[joelegner]

High childcare costs universally generates outrage. But should it?

Perhaps this is how the population eventually flattens. Maybe it is okay that the marginal cost of another human being keeps increasing.

If adding a child to the planet is expensive, people will have fewer. The population will plateau. An even worse overpopulation problem may be averted or mitigated.

[firejake308]

The problem is that the incentive doesn't work. Low-income folks have more children than high-income folks, even though they're the ones who are more adversely affected by childcare costs (larger percentage of budget). If disincentivizing having children through high childcare doesn't work, then we should accept that people will have as many kids as they want to, make things easier for the people who are already alive, and find other ways to manage overpopulation (easy access to contraception being the most effective and humane)

[Argonaut998]

Low income and unemployed people have the most children and are heavily (if not completely) subsidised by the government. So this will only work if you want those to multiply.

Furthermore, the USA is not overpopulated, the world is. This is a Western problem. People from India or Nigeria have no problem having 5+ children, so your solution makes no sense other than to punish working parents.