> Free day care is amazing. If that doesn’t make a dent then I am not sure what will.

France has a subsidy program for kids. It's not helping much. Current fertility rate is 1.85 (2.1 is breakeven).

The only thing that seems to work is a religion that keeps women home pumping out babies and taking care of them. Islam and Haredi Judaism do that. There's a Christian "quiverfull" movement in the US, but it's not big enough to matter.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull

1.85 is actually the highest in Western Europe and higher than Canada and USA.

But we had 2.1 not so long ago.

The issue is non-market housing used to be roughly 30% of the renting market, applying downward pressure on rent prices and thus, house prices. It's now less than 20%, with 95% being 'HLMs' (and a big part of those were from 'loi Pinel' that ended this year). We need to get back to a high percentage of non-market housing.

My father used to be the co-director of a 'chantier d'insertion' where he was teaching basic woodworking/painting/construction/DYI and also artistic skills to people (mostly men) outside of the workforce (from the 16yo dropout to the 54yo ex-farmer), and they did own a few buildings they restored, to help house everyone (they also had people teaching mechanics, electric, plumbing, gardening btw). The local city council changed it's political side, the initiative was shut down and the non-market houses bidded on. The GDP of our city that year probably skyrocketed.

PS: not on the subject: he still had time to clean up an ex-slaughterhouse with his guys, and organize an art exposition inside, with 'mort aux vaches' tagged outside with blood-looking paint, which, considering the new mayor was from a military family, had a not subtle double meaning.

Poland has 0 (zero) tax up to 50k$ per household for families with 4 kids. And there many other benefits afaik. And it is a highly religious country. It's fertility rate is 1.4-1.5.

Industrialized and highly educated populations will not go back to 2.1 and higher, it just doesn't work like that in the current social environment.

Able to live on one salary comfortably?

it's just a form of subsidy, $500-$2000/month worth depending on where

paid for by the people who don't have kids

not very different than just giving out cash or tax credits

Just like pensions, that are from the people that have invested in kids to those that didn’t.

maybe? how is this relevant. My point is this is not very different from what other countries are doing with cash subsidies or tax credits, perhaps with a PR angle of a human touch of a "free daycare". Worth trying of course, who knows what ends up working, so far nothing has worked. But looks pretty bleak. South Korea, one of the richest nations, no excuse for lack of money, plummeting to 0.72 in peaceful, non-Black-Death times. Something is majorly off.

I think relaxing immigration for more women immigrants to provide childcare would be fine with most Anericans.