Forget Maternity Leave: We Need a Tax Break for Families With Children

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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Scott Bruun, GoLocalPDX MINDSETTER™

President Theodore Roosevelt was no shrinking violet. A man with granite opinions, he wore those opinions on his sleeve.

Rarely, though, were TR’s opinions as strong as on the issue of having children. Roosevelt believed that child-bearing was a patriotic responsibility. He believed that failure to procreate and raise enough children, at the macro level, was akin to national suicide. 

TR even said that any man or woman that deliberately forgoes having children “merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon the soldier who runs away in battle."

While Roosevelt would certainly not win any modern awards for sensitivity or family choice, his larger point about national suicide may have current relevance. 

Population Declines

Americans are having fewer children, and when they do they are having them later in life.  According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the American fertility rate is 2.0 children per female. With infant mortality factored in, this 2.0 rate is slightly under the 2.1 level needed to maintain a level population. 

At this level of fertility, the only reason America sees any population growth at all is because of immigration.

America is not alone. In fact, most of the developed world is experiencing declining fertility. 

For example, in Great Britain, the fertility rate is 1.9. In both Russia and Canada it’s 1.6. And in Germany, Italy and Japan, the fertility rate is only 1.4 children per female. Without fast-growing (and thus destabilizing) levels of immigration, these countries face demographic calamity. 

This is one reason President Obama is correct when he says the United States is one of the few developed countries that does not have paid maternity leave policies. Developed countries, especially in Europe, have been implementing pro-fertility polices for years, including paid maternity leave. 

In effect, Stockholm, Brussels and Rome are trusting on parliaments and government planners to fill in where Mother Nature has apparently fallen short.

Here in the U.S., our leaders don’t really talk about maternity leave in terms of population or demographic trends--although maybe they should. 

Instead, it’s discussed in the equally valid terms of family economics. Having a baby is expensive after all, and unpaid time away from work during maternity can be a huge challenge. 

That’s why Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon), commenting in June after Obama’s Working Families Summit, got it right when she said, “We need to consider policies that make the work-life balance more manageable for fathers and mothers.”

Yes, we do. And while there is merit to paid maternity leave, there is a better--and fairer--way to support families in America. 

Namely, reduce taxes on families with children. You see, kids are always expensive, not just when we’re having them. Raising children is a lifetime commitment emotionally and, at the very least, an 18-year commitment financially. 

Cost of Living 

In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost to raise a child in America is now more than $13,000 per year.

The U.S. tax code offers a $1,000-per-child tax credit. But a thousand bucks doesn’t cut it when we consider the reality of stagnant-to-declining wages among middle-income families. Only a substantial increase, say to $4,000 per child, would begin to provide the relief that American families need. 

“Not fair,” some without children will shout. 

In fact it’s totally fair, and necessary. After all, whether we have had our own kids or not, it is America’s children who one day will be working to pay those entitlement benefits that you and I have been promised. We all benefit in the future from the investment and financial sacrifice made by parents now; in fact we're dependent on it.  

Increasing the child tax credit would not erase the financial sacrifice made by parents, nor should it. But it would ease the financial burden in a broader, fairer and longer-term way than paid maternity leave alone.

It may help some of us make decisions about whether and when to have children slightly easier.

Most importantly, it would say to today’s parents, mothers and fathers, “Thank you for the investment you make in your children and in the future of our country.”

More kids, happier parents, and a stronger outlook for America--an outcome to which TR might have exclaimed, “Bully!”

Scott Bruun is a fifth-generation Oregonian and recovering politician. He lives with his family in the 'burbs, yet dutifully commutes to Portland every day where he earns his living on the fifth floor of Big Pink.

Banner Photo Credit: Emery Co Photo via Compfight cc

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