Quote from trefoil:
A few things have to happen for the birth rate to go up:
1 - Education will have to be financed from something other than local property taxes. The current system incentivizes everyone to live in a high tax suburb to get their kids the best education, then retire to low tax places like Florida. This is a recipe for a) stupidity and b) the starving of public education systems that serve the two-thirds of citizens who can't afford homes in rich suburbs, forcing aspiring parents to part with a large part of their earnings for private education, which then has the further effect of decreasing their appetite for kids.
2 - Day care. No day care, no children. Very simple. Our current system with ridiculously inadequate day care facilities means most two income middle and upper middle class families will have one kid, and that's it.
3 - Family friendly tax structure. The first kid should get a double exemption, the second a one and a half times personal exemption off Federal income taxes. This will encourage two children families.
All three have to be done. Any one of the above done without the other two will not get the result you need.