By: DT_AUS

DT_AUS
Mon, 18 Nov 2024 01:17:01 +0000

Great to read some sensible analysis on this issue. The doom mongers also seem to overlook that there are several policy levers available to government beyond encouraging a higher birth rate or importing more people.

In Australia, we’ve had compulsory superannuation payments paid by employers for several years now. This is building up a retirement fund for each worker, which will either greatly reduce or perhaps even avoid entirely, the need for state assistance through a pension scheme.

Another lever that’s been pulled locally is a reduction in the Medicare levy for those with private health insurance. This makes it economically beneficial to take out private insurance, the cost of which is often about the same as the difference between the full levy and a discounted levy, particularly if you’re earning anything above average income (the levy is a percentage of income, not a fixed rate). This reduces the pressure on our public health care system, making it cheaper to run.

The other thing that can be done is to make welfare less attractive economically than work. This can be done by playing with minimum wage v maximum benefits – you raise the former and lower the latter and many people will decide they’d rather work than not. Of course, you will always have a rump of people who can’t or won’t work. Those who can’t need to be paid for but those who won’t can be made to perform public work that defrays the cost of supporting them (work for the dole we call it).

Obviously, there are many factors to consider in all of this but in my view we should appreciate the world only has so much capacity to support human life and no government should be striving to increase the population simply for short-term economic reasons. We owe it to future generations not to overcrowd the planet.