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.

  • ThePantser@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Trump: “Gotta save the government money”

    Also Trump: “Just throw money at it, maybe it will fix itself”

  • adm@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Just birthing the damn thing is like $50,000. He can shove the $5,000 right up his ass and I hope he gets paper cuts up there too.

    • seat6@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      I believe $5k is around the average cost (after insurance) to have a baby in the US if you have insurance.

  • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    That’s not even diaper money for their first year. Donald, you should know this, ya shit stain wearin’ convict.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      not in the slightest. births can be up to 20k, plus if you want to have a healthy birth and healthy mom, all the prenatal stuff too. woman are also likely to have morbidities while pregnant, and can die. i the us has a high maternity mortality than other western countries.

      when your pregnants, your body goes out whack, gestational diabetes, hbp, autoimmune diseases.

        • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          our private healthcare was is so cumbersome and unnessary, it only exists because everyones been propagandized to think its better than a State subsidized healthcare system.

          funny thing is conservatives are heavily dependent on our MEDI-CAID/care system, they will have a rude awakening once most of them will have to fork hundreds for highblood pressure meds, avrostatin for cholesterol, and insulin which can be hundreds per vial(if trump repeals biden isulin ruling).

    • angrystego@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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).

      • MolecularCactus1324@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

    • The_Caretaker@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • MolecularCactus1324@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

  • Synapse@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

  • drcabbage@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    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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        2 months ago

        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.

  • PastafARRian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    It should be 1 penny. It has the same exact effect on childbirth rates, has a greater demoralizing effect on Democrats who understand policy, and allows more money to be siphoned to billionaires in tax cuts, all of which are the real goals here.

    When you want to piss off a waiter on Sunday morning after church, you don’t leave a 5% tip. You leave a penny.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      2 months 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.

  • AizawaC47@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    It is true that the US is seeing declining birthrates and has been for some time. While fertility rates bounced around what demographers call “replacement level” the rate at which the population replenishes aging people with new ones in the decades that followed the post-second world war baby boom, they have been on a steady downward trend since the 2010 Great Recession, so that now, US fertility rates sit at about 1.6 births per woman.

    News like this, is what makes me smile and want to wake up. Seeing that the fertility sits at 1.6 in US.

    | Country | Total Fertility Rate (TFR) | | South Korea | 0.72 | | Hong Kong | 0.77 | | Taiwan | 0.87 | | Singapore | 1.04 | | Italy | 1.24 | | Spain | 1.25 | | Japan | 1.26 |

    If they keep up with the horrific nature and state of economy, I hope we are less then South Korea, so that the top oligarchs and the rich billionaires die and self implode while they have nothing to retain or keep their wealth. Because what can a rich filthy greedy bastard going to do when he has no slaves to profit off of? Our fight to get our economy back to how it was on one single working individual needs to come back. To where one working individual can own a house, afford food and the necessities/provisions to obtain a good and healthy and sustainable life not for that one individual but for a wife or husband with four kids.

    If we don’t get that, then we fight back with no kids for the future to be taken advantage of, for profit to just be enslaved and barely making it by. The greed of these parasitical demons will be fought with not producing off of what they feed off. Let’s take it all the way down until change happens.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Human procreation doesn’t work like that. Those who disagree with you will have children. Their ideas will be carried into the next generation, yours won’t.

      And 1.6 for a developed country is just amazingly high. As you might have seen from the previous sentence, I think it should sit around reproduction level of 2.1-2.2, and better more. But that’s ideally, in fact it’s high.

      Apathy is death. First of all, no passive resistance will defeat these people. They know you better than you know them. I’ve met some.

  • Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Throwing money at people won’t cause a baby boom. YOU NEED TO MAKE CHILD CARE AND HOUSING CHEAPER!! GIVE PEOPLE HOPE AND CHILDREN WILL FOLLOW!

    I know I’m screaming into a void but I feel like it needs to be said.

    • i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      And it’s a start. Make public transportation easier to access. Find public education better. Don’t sic CPS on parents that let their children play outside.