Daycare cost $2k a month

They chose to use a stock photo of a million dollars.

$5000 is only 2 and a half of those bundles of $20’s.

These people are trying to run propaganda for Trump, they can’t even keep their fascist bullshit straight.

but when you look through maga glasses, that's what you see when a black single mom of 2 receives a wic voucher for a couple gallons of milk.
- You see, its not one black mom, its the millions of moms getting subsidies!
  Lets ignore the part where we somewhy have a million moms needing subsidies.
I worked both Brinks type security and for Chase, so the inside and outside. That's not a million. It's probably somewhere between a quarter and a half, but the picture doesn't make it super easy to tell.
Your point is very valid however, they used a deceiving picture on purpose.
- Lol so even if they were $1 bills that wouldn't be an accurate pic hahaha
- $300k across three different bags, am I reading correctly?
Thank you! Maddening!

WE CAN'T DO THAT, IT'S LIKE PUNISHING THE MOMS WHO ALREADY HAD CHILDREN!!!! /s

This is literally going to be an argument if people start proposing free daycare/child care :/
- It's already been done to college students - that's the parallel I was trying to draw
- "I had to suffer so you should too!"
That's the nice thing in a social democracy
When the next generations has better education, my pension fund will be more filled
In practice though, it seems people are the same kind of stupid...

That won’t even cover half of the (insured) cost of even the smoothest birth with my plan, and I work for a multi-billion dollar company.

This country, man. Having traveled abroad a bit, you start to realize how tunnel-visioned people stateside can get. Don’t even realize how much they/we are getting fleeced.

Having traveled abroad a bit, you start to realize how tunnel-visioned people stateside can get. Don’t even realize how much they/we are getting fleeced.
It's the classic of someone having to visit a doctor while in Europe. And they're always shocked at how cheap it is in comparison. Even people who know it's much cheaper tend to think it's like 50% , not 99-100% less. I had an emergency room visit with blood and urine testing, painkiller injection, private exam room, etc.. It took a few hours and was about $25 that you could pay at a machine on your way out.
I was gonna day $5k is just a handout to insurance companies for just the birth of the baby.
Which is, well, the end of Republicans giving a shit about babies and children.
- Oopsies, births cost $5k more now tee hee.
Meanwhile Id kill for those 5k bucks. But thats becausw the right to stay alive doesnt cost me a kidney
- Our deductible was about 6,500. It depends what kind of plan you're on
I wouldn't use the word "tunnel-visioned". That implies focused on something and ignoring the things nearby.
I think it's more accurate to say "ignorant". Many, probably most Americans just have no clue about most things outside the USA. You've travelled abroad, most Americans have not. The US is such an insular society that people can get away with saying things like "Canadians hate their healthcare" and people actually believe them.
- Agreed. Solid point

Better Idea, let's fix the economy so people can afford to have Babies.

Or fix the world so we want to have Babies.

Or lower the price of housing so we have a place to put babies.

Or open forced breeding camps, shanty towns and and slave labor...oh wait.

One of those are more likely than the others. It's the last one.
And you just know the people coming out of those labour factories will all share a visibly distinct attribute - or tint, god help me for saying that - that makes them recognizable as low-caste now as it did in the 1800s.
I hate fearing that is right around the corner. Again, fuck.
- I'm gonna fucking laugh if it leads to a revolution due to the slaves being the only people actively reproducing
Or open forced breeding camps, shanty towns and and slave labor...oh wait.
Mmm yes, Borrasca.
Look at the historic birth rate in countries where where these things aren't an issue and you'll realize that unless you walk back on women rights and access to contraception, people won't have enough babies to renew the population because they simple don't want to have enough of them to do so.
- There might be other factors at play. Deciding to have a child is a complex decision. But not having those things mentioned just makes the problem worse.
  Also, speaking of historical facts. Even outlawing abortion and such doesn't stop it. They travel or use risky methods. Or they put the kid up for adoption which leads to a massive spike in crime. Which is why roughly 18 years after Roe v Wade there was a drop in crime.
- How in the fuck do you write "unless you walk back on women rights"? Like what happens in your mind that you actually post that for the public to see? Shame on you for that misogyny, you deserve a slap.
  Also, where is this magical country where I don't have to worry about wealth inequality and climate catastrophe?
  You are absolutely arguing in bad faith, and for that, fuck you.

They just cut head start, slashed medicade(51% of us babies are born on this program), no medicade no pediatric care for your baby either, cut hud, slashed the department of education, blocked student loan forgiveness, are dismantling the aca preventative care mandate, gutting worker protections, canceling child labor laws, laid off 275,000 workers and destroyed their livelihood and tanked the economy ……yea the birth rate is going to plummet. 5k lol doesn’t even cover a fraction of the utter devastation coming to American families from these moronic policies. Who in their right mind would want to bring a child into this racist sexist tech bro oligarchy?

And all to fund tax cuts for the wealthy - who don’t need them.
- Are you saying the game of achieving highscores for world's richest person with ever higher numbers isn't important? /s
yea the birth rate is going to plummet.
I'm not so sure. Impoverished countries have the highest birth rates. I can imagine the logic of the wealthy 0.001% being "if we make the rest of the country as broke as Somalia, the birth rate will also be as high as Somalia."
The Headstart cut hurts a lot. I know people that gone to that when they were little and had nothing but good things to say.
But that is a lot of complicated words, 5k is much easier to make a headline about, and re-elect the same people.

5000$ is a lot. In Germany you get only 250€

We can all hope once the nazis leave, we too can be a civilized country.
- I'm with you here, but we need to keep in mind that the nazis never "leave". We'll need to forever and continually keep these bastards from power.
- If it's like the civil war, we'll kick them out and then build statues and name bases after them.
You forgot maternity leave, something the 'mricans don't know, either.
- whats leave
To add on, seems like the 5k (USD) is a one-time lump sum. Your price quote from Germany is already 3k (EUR) after a year. It only ever outscales the 5k.
See. Let's ping Trump and tell him about it.
Maybe he'll see the light
You got me in the first half.

This wouldn't even cover the hospital bill for most people lol.

And since hospitals know moms will be getting an extra 5k they will just add that into the cost somehow. /s

No need to put a /s there

It won't even cover the cost of giving birth. This is some real "how much could a banana cost" energy.

Also, the cost of giving birth will magically jump up by $5,000 as soon as this passes. It was never a function of how much it cost to actually provide that service.
- $8000 if the mother wants to hold her baby after birth

Clinton Floats $5,000 Baby Bond

~ September 28, 2007

It's nice to know these two are still in touch.

put into an index fund over the last seventeen years, that $5k is now $30k. it was not a terrible idea.
- Of all the people who are so strapped they could receive $5k and not immediately blow it on visa bills and rent, parents aren't even close to the list. $5k into investments? Most of them are either flirting with bankruptcy or engaging in some heavy petting in a corner booth.
- Not on its face, no. I think it's still a band-aid attached to a bigger problem of generational inequality. Public housing, education, and a large competitive public hiring sector would have gone much farther in rectifying poverty in the US.
  But the extra insulting aspect of "Baby Bonds" is that they're an idea dangled over a public hungry for economic reforms which never actually gets delivered. When liberals lose, they get to nag centrists and insist "We had all these good ideas but you were too racist and stupid to accept them". When they win, we get an earful about how the federal courts, the super-majority Senate, the prior administration's mid-level bureaucrats, the state legislatures, and two dozen of DC's biggest lobbying firms all have to agree to go along with it or the reforms can't pass.
  Seems like Republicans are getting in on the same act, now that kitchen table liberalism is experiencing a popular resurgence.
- It's really gonna help to pay for diapers in an index fund.
Totally original idea
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/15/nx-s1-5077776/kamala-harris-child-tax-credit-housing

The type of person who would think 5k for having a kid is a great deal is exactly the type of person conservatives would bitch about having kids and leeching all the other government resources.

Coincidentally, it's also the exact type of person conservatives want having kids. They make up the majority of prison labor, military fodder, and wage slaves.

Trade:

One person's wages

For:

Mortgage payments on a reasonably sized house
All bills
Food for two adults plus children
Entertainment

Then you might see more babies.

It was their greed that caused this.

USA so shit they gotta pay people to make babies here

clearly this is meant to be read in an Uncle Roger voice right?
- I had never heard of him until now
- Thanks now I can't get it out of my head

In a lot of places 5K a month covers daycare, and not much more
- To be fair that is the kind of place where the argument "move somewhere cheaper then if your income doesn't match the cost of living" does have some merit. Oh, and fuck the employers who pay wages below the cost of living in their area.
$100k wtf? I only remember paying for parking at the hospital...evil socialism!

According to my halfassed search engine results, giving birth costs on average $18,000.

Just the cost of epidural, estimates range from $1000 to $3500 out of that cost.

As someone who lives in a country where giving birth is free that sounds absolutely insane to me. Are these birth costs in the US at least covered by common medical insurance or is it always that bad? It's a miracle that the US birth rate is one of the highest in the western world when the conditions are like this...
- After my son’s birth in 2006, we owed $12,000 after insurance. That was a single night’s stay in the hospital. Nothing out of the norm for the birth. We had to refinance the house the following year to pay off his and our daughter’s birth from 2005.
- I think my hospital bills were around $5,000. What I didn’t anticipate was the fact that once my daughter was born I was paying hospital bills for me and for her. I think without insurance it was around 30k? So insurance covered 25,000 and we paid the rest
- Right? 🇨🇦
  But I have family in Sweden, and I'm not sure they don't have a baby food fund, but I definitely remember that daycare, preschool and all schooling was free of user-fees and also nearby.
  So she's been walking the kids to the schools down the road a bit for 14 years now, on her way to and from work. And it's been free. And I think they get lunch. And their schools are moderately successful and still have programmes. And they graduate kids who can add in their head and speak two languages or more.
  Guys, I think rogue American states don't want to join Canada. Join Denmark or Sweden instead!
- Not really, all the third world countries with no real system to pay for old age have high birthrates too.
- American here. I don't remember paying a dime for either of our kid's birth. Don't think we even had copays for the doctor.
I had a kid three years ago, we decided to get a higher premium health plan that specifically had excellent natal coverage. It's one of the most expensive plans available to us but we didn't pay anything for 9 months worth of prenatal visits plus 3 days in the hospital. The coverage statement said that delivery from the hospital was something like $28,000 but the first bill we actually saw that we had to pay was for a hearing test that was only partially covered.
An epidural doesn't "cost" 3000€
A whole hospital stay for a normal uncomplicated birth in Germany (5 days) with Epidural is just 3600€ (that's what the hospital gets paid, and most of them are for-profit in Germany)

Wages have not kept up with productivity and GDP increases since the 1970s.

How about making single income middle class families possible again, so you can have one stay at home parent.

Ironically, thats the exact idea behind the whole trade war thing. It has lead to TSMC already accelerating their plans to expand the Arizona microchip fabrication lab, which means... Factory jobs, the thing we used to have in the 70's.
- US economic output is more than adequate to achieve this already, but we choose instead to concentrate the benefits in the hands of a few.
  Regarding tarrifs bringing back manufacturing: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/trumps-tariffs-what-is-behind-them-and-will-they-work "but this is very unlikely to work. Manufacturing has changed, with production now spread across multiple countries in so-called ‘global value chains’. Moving whole supply chains back to the US is going to be prohibitively expensive, result in rising consumer prices and make US-produced goods internationally uncompetitive. The model of manufacturing that underpins Trump’s approach simply hasn’t existed for the best part of 40 years, and is not coming back."
- When last could a family in America raise two kids, have a stay at home parent, buy a house send them to college and still save for retirement on a single teachers salary. Most of the Abby boomers had that.
- The problem is they are not moving the 500+ factories that feed that lab. They are not moving the over 100 raw mineral resources supply chains.
  They are just moving the last few steps to the US.
  They are doing this ass backwards.
- That's not going to solve anything because it's going to make products more expensive, which is the 'exact idea.'
  Enrich American oligarchs instead of those abroad that might be giving us a better deal.

A: This is the 'bad' kind of incentive. My mom worked in a hospital where people would come in pregnant, tons of neglected kids in tow, asking how much wellfare they could get for the next kid. Stuff like vouchers for school, care, healthcare and stuff doesn't incentive that.
B: It's hilariously inadequate and out-of-touch. $5K for childcare these days is a joke, even as a nice supplement.

...But that's the point. This is for show, like Trump's COVID checks with his signature on them. It's a brand to tell people "Hey! I'm Trump, and I'm helping you!" directly, a decent idea poorly implemented for PR purposes. It's also hilariously hypocritical, seeing how much 'blank check hand-outs' were criticized for decades.

Consider that the more heavily impoverished neglected children there are the more desperate abusable workers there will be in the future. (and homeless, but there are solutions, some soup others stew)

Remember the stimulus checks that covered approximately 15 days' worth of rent?

Remember? I'm still living off of mine!
Oh wait, that was just some right wing delusional bullshit that disappeared as quickly as it materialized.

Having a kid will cost you much more than 100grand. Giving you 5k to fuck is such an insult.

I'm gonna need to see some math on how kids cost 100,000 because that doesn't at all add up with what I've spent for my two kids so far

They sure do act like it's the 1930s alright...

My personsl hypothesis is that when couples are living in times of prosperity or growth, they can see a future and can comfortably grow a pension, then they are likely to consider having kids. This also happens to be the time they are getting a share of the wealth society generates.

In recession and uncertain times, couples tend to hold of on getting kids, and if they do get kids, they do it much later in life, when they have saved some money.

Of course couples need free time as well. If both parents need to work full time, it's gonna be a lot less palatable to have kids.

I think the global low fertility is the problem of infinite growth self correcting.

You're right, when they have the choice, which is also why the Reich Wing wants to limit abortion and contraception and LGBT+ (non-accidentally-reproductive) relationships.
No matter the state of the economy, if you look at birthrate stats in various countries, it goes down with women rights and access to contraception. People just don't want kids.

It really is a bummer to have such a legitimately retarded man just riding this country into the earths crust all Slim Pickens style.

I've never thought Trump was smart. He sounds stupid when he talks. He doesn't seem to have a grasp of even basic things. But, now I'm thinking that somehow as stupid as he sounds, he's actually even dumber. Like, he's fooling people like me into thinking he has an IQ of 80 when it's more like 60. In a way that's impressive.

This has been tried elsewhere I believe. It ends up being a gift for those who can afford kids anyway, and does not incease the number of couples deciding to have children. A small gift for upper middle class.

Better wealth distribution however; that works.

It was done in Australia quite a few years back and widely mocked. There was a bit of a bump in "XBox babies", but it was mostly from the kind of people who don't understand that a one-off cash bonus spent on a bigger TV doesn't cover the costs of raising a kid.
That is Trump's demographic, but he's being very optimistic if he thinks these kids will be going to the polls while he's still alive.

So conservatives want smaller government and less taxes but they're totally fine with their tax dollars being used to bribe women to give birth?

So they're stupid?

You just now noticed they're complete idiots? :D

Based on data presented here: https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-true-cost-of-raising-a-child

It takes a minimum of $200K USD to raise a child from birth to 18; which works out to ~$1K/mo.

If the Government were serious in wanting to address the aging population issue, the best way to tackle it would be to provide family funding at this level for a family’s first ~3 children.

Would it be expensive? Absolutely it would be in the initial term - but the increase in economic activity would arguably more than cover it in the long run.

Would it lead to inflation? Not if the costs were derived from taxes due to the government (which currently get dodged), rather than through national debt.

Would it lead to a positive outcome for the nation? Arguably yes, but there may also be unintended consequences to the negative. Human greed knows no bounds, after all.

Ah yes, the conservatives plan to boost the birth rate has finally come to bear a rotten fruit:

People can't afford to have kids
People can't afford to feed kids
People can't afford to shelter kids
Therefore they won't have able bodied kids to keep the retirement and tax doles fulfilled
Nor will they have able bodied soldiers for war

But they're boosting the birth rate! (they aren't, actually, the rate will be even more in decline since the replacement rate in the US was held up by immigration like in most countries, and dumbfuck's actions have brought a stop to that).

I used to work as a teller at a bank. That bag of money is over 100k.

You mean, they're using irrelevant and unrelated content in the message for shock value?
Impossible.
No, no, you see, that is the bag of money DOGE found to fund all of those $5k babies.
I was surprised that bands of 20s could add up, but then I remember how you can fit a million dollars in a suitcase with 100s lol

Daycare is free where I live. It has to be. You can't expect people to pay for public services themselves; that's done with taxes. Corporations can't have customers or employees without people, and to get people to make more people, you have to make it easier for them. So what makes the most sense is cutting corporation porfits, which they don't need past a limit if they aren't investing in things that will benefit the public. So if a corporation isn't doing anything good, raise their taxes, use them to pay for daycare.

60 years ago, wages were sufficient that one partner could be a homemaker even if the other only had a modest job, and they could afford a house and a car. We've only needed daycare as wages have stagnated against the cost of living.

Isn’t it like ~$310,000 to raise a kid to 17? That’s, what, 2% of what is needed after the poor child is born? And some woman is going to decide to let a guy nut in her for $5000?

This won't even cover the medical costs to give birth
Even Elon pays better than this

“White babies only please” —Cheetolini

I know you were half joking but for everyone else here complaining that 5k ain't shit (I agree, it's not), it's because the incentive is not for you. It's for rich people (read: rich white people, since poverty disproportionately affects non-white people).
5k might not mean shit to you in trying to raise a child but for someone who already has the means to have/raise a kid, it's actually bonus money. That's the incentive.
- They are rich, why would they have a kid over snack food money?
  Supposedly they've done the cost benefit analysis, so this wouldn't even appeal to them, less so even...

After he rolls this out he'll start pushing to drop the child tax credit arguing, "they already get so much investment up front. They're so greedy."

monkey paw finger curls You get free healthcare coverage and half minimum wage for each child just for existing. However, you and your child must renounce your citizenship, forfeit your passport, and accept indentured servant status until you can buy back your citizenship after repaying the government child support in full.

I wonder how they'll make it so it only applies to "Aryan" children. Hitler did the same shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn

They won't call them Aryan, but it will be the same shit. They'll call it something like Christian babies or some nonsense; then use that as a smokescreen for their racism.

He should know that you can't buy that many diapers with $5k.

Unless he doesn't do his own diaper shopping I guess...

Daycare cost $2k a month

Is that for real? That's more than (many) private schools in Europe.

A 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house in Toronto costs more than a castle in france
- Decent houses in France typically cost more than a castle. Nobody wants a castle.
  It seems fun until you look at the upkeep and maintenance fees. The initial price is peanuts.
Well to be fair, that's what it costs in many European countries, too.
That's why many women don't work. The cost is basically as high as a low paying or part time job.
That's why everyone needs free daycare. That will generate a higher GDP for everyone.
- https://www.daycarefee.com/countries/germany/
  I don't have a full analysis, but at least this source points at 1500 to be the high end of the expensive cities in Germany, with public care as low as 100.
  So is 2000 a "normal" value in many areas, or a high end of some?
  I have the feeling this is inflated and we just accept.
- That’s why many women don’t work. The cost is basically as high as a low paying or part time job.
  Interesting point. We should re-normalize the idea of the stay-at-home mom.
  Let's be real, the people who promoted women going to work were almost always willing to shame those who decided not to. Let's stop doing that.
https://blog.dol.gov/2024/09/30/we-analyzed-5-years-worth-of-childcare-prices-heres-what-we-found#%3A%7E%3Atext=Monthly+childcare+prices+in+2018%2Cof+a+family%27s+median+income).
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/15/business/child-care-cost-average-annual
It can depend of state to state too. In Oklahoma, our cost of living is considered low but we have a high poverty rate. Our median income per household is 67k, and single income is 35k. Childcare for infants averages around $800 a month
Very much depends on the area. I'm in a middle class (what's left of it) neighborhood and to send my 2 kids to daycare is about $2400 a month. $2000/month for a single kid would be a pretty nice day care in a fairly expensive city.

$5,000 is a lot to those braindead morons who insist that "nobody wants to work" because they're still living comfortably off of a few $1,400 checks from half a decade ago...

I feel like that's more than $5k in the picture if they're all $20 bills.

Yeah, I counted at least 50 stacks of $20 bills. Usually those stacks are 100 bills each, so over $100k in that pic.
Those stacks aren't 100 dollars each that's for sure... More like 1000... I count at least 47 stacks... So let's round to 50...
Yeah that's 50k, which is definitely more than 5k
- 50k, [...] is definitely more than 5k
  Source?

We need to feed the ones we have now

that sounds a lot like communism to me. Damn Commies!

Why only after the baby is born? Is there something significant about the moment of birth or something?

Yeah, clearly an embryo/fetus is a child with rights at the moment of conception (/s), so why wait until after delivery?
Aye. Try and convict them as an adult and then they're free labor.

How about some of that socialism for the rest of us, and not just for breeders and soybean farmers?

Paying desperate people to produce corpo slaves is the furthest thing from socialism.
- I was being a bit facetious, but yeah. It's a pretty transparent ploy to get the birth rate up for as little money as possible. God forbid line doesn't go up always and forever, for all eternity.
- you clearly haven't met many tankies

What are the odds this is just Clinton's $5,000 Baby Bond, which was just giving them a fund at birth that they can cash out when they turn 18?

Except this time there's no guardrails and he can give it to all his cryptobro friends.

The average cost of delivering a baby in the US, including pre- and post-delivery expenses, is roughly $18,865. However, this figure can vary significantly, just gotta come up with the other 14000 dollars lol do Amerikans know other countries don't gouge their citizens for everything including birth? Land of the fee home of the slave

Is that the cost without insurance? Or with? Because it seems low to me. I had a 4 night stay in a detox clinic and they charged my insurance $32,000.
“Land of the fee, home of the slave” Jesus fucking Christ that’s a fucking great line. You come up with that or is it a quote from someone/something?

We had this in Australia for a while, where there was no hospital costs for birth, and almost 20 years ago, so it was a considerable help. The conservatives started claiming people were having babies just to get the money and then spending it on big TV's and other luxuries.

Sounds like classic Conservative projection.
Which is hilarious because iirc it was a fucking Howard policy

Have 4 kids.

5k is couch money when you have kids. It'll maybe take care of a few months of daycare. Now if you're on gov assistance and make next to nothing? This will be great, but don't expect to get a job or climb out of poverty with 5k. A kid will eat that up super fast.

Not sure that covers two month's rent for the kind of space you need for the 5 women to average a baby every 2 months.

So weird. These are the same imbiciles complaining about welfare babies.

More ineffective Band-Aids.

The core issues never get addressed. Prices keep going up.

And those issues will get worse under a corpo like Trump.

Are these those welfare babies Republicans always screeeched about?

$5k in a Roth IRA in the sp500 at birth is the only way that it is worth anything.

Haha, what's $4k in the sp500 gonna do? I guess having $3k in the sp500 is better than nothing...
- Well $5,000 given 65 years to grow tax free in a retirement account becomes quite large.

That roughly the total on what was saved with doge.

I get your ribbing. But it's sad if people think they saved anything.
They literally mathematically added way more debt and cut gap.
Yeah we don't need govt workers..who contribute to tax base. Nah...

Fash privileging heteronormativity in order to increase servitude and hasten planetary destruction? Fairly normal in our culture.

Can you provide proof humans are actually damaging the earth? Just curious, because there is a lot of science out there saying it is not.
I agree with you though.
- Can you provide proof humans are actually damaging the earth? Just curious, because there is a lot of science out there saying it is not.
  No, there isn't. There is not a single reputable scientist alive in the world today who doubts the existence of man-made climate change. The Greenhouse Effect is science we explain to literal 5 year olds. Anyone espousing otherwise is either, a complete shill, or grossly misinformed by the propaganda of the same people responsible for the microplastics currently occupying the area found in the space between your ears. Do not be this obtuse.

Spending money on families hasn't been shown to help in any way whatsoever in increasing the birth rate. You have countries with close to free day care and generous monthly child subsidies with the same or even much lower fertility rate as countries that give just about nothing at all. I still support these kinds of policies just for the sake of helping families and their kids, but doing it for the only purpose of helping the fertility rate is futile. Honestly I don't think the government can do much at all to help the fertility rate. It's a cultural issue first and foremost. And the government can't (and I think shouldn't!) do much to change the culture of our society. You see people living in poverty with 9 kids just because they belong to a certain religious or ethnic group who values children above all else. That's the main issue. How important is children to the culture? Is it prestigious to be a dad or a mom? Is personal success measured in how you've built your family or is success measured in how much money you make?

It's a work culture issue. People need free time to socialise meaningfully. Notice how Iceland and France are as high or higher than Colombia?
- Latin American countries have recently had a collapse in birth rate, even since that chart from 2017 was made. Colombia has dropped to 1,2 in 2023. Fertility rates are collapsing almost everywhere and I think it's because of how globalisation is spreading anti natalist culture around the globe. It's so drastic and so consistent in nearly every developed country.
- Not sure how exactly fertility rates are calculated but with countries like Japan the age of the population might play a role too.
Ironically, comically, higher education leads to more lefty leaning politics with more programmes, and you know higher education correlates with reduced family size.
So - and it's probably minor - the easier it is there to have and raise and educate a child, the less likely its people need as much help.

They'll need a population boost after Trump deny's immigrants entrance into America.

Free daycare and free healthcare for people under 18 are two social services that would only benefit parents. How about free college tuition moving forward?

This is just a sad attempt making an exclusive version of establishment Dem stimulus checks...

Additionally, government supplemented/paid for day care is the only way to pay the teachers fairly. Given places often aim for 4 students:1 teacher, you already have a hard cap of 4*monthly fees for salary for that one teacher. I pay 1.2k/ month, so a teacher can get a max of 4.8k/month if EVERYTHING went to them, which we all know it doesn't due to taxes, administrative staff, utilities, facility fees, etc.
However, if they raise fees, they price people out of a much-needed service at a time when folks typically haven't reached their max earning potential yet.
- And folks wonder why parents these days are so old. Earning potential to afford daycare in the first place.
Idk, it seems like US doesn't even have the basic shit going on, any of that is a good news.

They're not making policy for people who can do math.

With the tariffs that hardly helps.

daycare costs $2k a month? are they training the kids to be astronauts?

No, just extracting the maximum possible amount of profit, it's the American way. And 2k is the low end.
- $2k gets you Jimmy "Boots" McClusky, on day release from the work farm.
- wild. you'd think as a capitalist country that wants to maximize workforce for cheap labor people would be more incentivized to procreate. yet you have insane costs to childbirth alone, no parental leave for either parent (or a pathetic amount on state level), no child support... and this on top.
To be honest, childcare is expensive. You can only have so many kids per worker, you need to pay rent for a big space, utilities, etc. In a big city it adds up fast. I'm sure some of it goes to some CEO's Yacht, but even at cost it would be expensive.
The reason it's free/cheap in Europe is because it's subsidized from taxes. Same as universities and Healthcare.
- well, yeah. it should be subsidized; that's kinda my point. it's public welfare.

instead of DEPENDING on GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS new parents should be GRATEFUL someone is WILLING to be GENEROUS and provide them with such GOODWILL. America is WINNING again under PRESIDENT TRUMP

@BigMacHole@lemm.ee am I doing it right?

They are good with proposing a thing that sounds good to a portion of their voting base, not with following through.

It's free to give birth here

It's free to also commit murder.
It's the part afterwards that might maybe kinda be the issue.

Adoption services are going to go wild! Hospitals too with infant detox programs. It's the new plasma!

As an atheist baby-eater, sign me up. I could have a lovely dinner party for $5K on Hallowen every year and not have to find a main course.

That's the only way anyone would financially benefit from this bill. Infanticide. And only if they do a home birth.
- I don't think babies are supposed to be profitable.
  If you're already gonna have a baby anyway, the 5k is a bonus. Otherwise it won't do much for you.

hospital bill will likely be 10x that

This is such a classic fascist play, get your bingo cards out ladies

That looks more like 50k, 5k can easily go in pants pockets.

I mean I like the direction, but this is far cry from other countries.

Give us UHC, improve working rights, guaranteed housing for parents, daycare.

But Its good they at least bringing it up.

Why would this in particular be important to him? I would think he wouldn't care

Evangelicals are a big part of his base and hate that there aren't more children in their sunday schools.
Guess, in no particular order, could be all these or none of these:
Someone told him about runaway population decline now being taken seriously in SK and Japan, we're not quite in the unrecoverable zone yet. https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20250404-south-korea-is-over
5000/child is enough to get a rural wageslave to bolster their numbers and create the next generation of right-wing voters, but not enough to get left-wing educated people who can make reasonable guesses 9 months into the future.
5000 per child is cheap and it's enough to gain him popularity where he's just starting to weaken.
if the population declines that should make real estate cheaper, and trump and his friends own a ton of real estate
The Nazis did it
- Child bennefits are pretty common. "Nazi's breathed air" etc...

This is a great summary of exactly why I won't have kids. I don't want to spend all my waking hours working so a billionaire can afford a private island.

We don't have a population shortage so I'm confused? The only reasoning I can see is to use as meat on some front lines somewhere he can use in his 7th term in office.

Do people really think he'll be alive in 20 years? He'd be nearing 100.
- Every week I'm amazed - and other feelings - that he's still 'round.
- Trump probably thinks so at least, fuckers like him think they'll live forever
- Didn't think I needed /s for that one.

The government giving people stuff they didn't earn? Sounds kind of progressive. Is that really the image pure fucking evil vile narcissistic scum really want?

(frantically waves hands in the air) b-but WE NEED BABIES

The USA should copy the Swedish maternity leave.

USA should probably copy a lot of Swedish things, but we won't

I sometimes joke with my kids and call them Lamborghini 1 and 2, because that's how much money it was suggested you would need for each kid, and I'm sure that has doubled or tripled by now.

5000 for diapers and clothes in the first (or any) year? How?

I could see that, we went through a lot of diapers with my kid. Clothes pile up between 4m and 8m especially because the size fluctuations between manufacturers.
How much did you spend the first year?
Napkin math. A box of Huggies size 1 diapers sells at 10.50 for 32 diapers, or roughly 30 cents each. My newborn spoiled a diaper about 7 to 8 times a day on average, it let's easy say 2.50 a day, 356 days or about 912 dollars in diapers for the first year.
That doesn't count wipes, powder, up sizes as they grow. I suppose you could go premier diapers as well, but yeah there's probably an easy 3000 gap on clothes
- Don't forget medical visits and one other thing... Hmmm, what was it again that almost half of children born end up needing again? Oh yeah, baby formula.
Babies expensive, yo.
Not just diapers, but formula is expensive, as is wipes, clothes, all the shit you need for them really.

Let them get braces.

Nobody can afford health care and they want us in the office no remote work making it even more difficult. It's almost like they want to run us all into the ground while they sit on gold toilets and enrich themselves beyond all measure of reason. Oh and they're building bunkers in New Zealand, the billionares pulling the strings so when they get us into a nuclear war you won't hear from them again.

Honestly... This is kind of on the right track.

It costs way more than $5k to birth and raise a child. This is only going to be incentive for the exceptionally poor and extremely stupid, which is likely to be the point because those people and their children are what continues to feed our exploitation model.
I'm not sure what you mean, but if you mean giving people cash, yes I agree. It's just far too small an amount to make a difference. People have a variety of needs, and while some might benefit from daycare, others would benefit from diapers, while still others could use a decent car seat. Cash is fungible, and people can spend it how they like.
We spend more on preventing fraud and administering social services than we would spend it we simply gave everyone money. A negative tax rate on a sliding scale would do the most good for everyone. Yes, some people would spend the money on drugs or alcohol or other addictive vices, but the effort to stop that costs more than just letting it happen. It's like we have a swat team at the Dollar Store to prevent shoplifting.
But $5,000 is insultingly ineffective.
- Oh yeah, I agree it isn't enough and agree with all your points.

Well, in a couple of years, some countries more than 50% of the population will be retired. Even a perfect democracy would not pass a law to improve young people’s lives so they can have time and money to have kids.

Just like in a perfect democracy, no affordable housing law will be approved because 66% of the population are homeowners.

Its unsolvable.

Only if every person votes solely in their own immediate selfish interests. A collective mindset is necessary for a functional democratic society.
- Correct, a "perfect democracy" requires empathy.

Add an extra zero to that. Then we might consider

Putin did the same thing, he aware 16k equivalent for having 10+ children .

Heard they planning to do same shit in Russia. Honestly, I don't think this will work in any country.

Well it does work actually. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_bonus
- It would be a baby bonus. If we had free healthcare and subsidized daycare then it would be a bonus. But we don't have those things, so it's an insult
- Nothing on that linked page implies it works, just that some countries have done it.
- I mean, of course it works if you imply that the money is given to families with newborns. Even fact that families will make a baby for that is a fact albeit not exactly noticeable.
  5k even in Russia is a pocket change for raising a baby. It will help for a few months, but when it rand out, quality of life of that said baby and their parents not gonna increase. So it is a short game, not a long game.
  What really would increase birth rates is stability and security. It is backed in our nature. 5k is not safety or stability. It is a bonus, nothing more.
- A baby bonus of $100 will also lead to improved outcomes. $10 too, just harder to measure. Heck why not $0.01?

Would that even pay to get the damn baby out of the hospital with insurance?

"Why aren't people having kids?"

You know, aside from the world being on fire

I dunno what kind of diaper prices you've got in the US, but $5,000 covers diapers 10 times over in a year where I live... Should probably cover food as well, I would think?

Thanks, feminism.

You can't clothe a baby for a year with $5k? We did it for basically fuck all. Had a load of stuff handed on from other parents, got some stuff from ebay and in sales. The fuck are you dressing the kid in, solid gold? Also how much is this person spending on diapers? There is no way you're spending $5k on nappies and clothes for a baby in one year, utter lunacy. Not that I agree with anything that Trump does, but this seems like a huge overreaction. I'm not from the US so I don't know how expensive this stuff is over there, but if it really costs this much to clothe one baby for a year then fuck me and I'm shocked.

I'm not from the US so I don't know how expensive this stuff is over there, but if it really costs this much to clothe one baby for a year then fuck me and I'm shocked.
Be prepared to be shocked.
Maybe you should keep your comments to yourself if you know you're ignorant on the subject.
- Actually they're right that the clothing and diapers aren't that expensive. I saw my costs increase by about $100 per month when I added a new child to the family. Diapers are like $20ish bucks a month, and baby clothes outlast their wearers so you can find them for less than a dollar per garment at garage sales and thrift stores, often still with the tags on them. Or free if you have friends/family with slightly older kids who can pass you what they've outgrown. When my kids were babies the biggest expense was formula, but that was because my wife couldn't produce milk and they both were very sensitive and needed specific formula that didn't upset their stomachs (I also happened to have both kids right when formula shortages were beginning which was extra fun)
  The real expenses are childcare and healthcare of course. Both children cost the entire out of pocket maximum from our insurance (5 and 8 thousand dollars specifically) and we haven't even tried looking at childcare costs and have my wife out of work instead
A lot of these people have been conditioned to spend their money like idiots while complaining they don't have enough.
These are the kinds of people who are "too good" to shop at Walmart and subscribe to things they can be getting for free.
- Good, good, keep othering and finding reasons to despise your fellow working class. This shit is exactly what the oligarchs want.

$5,000 will easily cover diapers, food (even if not breastfeeding), clothes, etc. for a year and more.

We can play with adding other costs, but kids can be way cheaper than paying "retail". FFS, toys, cribs, car carriers, all that shit is free, all day long. What we did pay for amounted to change, and then we sold it for change or donated it.

People have a kid, acquire all that stuff, and in a very short window suddenly have no use for it. You just about can't give it away. LOL, how many babies can wear the same one-piece until it's worn out? 10?! Our landlord's wife worked a charity for baby stuff. Gave us tons of goods, we gave it back.

You're delusional if you think the average person spends $5,000 for the first year of their newborns life. Ask any new parent, or Google it. The average cost of a baby's first year can range from $16,905 to $28,166, depending on factors like location, income, and lifestyle. The main cost drivers are diapers, clothes, food, child care, and health insurance.
- The image post specifically stated diapers and clothing.
It costs about 300k USD median to raise a kid from birth to 18. By no measure is 5k enough for a year of anything in that period.