White House proposes giving out $5,000 checks to address falling birthrates amid growing ‘pronatalist’ movement
One of Donald Trump’s priorities for his second term is getting Americans to have more babies – and the White House has a new proposal to encourage them to do so: a $5,000 “baby bonus”.
The plan to give cash payments to mothers after delivery shows the growing influence of the “pronatalist” movement in the US, which, citing falling US birthrates, calls for “traditional” family values and for women – particularly white women – to have more children.
But experts say $5,000 checks won’t lead to a baby boom. Between unaffordable health care, soaring housing costs, inaccessible childcare and a lack of federal parental leave mandates, Americans face a swath of expensive hurdles that disincentivize them from having large families – or families at all – and that will require a much larger government investment to overcome.
This is how you get Idiocracy. The people that would take advantage of this would be the people you don’t want to over-breed.
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Thats mostly what happned in Australia back in the day when we tried it. Mu friends wife was a social worker, she said coercion to have babies was endemic and the money taken off the mother by the asshat father when said money arrived. Not really a lack of critical thinking per se, just desperate :(
What a debacle.
The people that would take advantage of this wouldn’t have the ability for critical thinking skills. I doubt the kids would be much better.
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In any case this combined with his dismantling of public education will certainly not help.
And the same people who are likely to vote for whoever his fascist successor ends up being.
Give me one year paid family leave and Medicare for all, then we’ll talk.
Seriously, a one time payment that low won’t cover shit. The climate doesn’t support families to begin with like your comment points out.
Also you can’t ask people to have kids and cut funding to Medicaid & be actively dismantling Department of Education… It’s counterintuitive to say we support families and then not support families. Oh but here’s some money.
Maybe a grant for college as well, so I can get a degree so that I might actually be able to participate in society at large.
Serious question, have you considered the trades? It seems that jobs like electrician, plumber, auto mechanic, etc are a lot more secure than white collar jobs are right now, especially STEM. I know at least where I live (Philly exurbs) there’s a shortage of electricians, with only 2 going into the trade as 5 retire. You get paid during your training and through the union you get healthcare and a pension. Something to think about.
I currently work assembling cables. Soldering, crimping, etc. I grew up building stuff, be it with my father at his business or at home. I don’t have no skills, but the skills I have don’t seem to be those that are in demand for high wages. Furthermore, as someone with Autism, I don’t do well in positions where I have to interact with the general public.
Other countries have tried this, and it was a spectacular failure
His arrogance means that he’s incapable of learning from others though, so good fucking luck
I thought Japans idea to subsidize alcohol was really the low point of this “We need more babies but also want to do the least amount possible to help” trend.
It’s not a monetary issue, otherwise the middle class would have more kids than the poor, which isn’t the case. It’s simply that when given the right and the means to control how many kids they have, people choose to not have enough to renew the population.
Same pattern everywhere as women gain rights over their body and as contraceptives become available. Even in periods where there was a strong middle class, even in countries where socio-economic inequalities aren’t as much an issue. Northern European countries and Quebec are some of the places with the most socio-economic equity and their birthrate is down the drain.
Yes that does tend to be the trend, but there’s also cultural effects on that as well. If we made more I would have kids, and speaking to my colleagues many of them would also want kids. But they can’t afford to live.
There of course can be more than one cause for a trend, and I accept this is anecdotal.
Yeah that’s why I’m showing historical data and mentioning that poorer people tend to have more kids even in first world countries.
Finland was close to 5 in 1900 and it’s a clear downward trend with one bounce after WW2
So even before all the shit we’re living now people were having less and less kids.
Right, but the anthropologist in me does have issues with that kind of data as applied to the US.
Living standards have not been significantly lower in any way to those countries, but we’ve experienced a sharp downturn in birthrates in the past 5 years. We were a 1st world nation by any measure for the past 100+ years, but our rates remained well above replacement levels.
So what is the cause for the downturn now for the US? I don’t believe that can be explained with Finland’s or Canada’s historical birth rates.
Down the drain but they are much lower in countries like Germany, Italy, and South Korea where there’s massive Hausfrau + Breadwinner cultural expectations. Wealth and autonomy decreases birthrates - letting women have careers and children gives you less of a decrease.
Reduction in birthrate is a problem when you decide that infinitely growing the human population is how you get prosperity. If you think the birthrate should be 4 so there’s always a lot more young people than pensioners.
Even with a birthrate lower than replacement it will take a very long time to significantly reduce any country’s population.
1.46 in Germany
1.24 in Italy
1.32 in Finland
1.52 in Sweden
1.41 in Norway
1.55 in Denmark
1.38 in QuebecSo no, it’s not much higher than Italy or Germany, Korea and Japan are special cases though.
Korea and Japan are special cases though
Jesus Christ, exclude Italy as well while you’re at it
PS You forgot Iceland.
Turns out having kids is hard on a body, and I don’t blame any woman for not wanting to go through that.
That and women might have other aspirations than being baby factories. Who knew women had their own hopes and interests?
Don’t quote me but I’m pretty sure research funding for women’s health is pathetic. More so when they found out that mice are given “👻sex hormones 👻”
Yep! It’s absolutely ridiculous how we literally know less about the female body than the male body simply because nobody has bothered to look at more than tits and vag.
Being a parent is also difficult. I don’t blame anybody for not wanting to deal with it.
Why do I have a feeling the administration would still try to find ways to not pay nonwhite families having kids?
Trump was propped up by people who believe this bogus “Great Replacement” theory and I don’t think they would be willing to back down from that stance on account of a generally declining population.
This is exactly the plan. Of course this kind of thing will only ever be meant for white parents.
Trump: “Gotta save the government money”
Also Trump: “Just throw money at it, maybe it will fix itself”
There is no plan, just incompetence.
Hey non-Americans, fun fact! If you have a baby here, you can expect $15,000+ in hospital bills.
$5,000 should cover that, right?
Im paying $12,000 per year for daycare/preschool just so I can go to work.
You got a good fuckin deal. I don’t have kids but my friends pay between $20,000 and $30,000 for daycare
A C-section will run you $60K easy. With the 80:20 insurance thats $12K owed by the parents. . With the federal out of pocket maximum being $9,450 for the mother. The baby also has a $9,450 out of pocket maximum. So the family will likely owe at least $12k before leaving the hospital
$5K handout is seriously ignorant. It will cost a hell of a lot more to reverse the trend
In order to increase the birthrate above replacement level here are a few things that need to happen.
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Free universal healthcare including dental.
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Rent control for all apartments locked to single income minimum wage.
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Ban on investment properties for single family homes. If the house is classified as single family, you can’t rent it out. It must be sold.
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Free childcare.
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Free education from pre-K to Graduate levels.
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Open immigration policies for countries with higher birthrates.
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Increase minimum wage to make it a livable wage.
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To pay for it all - Increase corporate taxes to 95% for more than $100million income. Increase personal taxes to 95% for more than 1 million in income.
9: The outlawing of ghost jobs and heavy enforcement of workers rights.
It’s funny how all of the real solutions for increasing the birthrate are just generally good things for the country.
And also things the party that most wants it to happen will never ever enact because their ideologies conflict with one another
To reverse the trend one should make healthcare more competitive.
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That’s the most laughable part of this idea. Even with a great insurance plan that $5k is basically a hospital discount. Furthermore, the few people I know that are interested in having more kids and have “uneventful” home births under their belt, thus minimal medical bills, are all Hispanic.
Let’s not spread incorrect numbers, our hmo made the cost of labor about $100 (maybe because of California). Childcare, formula, etc is still way more than $5k but labor is only expensive with bad insurance or no insurance, which is actually kind of more ironic since that applies more to MAGA than the rest of us.
That’s the fucked up part about America. You can walk out of a hospital with no bill or life-crippling debt depending on your age, income level, state, and employer (i.e. employer-based insurance).
Not in California, but we had twins, a couple days stay in the hospital, and have really good insurance. Still got billed 7k for the supposedly 80k total the hospital was billing for.
$5000? Does Trump still think it’s the 1950s?
I sizable chunk of the populace seems to harbor similar delusions
We will give you FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS! MFer please, diapers alone would be $5000 the first year.
Does Trump still think it’s the 1950s?
Very likely, yes.
I mean with his likely dementia…
Dementia? Likely late stage syphilis.
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Oh gross this makes way too much sense
He probably wishes it was still the 50s and is regressing the country as much as possible to return to the"good old days"
Actually, he publicly stated that he thinks the 1870s-1910s was peak America. You know, the Guilded Age.
Lmao the gilded age is quite insane. I suppose it’s just right given how it came to be named.
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90% tax rate for the 1% would do it real quick
YEA! Thats basically the whole thing
It’s just a child, Michael. How much could it cost?
Lmaooo no shit it won’t work. Daycare alone is $20-$40k a year. A pittance one-time payment doesn’t change the fundamental calculus of how fucking expensive everything is now
anyone else think this shit is fucking weird?
It makes more sense when you realize that money has solved all of Donald Trump’s problems in the past. Get a little too handsy with a woman? Pay her off to keep quiet. Have a business partnership or contract you want to get out of? Pay lawyers to harass them in court until they give up.
Heck, he doesn’t even need to use his own money most of the time, he can spend out of one of his companies like it’s a slush fund then declare bankruptcy, leaving business partners and banks with the bills.
He is now running the government like one of his privately owned companies, and using our money to try and solve his problems. Give them a pittance to go away, and when they don’t, you can say “we gave them a chance” before kidnapping them.
It’s an incel mindset.
Add at least one zero to that, ideally two.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-cost-of-raising-a-child-by-u-s-state/
Multiply by 18 years, closer to the 500’000 figure.
It depends on the source, but they’re all in the “a few hundred thousand” range for raising a child to 18. Collage/university are not included in that.
It really makes no sense of why they want to increase the population… when close to 5% are unemployed, as more people is ready to work soon.
The only thing I can think of is they’re trying to sink the usd more, make it a country like China that is like manufacturing, and many Americans lost a huge chunk of salary (like what happened during the Great Depression).
There’s not enough white babies for them. You’re looking for financial logic when it’s closer to white supremacy being out-birthed.
What you’re missing is that, in ~10-12 years or so, those babies will have grown into a massive labor demographic. I wish this was hyperbole.
It’s like they have in charge some nerd who’s only experience with planning and development is 4X games.
They want a slave class. That’s all.
Is $5000 gonna resurrect my wife if my shit ass state policies force her to continue a dangerous pregnancy and she dies prior to giving birth? Also, fuck you.
I was told this was communism. And that this is bad.
There’s already an annual child tax credit: https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-child-tax-credit
I’m sure they didn’t even check if birth rates are influenced by this…
No amount of money will convince a meaningful amount of people to have kids if they can’t reasonably believe their children will have a good life. Climate disasters, pollution, financial struggle, no access to property, crushing work life, unemployment, racism, unfair public policies, regressing social rights. All of these have to be addressed seriously before you can even start dreaming about reaching replacement birth rate. Fascist governments will go for an easier solution: enslave women.
