White House proposes giving out $5,000 checks to address falling birthrates amid growing ‘pronatalist’ movement

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.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
    11·
    5 hours ago

    While we certainly need to do much better, this is a bit alarmis: I don’t believe we’re that different from other developed countries. I don’t believe it’s that low depending on what you mean. However I’m pretty sure you’re comparing numbers in different definitions.

    One article that I won’t link because I don’t know the sources, though the numbers are consistent with good sources, stated it like

    • The current literacy rate in the U.S. is approximately 99.0%, placing it among the higher echelons of global literacy rates
    • 21% of adults aged 16 to 65 score at or below the lowest literacy level based on the PIAAC study
    • 54% lack literacy skills above a sixth-grade level

    So we have at least three definitions of what literate means, and very different numbers.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      5 hours ago

      ‘Functional Literacy’ is generally defined as 2nd grade and up.

      By that metric, yeah, 21% of the US is functionally illiterate.

      Technically, they can read and write at a very basic level… but not ‘functionally’, as in, they could not function in society. They couldn’t read a news article and understand all the words. They have a very limited vocabulary.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

      Wikipedia is currently going with an 86% literacy rate for the US, and I’d be willing to bet the discussion page is full of arguments about how to reasonably compare different metrics.

      You may also notice that 86% puts us as neighbors with Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

      This is what happens when Ya’llQaeda takes over a country.

      We had considerably better literacy rates a decade or two ago, more like 95%.