Boosting Birth Rates ...

[Axtremus]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/us/politics/baby-bonuses-fertility-planning-trump-aides-assess-ideas-to-boost-birthrate.html

The White House is soliciting policy proposals designed to give women incentives to have more children, ...

Well, any idea?

[Lisa]

Article is paywalled for me but.....

Government subsidized (or free) healthcare and childcare would be a good start. Investment in early childhood education and free college would help too. oh, and maybe student loan forgiveness, because all the young people I know come out of college far too broke and burdened by debt to consider starting a family.

I assume they'll opt for banning birth control and abortion instead though......why use a carrot when you can use a big stick instead.

[wtg]

No-paywall version of NYT article:

https://archive.is/IdWmI

[Lisa]

oh my god. Several phrases in that article made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. a "National Medal of Motherhood" for women with more than 6 children????

Or this one: "Last month, Mr. Trump pledged to be “the fertilization president.”"

Yikes on a bike! We really are headed straight for The Handmaid's Tale......

[wtg]

A third calls on the government to fund programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles — in part so they can better understand when they are ovulating and able to conceive.

Sounds a bit like sex education, no?

[wtg]

@Lisa said in Boosting Birth Rates ...:

Or this one: "Last month, Mr. Trump pledged to be “the fertilization president.”"

I thought that was Musk's title.

[Lisa]

The $5000 one time payment per child cracks me up. Ummmm....that doesn't even cover the deductible I would be on the hook for just for childbirth, let alone any of the expenses involved in actually raising a child. $500,000 is more like it LOL.

[Steve Miller]

OK. This is weirder yet.

[Bernard]

Why? We're already well, if not over, populated. There is not enough housing, we're trashing the environment on an obscene level. Maybe it's time to slow down.

[wtg]

In an attempt to influence highly educated couples, Mr. Stone proposed that the government impose a quota for married applicants or applicants with children across all of its fellowship programs, including the Fulbright fellowship. The recipients are largely recent college graduates, many of whom are single and travel abroad alone.
“What the government is doing with these programs is conferring status,” Mr. Stone said. “That being the case, it’s bad for the government to blindly confer status on people for their singleness.”

[Axtremus]

Hungary's ideas:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/opinion/trump-fertility-birthrate-sexism.html

It included government loans of 10 million Hungarian forints (at the time almost $35,000) to women under 40 when they married, which would be forgiven if they had at least three children. Large families would receive help buying cars and houses, and women who had at least four children would be exempt from personal income taxes for life.