President Trump’s proposed baby bonus would have come in really handy at chez Guy Birken 15 years ago. Money was a bit of an issue for my family when we welcomed our first child in 2010. We’d moved to Indiana from Ohio in June of that year so my husband could take a higher paying job. I’d left my own job as a high school English teacher. Our baby was born in late August, making it impossible to find a teaching job in our new town. Our timing was impeccable that year. We also unwittingly put our Ohio house on the market one month after the federal first-time homebuyer credit expired, bought a house in Indiana right away, and paid two mortgages for 11 months until the old house sold. As my husband likes to say, in 2010 we went from two incomes to one, from one mortgage to two, and from two people to three. (And yes, I am now considered a financial expert.) But would a $5,000 baby bonus really help new parents on a national scale? Or is it just Trump’s transactional solution to falling birth rates? In honor of Mother’s Day, let’s look at the best ways to support new parents, working mothers, and our nation’s children. And it doesn’t include a onetime cash payment. Paying for a baby boom The United States sees over 3.6 million births each year. If the government were to go forward with Trump’s $5,000 baby bonus proposal, Uncle Sam would be handing out over $18.3 billion to new mothers every year. While that would only be 0.019% of the $9.7 trillion federal budget—basically, a rounding error—it’s important to compare that amount to other types of spending that affect American families. Federal Agency2024 Spending BudgetDepartment of Health and Human Services (HHS)$2.5 trillionSocial Security Administration (SSA)$1.6 trillionDepartment of Education (ED)$228.9 billionDepartment of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)$88.2 billionDepartment of Labor (DOL)$66.2 billionConsumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)$167 million $18.3 billion in annual baby bonuses may represent a tiny portion of the government’s total budget, but that spending could be a relatively significant percentage of each of these department’s budgets. Specifically, $18.3 would equal 0.73% of the HHS budget 1.1% of the SSA budget 7.99% of the ED budget 20.7% of the HUD budget 27.6% of the DOL budget 10,958% of the CPSC budget Allocating that kind of funding to existing programs could potentially improve maternal and infant health, provide ongoing financial benefits, support public education, increase access to affordable housing, support employment goals, or protect children from unsafe products. Obviously, $18.3 billion can’t do all of those things at once, but increasing the budgets of one or several of these departments may be a better use of the money. Make motherhood feasible again As helpful as five grand might be for any one family, the Trump baby bonus is the federal policy version of handing your wife a sawbuck the day after Mother’s Day and telling her to buy herself something nice. It’s not giving her what she needs or wants—and feels a little insulting, to boot. American mothers are clamoring for help with the impossible financial and logistical challenges of raising a family in this country. Specifically, new parents need access to paid family leave and childcare. Spending federal money on these programs will do more to improve mothers’ lives than a one-time $5,000 payment. Paid family leave The United States is one of only seven countries without paid maternity leave. This means American women may have to choose between getting a paycheck and having a kid. While the Trump administration’s $5,000 baby bonus might help, the median weekly earnings for an American woman is $1,092—which means the bonus would cover less than five weeks of leave. Instituting a federal paid family and medical leave program could potentially encourage more births, since it could help solve the financial problem of affording parental leave. In 2022, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a proposed federal paid family and medical leave program would cost about $200 billion for the 10-year period between 2022 and 2031. As it was written, the program would allow eligible workers to take up to four weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child. Benefits would equal a portion of the worker’s pre-leave wages and would be paid by the federal government. The CBO anticipated the program would significantly improve the mental and physical health of postpartum parents–which would lead to increased employment and earnings. Although the four-week maximum leave time seems woefully inadequate, simply providing federal leave would make an enormous difference to a wide swath of American families. Birth to kindergarten childcare Returning to work after having a child is challenging (to say the least) without consistent and safe childcare. This is not nearly as simple as asking Nana a