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The great crime decline is happening all across the country

43 points · 64 comments · andsoitis

downrightmike · 1790557063 · focus · HN ↗
Just like abortions in the 70's stopped the super criminals from existing in the 90's. Not having unwanted kids goes a long way to prevent crime. Now we are in the place where people want kids, but can't afford them so they aren't.
1. beaned · 1790557298 · focus · HN ↗
  Children have never been more affordable than they are now. People's wants and expectations have changed.
  1. chanakya · 1790558112 · focus · HN ↗
    Exactly. If you want to bring up kids the way they were brought up in the 50s and 60s, it will cost less as a proportion of people's incomes today. No one wants to bring up kids that way, though.
    vannevar · 1790562036 · focus · HN ↗
    >it will cost less as a proportion of people's incomes today.
    Do you have any evidence for this assertion, or are you relying on intuition here? A cursory search yields a number of references similar to this one---<a href="https://reno.nyloffices.com/resources/articles/starting-a-family-the-total-cost-of-a-baby" rel="nofollow">https://reno.nyloffices.com/resources/articles/starting-a-fa..., which indicate that the cost of raising a child has gone up significantly, at least in the last 40 years. And many of these references do not include the cost of college, which has skyrocketed. I'm not sure what you mean by "bringing up kids the way they were brought up in the 50s and 60s." They certainly had housing in the 50s and 60s, and that single expense alone is probably enough to make today's kids more expensive.
    chanakya · 1790571784 · focus · HN ↗
    This is not complicated. Median household income in 1960 (in today's dollars) was about $58,000. Today it's about $88,000. You therefore have more inflation adjusted money available to spend on everything, including children.
    The inflation adjustment includes everything: housing, education, and their proportion in the average US family's bucket, so calling out a specific item like education or housing doesn't change that data.
    UpsideDownRide · 1790580408 · focus · HN ↗
    It doesn't include the non market services provided. And those are non trivial part of rising children. So both things can be true - median monetary income is higher and rising a child is more expensive.

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