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.

  • Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee
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    24 hours ago

    Wow, look at that! The price of strollers just went up 5k!

    Replace strollers with basically anything related to birth or infants. 5k more to spend? 5k more to earn by big business selling wares.

    This assumes the hospital doesn’t determine that you seem to owe 5k more for that one out of network service provider they slipped in while you were distracted during birthing.

    • Tire@lemmy.ml
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      23 hours ago

      I hate our healthcare system so much. Individual bills for random doctors you never asked for that are somehow working for the hospital but are unrelated in terms of their insurance policy makes zero sense. How could anyone consent to anything in a reasonable fashion

      • Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee
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        20 hours ago

        Preach. I can do nothing but agree, and I have insider info in the insurance industry, pharma and healthcare. It’s all a game to make the rich even richer and the politicians are colluding in such a bipartisan fashion you’d think the parties were fully unified.