should look for ways to make it lower. Overregulation has pushed up the cost of housing, for example, which could be causing a delay in starting families and a decline in the willingness to expand them. That’s not something we have to accept as an inevitable feature of modern life.

There is also the question of whether the cost of government is falling too heavily on parents. Federal programs to take care of older Americans, especially, depend on people making the financial sacrifices needed to raise the next generation of taxpayers but do not pay parents more (or tax them less) in recognition of their contribution. The structure of these programs amounts to a large implicit tax on parents.