pro-quality of life > pronatalism
#5SmartReads - April 23, 2025
It pains me to say this, but the current administration’s messaging playbook is disturbingly effective (and well-financed, but that’s another topic for another day).
Their goal isn’t to inform. It’s to activate and mobilize around people’s honest fears.
Of course we want to make America healthy again.
So we banned Red Dye 3.
Of course we want opportunities to stable, well paying jobs.
So we’re bringing manufacturing back to the United States.
Of course we want families to live with dignity and safety.
So we’re shutting down the border and deporting people immediately.
These tiny “wins” are amplified and touted as massive achievements as a means to distract from awful policies in direct opposition to these goals.
Massive layoffs at HHS (especially in food safety, infectious disease, and key messaging functions) and the rolling back of air and water protections will only make us sicker.
Tariffs are destroying small businesses and increasing the cost of everyday goods, and the stock market’s plummet is decimating millions of Americans’ retirement savings.
Lawful American residents and citizens are being deported without due process - one of the most egregious violations of the Constitution in our country’s history.
They deflect, distract, and amplify a simple message centered on supposed American greatness - we’re making America healthier again, richer again, safer again.
Their latest mission? Making more American babies again.
The pronatalist movement’s goal is simple - for more babies to be born as a way of addressing this country’s declining birthrate. The policies presented to the White House focuses solely on more births - a $5,000 baby bonus, funding education programs to teach women about their cycles (but not comprehensive sex education), reserving 30% of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have children. Increasing access to IVF and making it more affordable is another proposal, but there are no details on what that policy would look like (and would likely require an act of Congress, given its funding requirement).
What this movement and administration fails to address is the quality of life for those babies and families, during pregnancy, delivery, and after birth.
There are a number of things we can do to address the declining birth rate - continuing to drive down child mortality, an immigration system that’s designed for our needs today and in the future, and policies that improve the quality of life for American families.
Those policies are simple - paid leave, access to high quality healthcare, affordable child care, and more cash in families’ pockets.
Since common decency and dignity fails to advance these policies into law, I’m going to focus primarily on their return-on-investment. Not only are they higher than many policy investments our government makes, we can no longer afford to not do them.
Paid leave is projected to have 7 major outcomes from its investment - improved labor force retention and increased earnings for women, better childhood health, more equitable households and happier families, reduced healthcare costs and improved outcomes for vulnerable groups, savings to other programs like SNAP and public assistance, improved workplace satisfaction and bottom line growth, and growing the economy.
How many American have access to paid leave? Not nearly enough. Just over 20% of private sector employees have access to paid leave through their employer, and it can vary for public sector employees. It’s becoming an increasingly complicated (and underfunded or cut program) that should be simple - a federal program that offers every American the paid leave that nearly every other country in the world offers.
These countries have figured out what we refuse to acknowledge - paid leave is one of the best investments a government can make for its people - in top line revenue, in improved profits, and in the general health of a society.
American families simply cannot afford to lose Medicaid coverage. Over 40% of American births are covered by the program, and nearly half of this country’s children are enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.
In 2021, states were able to extend postpartum coverage to 12 months (versus 60 days), which can help address maternal mortality, postpartum mental health treatment, and medical debt that may otherwise be incurred.
The benefits of Medicaid and CHIP outweigh its costs. By covering annual well checks, emergency care, immunizations and mental health services, the children enrolled are healthier and better prepared for adulthood (lower high school dropout rates, higher college enrollment and completion rates, higher wages). Medicaid’s expansive support for children with disabilities or complex medical is a literal lifeline, and the program should be expanded and funded more, not less.
Medicaid is pro-life. And the GOP is looking to slash $880B in spending from Medicaid over the next 10 years.
Childcare is only becoming more unaffordable. It costs families 8-19% of their total income (for one child) - and that’s if you can find it.
While these costs continue to balloon, wages for childcare workers remain stagnant and opportunities are limited. The lack of affordable childcare forces parents - largely mothers - out of the workforce. The result is a blistering blow to the economy:
families losing about $78B annually in foregone wages and expenses
employers losing about $23B
taxpayers losing about $21B annually in lower tax revenue, from local to federal
That’s about $122B a year that we could be realizing.
What would it cost for us to get there? $400B over 10 years, to fund the Child Care Development Block Grants to serve every eligible American family.
The policies and programs are already there. We just need to fund them.
By now, I’ve made the case of ‘you have to spend money to make money, and common sense programs are the best investment we can make.’
We’ve done it before, with expanding the child tax credit during the pandemic. More families received increased monthly payments (versus a lower per child amount, paid annually at tax filing time), with an emphasis on covering the families that earned too little to qualify under the original program.
It cut child poverty by 30%, with the extra cash paying off debt or going back into the economy with spending. Employment among these families remained steady, and food insufficiency dropped by 26%.
The expansion was temporary, under the American Rescue Plan, and failed to be renewed by a deadlocked Congress. Child poverty has since spiked by 41% - higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Families are going hungrier. Their debt is growing. And some parents have to exit the workforce and do more with less.
If we really want to Make America Great Again, we have to start with the policies that help every American reach their greatness. More births aren’t it.
#5SmartReads to delve deeper:
White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children (New York Times, gift link)
Seven Outcomes of Implementing a Universal Paid Leave Policy in the United States (New America)
The 19th Explains: How Medicaid helps mothers, caregivers and children (The 19th*)
Report: Lack of Child Care Costs U.S. Economy $122 Billion Annually (US News)
The expanded child tax credit briefly slashed child poverty. Here's what else it did (NPR)
Unfortunately this administration and the people who support it (for instance the group behind Project 2025) do not care about logic or facts. Their main purpose is to support their ideology which is to remake America as a white Christian nation. They do not have empathy for those who do not look like or worship as they do. They want women out of the workforce because they believe we should be at home.