Maybe the author is surprised that it's totally fucking expensive to have kids?

I guess I look at this a different way. Let's assume we can comfortably say that it's a mistake for someone below a certain income threshold to have kids. Leaving aside all the issues incumbent with that, from declining population growth to the very serious moral questions, that still doesn't solve the issue of what to do with the low-income kids that we have.

They're already here. So unless you're comfortable with Morlocks running around in a couple more generations, and unless you're comfortable with shafting people because they happen to have been born into unfortunate circumstances, we need to figure out what to do for these people.

We also shouldn't poo-poo things like summer camp, either; we've become far too comfortable quantifying children's experiences in terms of how well they'll be ready to be good little robots. We chronically undervalue diverse experiences, and just plain doing things to make ourselves and others happy. Somehow everything has to be put to some kind of financial cost-benefit analysis. I hate to think about what future generations are going to be like if this is what they're taught to value.