And in non-pandemic times, they're subsidizing the continuation of society for the childless, to their own detriment (less free time, less self time, less money, less social life, less sleep; the list goes on and on and on).

Except children benefit their parents. Before social security, children were your social security. This mechanism hasn't disappeared. Childless people already pay more taxes that are used to subsidize other peoples' children, but they don't get nearly the benefit from that that parents do.

Average price to raise a child to 18 in the US is $233,610 according to the USDA. Tax benefits don't come close to this. And heaven help you if your kid goes to college. ;-)

[1] https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-chil...

It's not tax benefits that makes parents better off. Tax benefits are in addition to the general benefits children provide. Children are your caretakers in old age. People who have children tend to live longer.

I strongly suspect that, among wealthy tech workers, children are a net drain when you factor in:

- These workers have enough income to finance their own retirement easily

- The additional real estate to raise children near a tech hub is often prohibitively expensive

- These kids will almost certainly go to college and maybe private school, which adds up _rapidly_

It's important to consider _who_ we are talking about here.

>It's important to consider _who_ we are talking about here.

But then their noble sacrifice isn't as important for society anymore, is it? If we simply need more children, then it's not relevant whether they're born to the family of the tech worker or someone worse off.

Actually, it is. A reasonably well-off family has more time to spend with their children, to help with school work, etc. They have more money for learning supplies (both learning toys and things related to school). They can make sure their children are nutritionally fed (not that they always do, but they have the capacity and it's more likely). The children are less likely to need to start work early in order to help support the family.

In short, being a child in a well off family results in that child being more likely to be better off later in life.

Yes but we live in a time after social security, where old people, regardless of whether or not they have children, are often completely subsidized by the current SS taxes of young people.

They're subsidized by young people, because when the old people were young they were forced to subsidized old people back then. It's a deal society forced upon people, so you can't act as though old people today didn't earn it.

The people collecting now paid in at 6-10%, I'm paying out to them at 15%. They also paid no health insurance premiums on the come up, I've paid them since I was 22 without needing to use them. Also made it illegal to not pay into the fraud for a bit.

Evil ol' bastards. They can fuck off and die already.