An interesting data point: A stunning percentage of those young people without children now never intend to have them. In fact one relatively recent survey found the number was as high as one third.
The most-common reason cited? Its too expensive.
Now you can try to point to this as some sort of selfishness but that's a dodge on the real issue: You, that is us older people, made it too expensive.
Specifically homes and medical care are two places where all the "older people" cheer; we get the "best" but the next can't buy it at all. Our federal government tries to interfere in both markets and allows blatantly illegal activity when it comes to medical care, specifically as relates to price fixing, which has been a felony for over 100 years. Nobody cares and nobody will prosecute. Since all criminal offenses in the United States are "the people .v. whoever" -- that is, there's no right of private prosecution as there is with a lawsuit, it never ends since nobody goes to jail and in fact there is a formal government policy not to indict large corporations for felony criminal acts (which could debar them permanently from government and some private activity) after Arthur Anderson.
Health care has gone from about 4% to 20% of our domestic output; that is, it has multiplied in price by five. Just having a child is expensive, never mind the near-inevitable little thing here and there. Your kid breaking a leg playing a sport could bankrupt you in this country, and God forbid said child contracts a serious childhood disease such as Leukemia.
Then there's the always-required housing. One or more kids means more bedrooms, of course; at least one more. When a one-bedroom apartment runs $12,000 a year exactly how am I supposed to pay for that if I don't make at least $40,000 annually? Oh, we'll just "subsidize" that you say? Uh, no you won't because all that does is force the price even higher by throwing printed government credit at it, since the government refuses to tax what it spends first.
The last two years have made clear what all the credit emission does: Food, anyone? And kids are hungry, especially teens. I had one; she was a vacuum cleaner in the fridge and pantry and boys are worse. That's normal. How are you going to pay for it?
Of course nobody seems to think this is a problem, not even Jerome Powell at The Fed, who is saying that he has "the tools" to make inflation come down to 2%. Eventually. Note that what he didn't say is that he will tighten credit until the price of houses returns to what it was before the 2006-2007 bubble, which was in fact still ridiculously expensive in terms of average wages which is why the bubble happened in the first place -- people running up the price by using hinky financial engineering.
No, importing millions of people from other lands, most with no skills, will not fix this. They come here with no skills but a willingness to pop out some kids -- which makes it worse. That's basic economics: No skills means low or no wages but demand for goods and services which of course makes the price go up even more.
Down this road lies social and economic collapse folks. Oh, you may think the Nasdaq at 12,000 is good, or the DOW at 34,000, or your so-called "middle-class house" at $500,000.
You're wrong.
Two people earning $30,000 a year can't afford to buy said house; that middle-class house has to cost about $150,000-180,000, not $500k, and it can't come with a $5,000 property tax bill every year either -- that has to be $1,000!
Or..... you can have a third of the current generation of those of child-bearing and siring age decide to give you the finger, and when you get older and wish to retire you will get a surprise in another five or ten years: There's nobody to wipe your butt and take care of you because the only young people are those with no skills, no contribution to the goods and services output of the nation but they have been told they're entitled to shelter, food and medical care without having to pay for any of it by going to work first.