BALTIMORE — A group of teachers in Baltimore is asking voters to support a program that would give new parents $1,000. The goal is to reduce child poverty from the time a kid is born.
City residents will be able to vote on the “baby bonus” in November after backers got 10,000 signatures, which was needed to put the question on the ballot. A cute cartoon stork with a bag of money in its beak and a lot of door-to-door knocking helped their most recent campaign.
The plan is based on a program that started this year in Flint, Michigan. Under that program, women get $1,500 in the middle of their pregnancy and $500 a month for the first year after giving birth. People in charge said that the Flint scheme was the first of its kind in the United States.
Larger cash payments have been tried in some European and Asian countries, but the goal of these programs is to get more people to have children, not to help poor children. Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, so they offer baby bonus checks and other perks to get more people to have children.
The Baltimore campaign’s leaders say that more systemic change is needed on a national level to help families get out of poverty. However, they say that giving new parents a small cash boost could be a good first step.
We only have a certain amount of money to spend. Where can we get the most for our money? A high school math teacher named Nate Golden helped start the Maryland Child Alliance, which is pushing for the ballot proposal. “Research says at birth,” he said. “This could affect a child for the rest of their lives.”
Golden also said that he thinks the program will show elected officials in Baltimore and beyond that voters want policies that help vulnerable kids do well.
According to census figures, about 31% of school-aged children in Baltimore live in poverty, making the problem even more urgent. Nationally, the percentage of poor children fell during the pandemic thanks to government aid programs. However, it has since gone back up to about 12% in 2022.
A lot of poor people, especially those of color, find it hard to move up the economic ladder. Research shows that most American kids born into the poorest family will stay in that family’s social class for the rest of their lives.
Golden said that every school year, he sees similar situations in his classroom, with kids who are homeless, don’t have enough food, are afraid of guns, and are going through many other problems.
“You should see what they’re going through outside of school. I’ll still expect their best in class, but it’s not enough,” he said. “These deeper needs must be met before we can get kids to focus on learning.”
Should the proposal pass, all new parents in Baltimore will get a one-time payment of at least $1,000.
Supporters say that since about 7,000 babies are born in Baltimore every year, the program would cost about $7 million a year, or about 0.16% of the city’s yearly operating budget. The measure won’t raise taxes, but if it passes, it will be up to Baltimore’s City Council to decide how to spend the money.
Supporters say that giving the money to everyone at once will make sure that no one gets missed. Some of the money will also go to wealthy parents who don’t need help, but Golden said it was worth including them so the poorest families wouldn’t be left out.
Since the payments aren’t very big, the universal approach makes sense. According to Christina DePasquale, an associate professor of economics at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, researching and developing a qualification system would add a lot of cost and time to putting the program into action.
No one says that $1,000 is a huge sum of money that can change your life. She said it could help pay for some of the many costs that come with having a baby, like diapers, formula, strollers, cribs, and more. It could also make a big difference for new parents who live on the edges of society.
In the end, DePasquale said, the project will make people more aware of the problem of kid poverty, which could lead to bigger changes in the future.
She explained, “It’s worth it because it makes people think about it.” “It gives us something to build on.” “Having something less than perfect is better than not having it at all, even if it’s not perfect.”
The federal child tax credit, which was briefly increased during the pandemic, is the biggest program the government has to help poor kids. Supporters say that even though it has been shown to work, it leaves out some families because of the papers and qualifications needed.
In Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore ran on a promise to help the state’s youngest and weakest citizens. Before becoming Maryland’s first Black governor, he was in charge of one of the biggest groups in the country that fights poverty. Moore signed into law this year a bill that will give grants to neighborhood groups in places where there are a lot of poor children.
With federal COVID relief money, Baltimore also started a two-year pilot program in 2022 that promised a group of young parents $1,000 a month to help with their income. A recent study that looked at the ongoing pilot found that during the first year, participants had more stable housing and better mental health.
