Childless people have a shorter life expectancy by ~2 years. So if we unsocalize the cost and base it on that factor, people with children should be paying more as they are a strain on the system for longer.

Two years ago I was booked for a flight with my wife and four kids. I would say the average of all 6 of us at the time was about 85lbs. Not only that, but because we have to fit in a vehicle with all of our stuff, we pack light, at most one roll-aboard each.

The plane was overweight so they were choosing reservations to involuntary bump to the next day and of course we were selected. No amount of reason mattered; if they bumped us based on an “average weight”, they’d be no better off than when they started.

Someone hasnt heard of Goodharts Law.

Should people with disabled children pay even more, since they not only fail to produce future taxpayers, but are also a huge burden on the social system? What if your children die before even paying a single cent into the system? People with jobs/hobbies with a high risk of being taken out of the workforce? People with genetic diseases? Or just go straight to the root of the issue: anyone above 60, who can't even dress themselves, we get rid of.

We should really gamify the system as much as possible to make it fun for everyone involved.

What are the chances it goes through?

What about redistribution of housing and readjustment of older pensions?

No, the solution is increasing pension age. Funneling money from young to elderly is the opposite of solution.

I'm a childfree adult, and this proposed bill makes perfect sense to me. I see it not as incentivizing people to have kids, but instead as a way to more fairly spread the burden as populations age.

I can easily understand that if everyone went my route (i.e. no kids) that society would collapse by definition, and my later years would be inherently miserable. I'm depending on others that do have kids (and sacrificed a lot in their 20s, 30s and 40s, a sacrifice I was not willing to make) so I can pay for medical and aged care when I'm old. So paying a slight amount more for this support seems highly reasonable to me.

Society pays a lot for children as well. Including members without children.

You are not wrong. But the reality of this government in Germany is that they are also cutting down on the assistance that parents receive.

With both of those combined they are currently just redistributing wealth to the elderly that have created this mess.

They can always adopt?

Not to mention, cruel towards people who are not financially ready for children and make a conscious choice to not have children without the resources for it, but get financially penalized for it.

The final fuck you from the Boomers will be that they will be dying en masse just as the consequences of their behavior really start to bite and it is no longer possible for anyone else to have what they did.

The point is to incentivize people to have kids.

I think the thinking is that if you had kids you created future cows for the tax plantation so you contributed more to the country.

> Many people can't afford to have kids

Wrong. Poor people have 0 problems having kids.

People can afford kids, they don't want to compromise on lifestyle.

Sound like “the beatings will continue until morale improves”

They don't. Chancellor Merz has an approval rating of 13 %. The German population almost unanimously thinks that he is doing a terrible job (https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-05/umfrage-bund...)

They have no vision for the future and no idea how to bring Germany forward other that taxing the poor.

It's the cost, but also the higher expectations of living nowadays. Social media, phones, computers, trips, etc.

The actual monetary cost of a child is high, for sure. But many people put that number higher due to lifestyle choices, not need. Social media certainly doesn't help.

The machine needs more tax payers to keep politicians flying around the world in private jets. Produce tax slaves people, produce them now!

Now sure how things are in Europe where there is a bigger social safety net, but in the US, 36% of adults under 50 describe putting off having kids due to financial reasons.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/07/29/fewer-adults-ha...

Do you mean something like this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/05/uproar-germany...

But aimed at childless women? To balance things out a bit?

If you want people to have children make it an attractive life choice, or even a viable option. A centrally located apartment in a desirable city with the space to house a family of 3-4 is out of reach for a very large part of the population, financially. That’s _before_ you even consider all of the other costs of having children. Meanwhile our chancellor talks of 70h+ work weeks, while spending hundreds of billions on special military budgets, and also cutting health care funding..

If you want to incentivize people to have kids, hand out $500K-1M to anyone who wants to have kids. Don't penalize those who don't.

And yes, kids cost that much.

I'm a senior level software engineer in the bay area. I don't have kids. I don't think I can afford them. I'm tired of people telling me I can afford them. The world works differently today. In the 1980's, if you had a stable job that let you leave at 5pm, you could more or less handle kids.

Today, leaving at 5pm means risking PIP and not having an income; your company may lay off people randomly without notice; your rents could go up 10-20% unexpectedly; groceries could double in price over a couple years; you basically need to be working round the clock to not get PIPed and even sustain an income. And if you work around the clock you also need cash to hire nannies because you don't have the time to raise them yourself. As such I wouldn't even think about kids in this world without having saved up the full sum of my expenses AND their expenses for their ENTIRE life until 21 years old in CASH before even having the kid. We just don't have the job security today.