Should NC Inact Child Free policies (Charlotte, Raleigh: fit in, best city, 2014)
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And when I mean by "Child Free", encourage childless singles/couples to relocate state and even enact tax incentives for those individuals/couples who do not have or wish to have kids. Especially in light of the costs to maintain and build educational facilities and programs for kids under 18, this could be a great economic boon to the state.
And when I mean by "Child Free", encourage childless singles/couples to relocate state and even enact tax incentives for those individuals/couples who do not have or wish to have kids. Especially in light of the costs to maintain and build educational facilities and programs for kids under 18, this could be a great economic boon to the state.
That's never going to happen in a state like NC, one of whose draws is "family friendliness". Might work better in a state like Alaska where there is a much higher % of non-parents.
But, it DOES help a state's/county's economy when childless and childfree people live there, since they pay the same property taxes as everyone else but don't use the schools, less use of parks, etc. And pay more taxes in general since they don't get as many credits.
However, NC would never be the cutting edge state to try that; politicians jumps through hoops to appear "family-friendly" these days (always, actually).
fertility is down and people are already pushing back marriage and starting families if anything the state should do more to encourage children besides every kid is a potential future tax payer
And when I mean by "Child Free", encourage childless singles/couples to relocate state and even enact tax incentives for those individuals/couples who do not have or wish to have kids. Especially in light of the costs to maintain and build educational facilities and programs for kids under 18, this could be a great economic boon to the state.
NC seems to offer enough without having to go that far. After all, we have magazines telling people we are the best place to live, Charlotte is the best city, Raleigh is the best city, we have low taxes, things are great, you can find a six-figure job even though you have no education, etc.
Okay, the last one was a stretch, but it'll happen.
Why would NC offer anything else? We seem to offer everything everone wants.
we should pay all childless couples who are willing to get neutered a $100K bonus when they buy homes to move to NC. Otherwise, they can't be trusted to move here to our family-friendly atmosphere and fertilized drinking water and not decide to bear children and thus become part of the problem you already want to solve.
That's never going to happen in a state like NC, one of whose draws is "family friendliness". Might work better in a state like Alaska where there is a much higher % of non-parents.
But, it DOES help a state's/county's economy when childless and childfree people live there, since they pay the same property taxes as everyone else but don't use the schools, less use of parks, etc. And pay more taxes in general since they don't get as many credits.
However, NC would never be the cutting edge state to try that; politicians jumps through hoops to appear "family-friendly" these days (always, actually).
You're right about this not happening in NC, and it's probably even less likely with the current state legislature than it would have been a few decades ago. And by "this" I mean a more equitable, less regressive tax system that levels the playing field and doesn't place such a burden on single people (even married people without children still enjoy a significant tax benefit in most cases). I'm not sure about Alaska since it's too much of a "red" state that still keep its policies pretty close to to NC when it comes to trying to be "family friendly." If it happened anywhere, I can see it maybe happening on the West coast or New England, which have more socially progressive states (and would perhaps a little less sheepish about accurately pointing out the fact that current tax policies are regressive by favoring affluent families over less wealthy single people and couples without kids).
Also, it's not that most single people are being selfish and don't want to support their schools and children through their taxes and services that they may not directly benefit from. It's just that single people especially are getting clobbered by their tax bills, in addition to other expenses, such as housing, that are by default more expensive to them.
It's not that they're being family "unfriendly"; they just don't want to be taken advantage of by footing all the bill for the excessively generous tax breaks given to affluent couples with kids who don't really need the tax breaks and use the services so much more heavily than they do. On top of that, single people have a much higher tax bill, which makes paying general expenses, let alone saving, much harder to do.
Here's one (and there are several out there if you do a simple search online) explanation that demonstrates how this happens:
The article cites federal taxes, but the same concept also creates a higher tax burden for singles when they face their state and local tax bllls.
Last edited by Jowel; 03-28-2016 at 05:58 PM..
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