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.

  • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    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.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      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.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    $5k when having a kid costs $3k in insurance copays with a normal birth and average insurance. So you’re down to $2k before even leaving the hospital. This dude has all the intellectual depth and forethought of a mushroom.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    “What could raising a child cost? $5000?”

    “You’ve never actually raised a child, have you?”

  • FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com
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    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

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      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.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

      • SuiXi3D@fedia.io
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        10 days ago

        Turns out having kids is hard on a body, and I don’t blame any woman for not wanting to go through that.

        • Gina@lemmy.wtf
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          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 👻”

          • SuiXi3D@fedia.io
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            10 days ago

            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.

          • Carvex@lemmy.world
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            10 days ago

            They still haven’t been told what Transgenic means, and we know they can’t read to find out themselves.

        • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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          10 days ago

          That and women might have other aspirations than being baby factories. Who knew women had their own hopes and interests?

      • arrow74@lemm.ee
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        10 days ago

        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.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          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.

          • arrow74@lemm.ee
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            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.

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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              9 days ago

              The trend is fairly similar but I would think that mass immigration to the US probably stabilized things from the 70s and let’s not act like access to contraceptives/abortion is that good in the US, which probably helped a lot to keep it closer to replacement

      • ryedaft@sh.itjust.works
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        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.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          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 Quebec

          So no, it’s not much higher than Italy or Germany, Korea and Japan are special cases though.

          • ryedaft@sh.itjust.works
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            9 days ago

            Korea and Japan are special cases though

            Jesus Christ, exclude Italy as well while you’re at it

            PS You forgot Iceland.

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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              Sorry, I thought Japan was at the same level as Korea but it’s actually much higher.

              So yeah, Korea is a special case.

              Iceland is at 1.59

  • drcabbage@lemmy.ml
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    Kind of hard to promote getting pregnant when they are actively trying to take away abortion rights! That’s like asking someone to walk a tight rope, but then take away the safety net.

      • WanderingThoughts@europe.pub
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        Other countries tried that. It increased the amount of illegal abortions. A lot of kids got dumped on the steps of an orphanages what gave entire new sets of problems. And the birth rate still decreased.

  • Toneswirly@lemmy.world
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    Youre not gonna get the eugenics you want with this. The most likely audience is people with short-sighted need for cash, aka the working poor.

  • k0e3@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    I read that as “baby room” and still was not surprised.

  • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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    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.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
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    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?

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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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.

      • taiyang@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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          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).

          • taiyang@lemmy.world
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            I’ll say life-crippling debt roulette is certainly one of the more frustrating aspects of our system, yeah. Non-labor costs are a hit or miss of rejections, especially, since you don’t have the same protections.

            E.g. Indiana friend owes 40k for a 15 dollar mandatory procedure, for instance, and he has to fight it since it’s clearly a random rejection. It’s very upsetting. I just don’t want to paint the picture it’s always life-crippling, just… very random.

        • ExtantHuman@lemm.ee
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          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.

    • The_v@lemmy.world
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      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.

      1. Free universal healthcare including dental.

      2. Rent control for all apartments locked to single income minimum wage.

      3. 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.

      4. Free childcare.

      5. Free education from pre-K to Graduate levels.

      6. Open immigration policies for countries with higher birthrates.

      7. Increase minimum wage to make it a livable wage.

      8. 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.

      • glimse@lemmy.world
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        It’s funny how all of the real solutions for increasing the birthrate are just generally good things for the country.

        • ExtantHuman@lemm.ee
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          And also things the party that most wants it to happen will never ever enact because their ideologies conflict with one another

      • glimse@lemmy.world
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        You got a good fuckin deal. I don’t have kids but my friends pay between $20,000 and $30,000 for daycare