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.
Build massive amounts of new housing. Give people paid parental leave, and universal healthcare. Guaranteed baby boom.
You’d also have to subsidize childcare. It’s crazy expensive.
There is no housing shortage, just an abundance of greed. There are 14,000,000 empty homes in the USA and most are owned by corporations who hold them as part of a financial portfolio or hedge funds. Ban corporations from owning residential properties and the housing shortage will vanish without cutting down more trees and burning more fossil fuels.
Idk man, around me it’s sprawling single family homes for miles, when it should be blocks and blocks of condos and town homes. The NIMBYs have prevented construction for decades and now a house costs $1.5m. There is a housing shortage. I think corporations recently taking an interest in buying houses is because the shortage makes their value appreciate so quickly. They’re like parasites taking advantage of the situation, not the root cause.
The corporations buying houses, and property, is exactly the root cause. If they own it all, they set the prices. It’s a cash cow. You pay, or you’re homeless. You pay $2500/month rent, but they won’t give you a mortgage where you would be paying $2000/month.
The root cause is a lack of multi family housing. Corpos buying houses is not the primary issue with housing, though it is also a serious concern.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/federal-social-housing-1.6946376 The Canadian government used to build social housing. We have a real problem with homeless people in Canada. There are only a few places left like this where I live. They are very well run complexes. My Son-in-law’s retired Mom lives in one. She worked hard all her life, but through a divorce and buying a “leaky condo”, she was left without a lot of resources. She was lucky enough to find a placement in one of these places. The rent is a percentage of her income. We need more places like this…
Agreed
Do we really need a baby boom though? I agree we need affordable housing, everything you mentioned and more. At the same time I don’t think the population should grow forever (so education and available birth control).
I don’t disagree. I was just clarifying what would spur one.
Truthfully, we are fucked either way. The truth is having a baby boom would help the economy, but accelerate environmental degradation and the consequences of climate change, which will be extremely destabilizing to society and possibly lead to collapse.
But, if we don’t continue to grow the population, the capitalist world, based on a need for endless growth will falter. We will see less productivity and consumption, which will also be destabilizing to society as the economy shrinks or becomes stagnant. This is also destabilizing to society and could also create a collapse.