Paul, you just don't understand.
Fetuses are wonderful. The women can still work and generate profits and everything is good.
But then the fetuses get born and all the trouble starts. They require tax money for the hospitals they get born in, they often get sick needing more tax money. There mothers, and sometime even fathers, get so concerned about a sick child that they actually sometimes miss work, causing disruption to the economy and cutting into corporate profits.
Then there is the whole problem of wasting precious tax money on their 'education', which is really not needed in our automated and gig economy. Let's face it, even the mightiest military in the world already has more than enough cannon fodder.
Perhaps the worst past is that many of them will grow up to be voters. Sure upper class Republican families are less of a problem but they are being out bred by the poor and minorities. Do you have any understanding of the time, effort, money and tax dollars it takes to limit voting rights and get them gerrymandered out of existence?
So it is obvious to any rational Republican that Fetuses are good for the economy but children, particularly those that make it past our 29th in the world infant mortality rates, are nothing but a continuing problem and drain on our taxes.
Perhaps the biggest problem is the willful ignorance of liberals who can't understand the beauty of the fetus and the tax draining implications of so called "children".
32
When a child comes into this world they are a precious gift that ensures the continuation of the human race.
Whatever arguments for contraception, abortion or "choice" do not address the issue of a living baby coming into this awful and yet compelling world.
Mr. Krugman's sentiment is exactly correct, we should do all we can to help the children.
As Jesus said "Allow the little children to come to me, for of such are the kingdom of heaven."
And if you won't receive Jesus's wisdom then listen to Mr. T's admonition.
"I pity the fool who hurts the little children."
8
it is time to stop breeding. The human race is in dire straits and adding more humans can never help the situation. Extinction is coming very soon in terms of our history. The re is a good chance that we all will be fried by 2030 according to climate scientists. Children are a bad investment.
6
The Netherlands. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland. Alll of what we could have, but won't because we are uninformed and not ever sure of what is good, workable, intelligent.
11
we were all children once? We act like children are another species instead of our past.
2
Our Lobbyocracy apparently hates everyone who can't afford to buy a politician or at least a lobbyist. Other western countries remember that the feudal system wasn't that great for the 95%.
5
It is simple the Wasps talk about the importance of the family structure but don’t really want to finance it .
The usual talk without any real support.
3
Children can’t vote, and few women run and win public office. Many people vote against their own self interests-poor people who voted for Republicans these past few elections are great examples of this . Get the facts. Judge for yourself. Make your own decisions. Vote.
2
Part of the problem is too many people have more children than they can afford.
10
I'm afraid hatred of children is only one symptom of a complete perversion of American values. When everything is a commodity and judged based on its dollar value, we learn to view the world entirely through a lens of self-interest. As an old co-worker put it, he didn't have a kid in school, so he shouldn't have to pay for schools. This from a CPA with an MBA -- a smart guy who was oh, so dumb. So the question we now approach life with is "what's in it for me?" The question becomes a slippery slope of moral degradation: why should I have to pay for someone else's schooling, or health care, or housing, or food? Or pay for these things for an immigrant? Or for someone who worships a different god?
We've come a long way from the civic virtues encapsulated in "Ask what you can do for your country."
13
I'm a high school teacher. I wouldn't allow my dog to eat the garbage the students are served in the cafeteria--fried cheese sticks, tater tots, mystery meat "nuggets," greasy french fries, pizza, bright orange "cheese" squirted out of something or other (no idea what). When the kids come back to the classroom after lunch, they bring the stench of grease back with them. I don't know how any of it can even be legal.
15
I agree with Dr. Krugman on the need to address childhood poverty.I don't understand why he attributes part of the blame on Bernie Sanders. It would be laughable if it it weren't so scary that a respected NYT columnist wrote this line.
I would ask him and his readers to view this article published by youthfacts.org: https://www.youthfacts.org/?page_id=82621.
I have extracted the following excerpts:
"Bernie Sanders demands a plan to end one of the worst "American exceptionalisms": child/youth poverty. No one else cares."
“We have a moral responsibility to end childhood poverty in America,” says Democrat/socialist presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders attached an amendment to a Senate bill “calling on President Barack Obama to submit a five-year plan to reduce the childhood poverty rate in the United States, which is greater than in any other major country.
Since the early 1970s, we haven’t even tried to prevent child poverty. During the Obama administration, spending on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Social Security analog to prevent poverty among families with children, continued its long-term general decline and today is well below $40 billion.
American children are just as deserving as senior citizens to live without battling debilitating poverty. But not in the eyes of leaders, Democrat or Republican. Sanders is doing a great service to publicize this neglected crisis.
6
"We" Krugman and his ilk undermine children in the USA every time they, err we, say "the US economy is strong in 2016, 17, 18, 19, etc.
Krugman specifically showed his contempt for US children by pushing the rightwing Walmart board member for 6 years, Hillary Clinton, in 2015/16.
Parents desperate in their jobs, Walmart, Amazon warehouse, Uber, don't generally have the means to parent well.
2
After reading the headline I thought it might be how we are saddling our children with crushing public debt. I guess I'll have to wait until my next life for that column.
Dr Krugman, you didn't even approach the mass murder and gun violence that effects children. If we loved our children we would get rid of guns like Australia did.
5
Didn’t Cornell West Phd and another author coauthor an entire book on this topic? I had it but lost to time and have never been able to find it again. And yes to all of your thoughts.
It is the parents job to take care of their children not everyone else’s. Why do I have to feed ,house and care for your child with my tax dollars I didn’t force to have children so I should not be responsible for them. It your body and your choice as people are fond of saying, you made the choice so now deal with the consequences and stop complain you are not getting enough hand outs from the government
7
Taking care of children is a family issue but is considered a woman's issue. There's your explanation. There are Welfare Queens who are disrespected but no Welfare Kings.
1
Really? America hates hits children?
Typical Krugmanian hyperbole and gamesmanship.
I had to scroll down, to understand the article was really about taking a shot at Sanders, to influence the election in a way he sees fit. The author knows how to make an eyecatching headline - for duplicitous reasons.
6
A TOTALLY ON-THE-MARK PIECE. Finally, thank you!
And we need more of these to confront American hypocrisy.
We can learn new job training, new technology, but we (nationally, collectively) can't learn new, improved ways of teaching and rearing children???? Talk about DEEP DENIAL.
also relevant, (and on a deep level explains part of the contradictory consciousness and embedded sadistic cruelty in the American psyche lots of it sociopathic & psychopathic imho)
: Alice Miller's book
For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-rearing and the Roots of Violence
https://www.alice-miller.com/en/for-your-own-good/
And check the research by the late Murray Straus on spanking children (long term negative effects in every way: addictions, lags, mental/IQ, emotional, physical, intellectual development etc)
You used to be able to find this kind of research on SAMHSA and other gov archives websites -- removed first by the second Bush admin, next by the Trump admin.
Everything purged where possible on gov sites that is evidence-based regarding families, children -- and especially that which does not fit the sadistic evangelical, right wing republican anti-intellectual theocratic believe system.
"It was a brilliant idea inventing the home
Creatures of habit, American fools
Reaching for stars while we're standing on stools."
~ R. Cash
It seems increasingly likely that American liberals are just living in the wrong country.
5
Health care to me is still the #1 issue we have. Alongside that, our educational system in this country is abysmal. There are no universal benchmarks, no core curriculum...teachers get to do whatever they want and even if they don't, various districts do whatever they want. When I got to college, I was shocked by the disparities between what I and peers knew and didn't know. There is a complete lack of interest/understanding of history and geography here that would be unacceptable in Europe's students. For that matter, we push the idea of college as the ultimate goal but again, an "A" average at one high school would be a "C-" elsewhere. It all just depends...on what? A variety of factors, but the point is, this shouldn't be the case. There should be levels of knowledge to be attained in order to enter college. Teachers should be allowed to fail students (they aren't anymore! They just push kids into the next grade level, whether they are ready or not). Education really isn't a priority. And kids are being taught younger and younger that only money really matters in life. We have a lot of problems- childcare among them- but if we don't fix the health and education systems in America, what's the point of bringing more kids into this world?
1
I would encourage everyone to see a new documentary film called "No Small Matter" https://www.nosmallmatter.com/ It is not available yet for general release but is being shown by specific groups such as United Way etc. It's makes the case for early childhood investment in services for parents as much as the kids. Rather than cite statistics it tells the story at a human scale including parents, teachers, social workers and researchers. It's heartbreaking to see how everyone involved is struggling.
2
You KNOW republicans are going to ask the question: 'Why are young women having children that they KNOW they cannot afford to care for?' Is it reckless sex, failure of birth control, failure to look at budgets, a fatalistic attitude, or conformity to a defective social norm?
3
Professor: please stop using the misleading and inaccurate term NON-HISPANIC WHITE. It wrongly reflects the actual size of the white population and scares many white. If you must use it please include an estimate for the number of HISPANIC WHITES. Roughly half of all Hispanics are white - Ted Williams, Ted Cruz, . . . You have the skills to get the numbers right.
It is jarring to be reading a perfectly articulate, sensible editorial and suddenly come upon Bernie Sanders being blamed, inanely, for something he did not cause. Sanders is to blame for the fact that we, as a society, do not talk more about children's wellbeing? Because he has a Medicare for All platform? Are you kidding me, Paul Krugman? You and the rest of the NYT staff need to get a grip.
3
America hates to help anybody, like you said, for fear that those people they're helping are dark-skinned, foreign, gay, atheist, poor, unemployed, or otherwise not "real Americans". They're not just picking on children.
4
“ At least part of the blame rests with Bernie Sanders...”
Clever hit piece on Bernie disguised as a piece on child welfare. Bravo Krugman, Bravo I think?
1
Well of COURSE it's Bernie's fault! God knows it's obvious from his record that he has a pathological hatred of children. What an unrelated, unnecessary bit of nonsense to spoil an otherwise cogent analysis of the inadequate US response to the needs of children. Thanks for your contribution to the circular firing squad, Professor.
2
What? You say it's Bernie Sanders' fault? The mind reels.
2
Just to add the latest attack on a very precious resource - our children. The Department of Agriculture has just gone after school meals and wants, basically, to go back to pizza and cokes. This undermines all the work done by Michelle Obama to get ‘good’ food in the meals and has spawned a new slogan:
MAKE AMERICA FAT AGAIN
Dr. Krugman, America doesn't hate children. It hates poor children.
Americans' do not hate their own children, just other American's children - especially if that child is black, brown or in need.
I feel like Paul Krugman could have expanded a little more on the loathsome policies the government has instituted against children. Public education, for example. Common Core math is abominable and is designed to brainwash and turn our kids into morons. Common Core curriculum is designed to confuse and make them eeasiy manipulated.
In this country, even pets like dogs have more rights than children do. You are allowed to stuff your child into your car if they are not compliant. Good luck trying that with an adult, or say, a dog.
The support for working moms is minimal in the culture, and well-paid part-time jobs for mothers are barely existant, and even less so for mothers with professional degrees.
So often times mothers are left with no choice but to take a full-time job and as a result the child maybe had to stay in after-school care. Luckily in my case, my child is a social butterfly but I still feel guilty.
Children know when their adults are not quite right. This is just one symptom of a sickening society and really we should be fixing the system as a whole.
I love the shot at Bernie at the end. "It's Bernie's fault!"
1
The racial prejudice against nonwhite children still exists. But we treat and have treated white children badly as well. The underlying feeling seems to be, "people who aren't well-to-do don't deserve to reproduce, and we're all better off if their feebleminded offspring die". It's all part of how the rich justify their riches and other people's poverty to themselves. Then it gets even nastier when race is added in. Social Darwinism/eugenics is alive and well.
1
“America” does not hate our children.”Red America” does.
1
It is not "America" that hates children. It is republicans. But they do adore them SO when they are fetuses. It is after they are born to parents who are not hugely wealthy that the republicans start hating them...God forbid a child should need something---Let it die! As Ron Paul once said about people who could not afford health care, and he was asked what we do with those people, he replied: "Let them die!" These are your republicans and libertarians. Once, in France, (1789) people like this were Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, and their aristocratic cohorts, who were tantamount to republicans and libertarians, and who also were not concerned about what happened to ordinary citizens. They partied, lived lives of extreme luxury, and indulged in gluttony, and financial excess, while the common people starved. republicans and libertarians would do well to remember what happened to those heartless royals and aristocrats...who were so much like today's Fascist gop.
1
'Why does US hate its children'?
Not only children. Human beings in general. Unless they have money. This is a country in which if you have monies, you're good; you don't have it, or you're sick, or so, well, better luck next time, not a problem for the society, cope as best you can but the society won't extend its hand.
The welfare-stinginess and lack of respect for the fellow people amongst us is completely unacceptable having in mind the utterly insane military expenditures and allowing individuals to amass hundreds of billions of dollars via monopolies (not to mention cherishing them as idols and symbols or great souls due to their charity work). Just how stupid you need to be not to see all this?
1
Given the recent news, it would be wise for Krugman to stay away from the topic of children
2
I wish Americans would stop having children.
1
Kids today don't have a place where they can find a pickup-baseball game. Fields are fenced -- trespassers are arrested, or if white, taken home to their parents.
A better question is "Why Does America Hate Women"? When America starts giving women equal rights, we'll start to see better treatment of America's children. Until then, America's children will get the same garbage treatment their mothers get.
2
"We" hate our women and love our billionaires and guns more than we love our children.
1
Put children in the military, there appears to be unlimited largesse for anything military, or relabel children as commodities, they can wallow in the same feed trough as agriculture and oil, or teach them golf, there's an infinite supply of taxpayer money for golf, just ask whatshisname.
1
Add to the list of unconscionable behavior toward children separating them from their parents at the border, putting them in cages, denying them basic hygiene, and allowing them to sicken and die in captivity. Not a pretty picture.
2
Child care, you say...
Ask de Blasio or his pricey chancellor - or his chancellor's even pricier staff...
https://nypost.com/2020/01/17/outraged-parents-jeer-doe-head-richard-carranza-off-the-stage-at-queens-town-hall-meeting/
What? How does Medicare for All not help children? ????????
1
I'm thinking it has something to do with the number of poor brown and black children in the US.
Add this to infant mortality and a lack of neonatal care and ........oh, nevermind.
Republicans believe their god is a vengeful god, therefore it’s OK for them to be vengeful too. And they obviously like to enact their vengeance on people who can’t fight back.
2
The bottom line why America hates its children is the same as why they are unhappy with themselves and those around them. Each child is brought up on the belief that each one is the best. This creates a trophy self-image that wants and expects a trophy life. It creates an emotionally challenged brain. So every relationship ends up being emotionally challenged including with children.
Emotional health (EH) is the foundation of health and yet we have no testing or manual for EH. Mind and brain that are two separate entities are lumped together as just the mind. As a result, we have cutting edge mind education while brain education is ignored and the brain is even miseducated. EH is the function of the brain and as brain education is messed up so is EH.
No wonder while civilization that is a function of mind education is advancing; the social ills as bad as ever. If we are to improve all-round relationships, including with children we will have to create EH/brain-education. Brain education is wise parenting for young and brain therapy for the rest.
Wisdom is the smoke where EH is the fire. Therefore EH education is even more essential if we are going to change from an emotionally challenged country into an emotional health superpower.
I have a formula for wisdom that has applications in education, health, and society. It even creates a whole new wisdom industry. Please google 'wisdom sajid'.
https://medium.com/@sajidalikhan2/what-is-wrong-with-the-world-af213786a406
Free birth control for all, would be a good start.
2
‘‘Tis better to care for the child now then to imprison the adult later.”
2
Repulsives dislike anyone but themselves. They have gone out of their way to hurt women, children, people of colour, foreigners, and other men unless they are rich. Do these folks even like their own children or spouses? Difficult to tell as the likely don’t travel in the same social or financial circles. What made these folks feel so ‘deserving’. We truly a pitiful country who refuses assistance to children, elderly and the poor.
2
By reading the liberal media outlets one might wrongfully construe that the career development, gender equality, the open borders, Hollywood celebrities, foreign wars, Dow Jones index, Superbowl, home renovation, wrinkles, botox, fashion shows, pets, or the presidential campaigns are dramatically more important than our children...
Bernie Sanders is not the reason why America treats its children badly. In fact bringing him into this is ridiculous. America treats its citizens who are not rich badly. If you are a single adult and unable to find a job you are restricted to 3 months of SNAP during a 36 month period. I guess single adults are supposed to starve or rely upon the kindness of others if they are hungry, out of work, and have no money.
In America children are property. There is a long tradition of that in America. It's why we don't step in when parents abuse their children physically or mentally or both. There are countries that forbid spanking or corporal punishment of children. Maybe they know something we don't.
In America women who kill their abusers in self defense are charged with murder. But if women are afraid of being killed by their abusers the police don't take it seriously. The same goes for children who are abused, molested, etc.
In short, in America, it's not only children who are hated. The handicapped, women, seniors, the poor, people who must work for a living, anyone who cannot find a job, etc. The people/entities our government (and we by extension because we elect our politicians) treat the best are the richest who have the resources to flatter, bribe, and manipulate to get what they want at our expense. Money speaks.
1/16/2020 10:42pm first submit
2
The root of the problem is Republican control. Republican attitude is no abortion,but let them eat cake once they are born. Or let them starve,no food stamps. No help for mothers. The world's tough. You have to be tough. No welfare for the weaklings. You have to work!
2
As usual, Paul, you hit the nail on the head. You might also have mentioned the intentional lead poisoning. There should be no surprise that this administration is perhaps the cruelest in recent memory. White supremacists and the Christian Taliban are as sadistic as it gets. As for the Democratic candidates, they are indeed ignoring anyone who cannot vote. We need the activists in the 18-25 year old age group to speak up for their younger family members and classmates.
1
I don’t think your title is very nice - Hate? Really? I do wonder why so many parents look to the federal government these days to provide for their kids.
3
Americans don’t hate their own children. Americans hate everyone else’s children.
1
Why does America hate its children? I think sexism and racism are major factors.
Sexism says: "Women who have children shouldn't work. They should be at home taking care of their kids, not asking for government handouts so that they can go off and play career gal."
Racism says: "Those welfare queens breed like rabbits. Why should hard-working (i.e. white) Americans have to pay for that?"
1
It's too bad you didn't publish this article months ago to highlight the ONLY presidential candidate, Marianne Williamson, who had a robust and visionary plan to ameliorate this suffering and address the EXACT points you bring up.
https://www.marianne2020.com/u-s-department-of-children-and-youth
Sigh... another ridiculous headline. I have to admit, it garners my interest, but it's self defeating, because I figure if the headline is this laughable, the article is a waste of my time. I would be curious to know who comes up with these; if not the author, then perhaps I'm guilty of misinterpretation.
1
Krugman says "Medicare for All ... won't become a reality anytime soon." Pull yer head out of the sand and climb down from yer ivory tower before it collapses underneath yer, Prof. Krugman. Universal day care is important. Universal health care is essential.
3
The NYT editor who titled this piece did Krugman a disservice. "We" don't hate "our" children. "We" love "our" children. But "we" do NOT love "other people's" children. You know, "those people's" children. Krugman is quite specific, and correctly so. on this point. The title is a pointless "gotcha", distracting, and adds no value.
I expect better from the editors of the Paper of Record for the greatest nation on Earth. Ok?
When did White European America not hate black African American and brown aboriginal Indigenous American children?
Black African America enslaved and separate and unequal women worked as domestics taking care of white children for centuries.
Black child care was a distraction from their service to white bigoted prejudiced supremacy.
While brown aboriginal Indigenous children could grow up to become "hostiles' aka warriors. The pejorative precursor for terrorists aka guerrillas
1
The title of this op ed is a poor choice to say the least. Another PK click bate.
2
I am surprised to see such an accomplished writer using such a sensationalistic title for an article. It sounds like something straight out of Fox ‘news’.
1
The government was voted in by the people, so it is what Americans are at this point, just as Hitler was voted in by the Germans and a German was defined by its government. I still most people claiming "Proud to be an American". At this point I think it will take something to destroy it as completely as the Nazis were obliterated in order for us to hopefully crawl back to as great a democratic society that the next generations of Germans have built. Not sure if we will learn our lessons as well.
1
Republicans only care about unborn babies. Once you're born, they don't care anymore. As the late genius George Carlin said "Republicans want live babies so they can grow up to be dead soldiers".
2
Well! You can only beat so long on the poors and elderly before they start whinging! Children gotta take it.
...and why does America hate its children while canonizing its fetuses?
1
The question is "why does America hate its children" and they just couldn't resist saying it's Bernie Sanders' fault.
Never change, NYT.
1
Let me add, free vasectomies, free tubal ligations.
1
America just hates. poor children.
1
Here in America we only care about you until you’re born.
2
So the new NYT primary season smear campaign against Bernie Sanders begins. Remind me - how did that work out last time?
1
Cool it Krugman.
America doesn't hate its children. They frequently raise kids in loving marriages.
Child care IS available, at a cost, for those who are indifferent to their children, don't marry and expect the rest of us to care for them.
12
@Observer
I'll agree with that, just so long as I don't have to pay for your police or the public education you likely got, or
your roads or any of the other costs we all share as a society.
By the way, do you refuse to pay school taxes where you
live?
3
@Observer
Gee. I guess it never occurred to you that when both parents work (as is necessary to make ends meet nowadays) they need child care.
4
How nice for you that you are privileged enough to be able to support a family on a single income so that one parent can stay home with the kids. Most people don’t have that luxury.
4
Commenters here all seem to ignore the FACT that having a child is a CHOICE. That choice comes with responsibilities.... many of which are financial. Don't buy something you can't afford... and do not burden others with your choices...
34
@Mystery Lits The FACT is that children have NO CHOICE regarding the conditions under which they're brought into this world.
The FACT is that 1 in 6 of our children -- more than 13,000,000 kids -- live with food insecurity. Our society can easily care for our kids -- but we're making a CHOICE not to.
37
@Mystery Lits children are an investment that benefits all Americans. Children don’t stay children forever. They do grow up. They then become our employees, doctors, electricians, and whatever. I want the person that I may someday have to depend on in my old age to have the most beneficial childhood possible so that they can be the best adults.
One could say that it’s like we live in a society or something.
39
@Mystery Lits If only it were a "FACT" that "having a child is a CHOICE"! Thanks to the so-called "pro-life" movement, fewer and fewer women and girls in the U.S. actually have such a choice. Whether due to a lack of access to contraception, failed contraception, or rape, many women actually have no such "CHOICE". And if the the "pro-lifers" get their way, no woman in the U.S. ever will.
25
This could easily be solved if we just shifted some of the money people shower on their pets and direct it toward child care.No dog is ever going to grow up and pay my social security benefits when I retire. I realize no dog will ever grow up and disappoint you or get in a accident with your car, but we can't avoid the basic premise of human life, which is to reproduce ourselves.
We need children and population growth, otherwise their is no economic growth. Unfortunately some parts of life have a Ponzi scheme underlying the foundations.
1
@Hugh G There's no real rational reason to support, what you in fact call, a Ponzi scheme in order to support economic growth. The end point of every Ponzi scheme is that it falls apart, which is what we're looking at right now.
The solution is to find a way forward that is sustainable, not something built of a crumbling foundation.
1
@Hugh G Seriously? Blaming dogs and pet owners, that's absurd. We have enough resources to care for both
1
It would also help if the New York Times Editorial Board were to ask candidates substantive questions about their policy proposals on issues like children's well-being instead of enacting reductive purity tests over a candidate's first job out of college.
6
New mom in Silicon Valley. This is the right question. Astute analysis.
The micro: on a buy nothing group I gave away food before a move. A well dressed mom from Sweden w 4 kids came. Recently divorced, she’s working, and feeding her children here is hard.
P.S. As a Super Tuesday voter, Bloomberg cares about kids and many in Ed Policy know his improvements in student outcomes. Let’s leave our huffy “I’m liberal and right” disdain for one another aside and actually help families.
1
Oh, this article sure is one I endorse in every way. Started work at Welfare Dept a long time ago. My kids were so traumatized......
And it will keep on going......yesterday got news my healthcare service is cutting jobs because not enough people are covered and ones that are do not pay enough to cover the services. I will be ok but a lot will not.
Thank you Professor for all you do to help so many.
4
It's very simple, really. It's because children are, as of 2020, majority non-white.
"Socialism" in America means contributing anything that people of another race might benefit from. A country with a long history of immigration but with large racial groups that don't mix - 62% white, 17% latino, 13% black, 5% Asian but less than 3% mixed - means they simply can't tolerate one another to marry each other and have children under the same roof, let alone live in the same neighborhood.
Only mono-racial social programs have worked in the US. The New Deal was one of those. There were no Latinos or non-white immigrants to speak of, and Blacks were not served.
5
Why is almost everyone in the punditry denigrating Bernie Sanders these days? Probably because he is surging in the polls, and is the most popular Senator in America, with a 65% approval rating. That, and he is threatening the status quo, which most modern journalists support now, when they used to support poorer folks in days gone by. Just remember, elect Joe Biden, and things will change very little. Elect Bernie, and things will begin moving in the direction of curing what ails this wonderful old Republic!
4
Add to the glowing stats on how children fare here in the States-- highest gun deaths in the developed world. There are laws and regulations that could be put in place to affect that abysmal rating (but no will in the Senate). There also exists a technology whereas children could not accidentally fire a gun -- fingerprint safety, etc. But the lawmakers who kowtow to the NRA will not hear of it. The technology languishes, useless and unwanted. Poor children; poor America.
3
Elections don’t have to discuss every single important policy. A strategy to win is what is important, and if that means that discussions of climate change and programs for children have to wait until the election is won, so be it.
If the "Right to Life" movement were sincere about caring for children, it would push for full funding for programs that would help children AFTER they are born. The fact that it opposes such programs proves its insincerity.
12
But wouldn't Medicare for All be a big help for children, too? What about all the poor kids who can't concentrate in class because they have oral pain from lack of dental care?
It's a sad, sad fact that people are going to vote more for policies that help themselves than for policies that help other people's kids.
4
So the problem of how we treat our children, along with the other problems of our social collapse syndrome (falling life expectancy, mass incarceration, widening income inequality) seem to stem from a common cause: "...the disappearance of good jobs."
As pressing as the treatment of America's children is, shouldn't we be focusing on matching skilled people to good jobs and get at the root of this thing? "Free college" is not an actual prosperity program; for many 18-24 year olds it is an extension of adolescence.
The situation we are in with the treatment of children can be seen as just another negative outcome of social programs that contribute to alienation from work. I am not against government programs to help people. I simply believe that our programs should refocus on getting people, as much as they individually are able, to a situation of self-sufficiency.
And the only possible outcome of comparing ourselves to "every other civilized nation" is frustration, anger, and a sense of grievance. There are very few Americans who don't have reasons to rejoice, yet we seem to have so little joy.
2
@Charles Becker I'd agree that a huge number of problems that people ask government support for stem at least partly from most people not getting paid enough. Heathcare costs, housing costs, education costs, childcare costs. So yes, I would make not just matching people up with jobs, but more measures to create good jobs, a priority. Especially, creating more jobs in the middle of the country where the cost of living is cheaper than in the big coastal cities.
1
Comparing ourselves with every other civilized nation is an incredible opportunity to steal great ideas that were developed and tested at someone else’s expense.
Unfortunately we are hung up on the idea of American exceptionalism and we are too good to copy other nation’s successes.
3
@Bruce Thomson The US is also larger and more diverse than many other countries. It's not awful that we have our own economy and our own culture. We just need to work with them.
1
When women entered the work force in the 70s they should have demanded universal childcare along with equal pay. I wish the MeToo Movement would turn the page and concentrate more on both these issues.
Unequal or poor wages do not help children. Not only has the government turned their back on children but also big, bloated business has not done enough to help workers’ families.
Another reason for why social security and Medicare is better for the elderly is that the elderly feel entitled to this since they paid into the system for years. Maybe babies need their own payroll tax.
Wow. An excellent column until the last two paragraphs. Then you manage to blame Bernie Sanders for not talking about helping children. Unbelievable.
(And strangely, you blame only Sanders, when Warren is running on pretty much the same progressive platform.)
As you well know, Medicare-for-All isn't about Medicare; it's about setting up a similar single payer system that would cover Americans of all ages, including parents and children!
Sanders and Warren are also campaigning on making public colleges free, improving child care options, and offering preschool to every child starting at age 3.
Meanwhile, your history never mention the fact the it was Bill Clinton who put in disastrous cuts to welfare in the 90's, and started the work requirements trend.
You attacked Sanders and defended the conservative branch to the Democratic Party throughout 2016. Your columns have become increasingly Progressive as America slides into Banana Republic levels of inequality, and yet you continue to attack our strongest Progressive voice.
6
@Oh Please
And, why does he attack Bernie? I don’t get it?
Very informative piece. It still baffles me that our great nation does not offer paid maternity leave. The benefits are supported by so much research that it seems like a no brainier. I would also add that childcare being available onsite for employees is another family support that has significant benefits for both employee and employer. Employees miss less work and are more productive. I realize this isn't a government program but employers could receive incentives for such programs. These simple programs improve family life so significantly, which that in itself will create happier children. Our children are obviously hurting, as youth suicide rate demonstrates.
The information you cited regarding school lunches is something I haven't given much thought about and I thank you for sharing. Healthy eating starts in childhood. Maybe we can then get US life expectancy to increase rather decrease, which is a huge issue given we are a developed country.
As for the change in public assistance, i believe that program was an easy target for people to blame for our debt when in reality corporate fraud cost Americans much more annually then welfare.
Thanks again for m bringing light to these issues prior to election. I am interested to see it addressed by candidates.
1
Conservatives lack of interest in helping children is obvious. But both conservatives AND progressives care little about the welfare of children. Progressives have never made children's issues their issues - unless it is to protect a mother's right to get rid of them (yes, I am pro choice but still..the obsession on this issue is absurd). Lots of talk of systemic racism and LGBT discrimination - important issues of course - but zero interest in solving the foster car crisis, no demand for high-quality, subsidized daycare (it finally took a man to do that), and while we are at it, where's the shocked response to the NYT's ongoing coverage of the sexual exploitation of children? No progressives only push pro choice candidates. No mention of supporting candidates broadly responding to children's issues. For very different reasons both sides fail children.
1
I absolutely agree with Krugman. It is more than embarrassing that we (including the press) pay more attention to Trump's bizarre tweets, or spend excessive resources on unnecessary military equipment, then give higher priority to addressing the needs of poor children. Not only the right humanitarian thing to do, but pragmatically better for the future of our country. Climate change mitigation also has to be part of equation.
1
Here in the suburb where I live, the school district seeks to build another grade school on one of the last large tracts of undeveloped woods in the area, destroying trees and displacing birds and wildlife that have been there for generations. They didn't even bother to commission a species inventory to find out what's there. THIS is a microcosmic example of habitat loss killing the planet because humans refuse to stop replicating. I'd rather pay people NOT to have children, as the last thing the world needs is more Americans.
3
This is a "tax" that foreign companies pay that American companies do not. Along with the 4 weeks paid vacation every year. American companies always compared tax rates, but never mention these taxes.
1
Bravo! The provision of universal health care should start with children--including, no, ESPECIALLY children with chronic diseases and disabilities. No parent should have to go bankrupt getting treatment for their kids.
Adults can fend for themselves until this goal is achieved, as far as I am concerned.
2
We have age related restrictions on the purchase of cigarettes, alcohol, and guns, etc. But we allow "kids" to make babies as soon as they can.
We want cosmetologist and real estate agents to have a license, but one can produce babies at will whether they are competent to raise them, or in a position to afford having them.
5
How America treats its children is more and more becoming a moot point as fewer people are having them, nor can afford to.
3
@Jennene Colky And some people are choosing not to have children as a benefit to the environment.
It seems like a small detail but I would like public-facing ads from governments, nonprofits, and the like tackling child poverty to include ostensibly white children in their ads. Because that's the reality. The great majority of people on welfare for example are white yet ads, tv spots, even radio don't project reality.
Instead, they reinforce the stereotypes of who receives or benefits from aid. In contrast, last year an article in the NY Times on child poverty in England showed almost all-white children (correlating to the rural area of England it was about) and one person interviewed made a statement about how these children were their future.
7
Shortly before the birth of our second child, I was having lunch with a colleague visiting from Germany. When I said my wife would take her guaranteed 12 weeks of leave (and I only two weeks), my colleague was appalled at the short amount of time afforded to us poor Americans. I shrugged, then realized I had to clarify that the 12 weeks (six federal and six from my state) was only a period during which continued employment was guaranteed and that new American parents are not given any paid leave by the government. She was so incredulous that I had to repeat myself. American exceptionalism indeed!
22
Dr Krugman’s comparison of the US vs other western countries’ programs for maternity leave/childcare/education are correct. I think we (Americans) assume similar programs wouldn’t work here because they’re too expensive, or because we don’t want to subsidize “The Other’s” family (the peril of a multicultural society). But I submit this resistance has deeper roots: it’s because we (our old White Man’s Congress) can’t abide the woman working out of the home. What need should she have for child care, maternity leave, even better schools, when she should be helping her children with their homework? This is the real barrier to funding these programs. It’s old fashioned misogyny. In conservative parts of my community, I hear “Families should take care of their own, or not have children.” We’re not a practical country. We are ideologically driven, and it’s bringing this country down.
16
I agree, Liz. I am a 70 year old white male, astonished in this day and age that women still accept what little they are ‘given’ from men. Where are are the female leaders that need to just jam maternity leave down the throat of Congress? Infant care. Child care. So families can better thrive. Why do idiot men continue to be elected? The sad truth is many women vote for them. That is how Trump was elected.
1
What to we Canadians share in common with the USA?
A long border.
It makes me feel so sad that my American neighbours don't have paid parental leave. It makes me sad that my neighbours don't have universal medical care.
17
Back in the 1980s Canadians only received 15 weeks of maternity leave. Then in the 1990s it became about nine months, which could be shared between the parents, if wished. Still not as good as Sweden and Finland, though. I think they get two years
5
@Dreena : Americans do not want either. It means less freedom. or something.
A somewhat different, yet related topic. The birth rate falls in countries with the most generous benefits for families. I'd like to see Mr. Krugman address the question of how national economies can be restructured to prosper without continually adding more citizens.
3
And what did we see in December? The Senate, in the defense spending bill passed passed family leave for federal employees, only. That’s great if you are a federal employee, but for those who aren’t, it’s just another burden.
5
@rebecca1048 Have you considered taking a Federal job. They don’t get the same pay but have the benefits. It’s a choice.
1
The rich, that is most lawmakers, have everything they need to take care of their children. They don't think that state money should be invested in 90% of other children.
7
@Roland Berger
The American Rich do not want to take away the Freedom of the American poor. And the poor vote to keep it that way.
1
We as a country have so many talented people running for the Democratic ticket. I hope that who ever is chosen paves the way for a woman to be president, someone who understands and cares about families. We make out families jump through hoops to get the help they need; either too poor or make too much. My generation is now in process of retiring or keeping working when we would like to do something else in the last 1/3 of our life because our young families need us. So much money in our governments and nothing for our families- too lavish.
4
Krugman's article is just the tip of the iceberg.
Lack of medical coverage, or avoidance of using healthcare due to huge deductibles or copays is bad for children.
Attacks on the funding of public education, or grossly underfunded public education, is bad for children.
Mass shootings are bad for children.
Ever longer work hours without significant pay increases for the parents are bad for their children, is are our notoriously short vacation periods (how much do you get? Europeans get 4 weeks/yr. or more, by law).
The unexplainable, unbelievably high cost of higher education, that keeps rising faster than the inflation rate, is bad for children.
Our entire society is structured to serve the corporations.
And most Americans are not even aware of how bad it is, as they are not aware of how people in other first world nations live.
12
The economic argument against looking after children is a very specious one.
I wonder if that is the "one percent" talking?
3
What I'm hearing here is that Warren has spoken appropriately on the topic of childcare and has a clear, well funded plan. She has, in fact, demonstrated love for America's children.
So if it's a priority for the rest of us - we know what we have to do. Vote for the right candidate.
I would add, until this nation addresses the sexism that may well shut Warren out of the presidency, until we deal with the needs of all adult women, the needs of children will always suffer.
This is because children need their parents. Moms step up when remotely possible even with less pay and greater unpaid responsibilities while dads typically have better things to do.
3
The lack of funding for child care and education suggests the country doesn’t prioritize all its kids or care substantively for their future. This implies that there are too many children chasing too few opportunities for good schooling and the better jobs that go with it. If there were shortages in job applicants and school enrollment, the country would spend the money. But we don’t and we never will.
3
Childcare should be a key election issue. The human capital of the future determines our survival. You have raised the serious failings in how the democratically elected representative government have addressed this issue. In my view childcare should be given as much consideration as national security.
You international comparisons transmitted a particularly effective message. Anthropologists make a strong case that the evolutionary success of our species is based on our instinct to care for our young. Our social nature is formed from nest building (housing policies) and passage of experience from one generation to the next.
I believe a policy push for income equality should feature the family and childcare as a centerpiece. The Federal government could implement policies that would give our children and their families a foundation of good nutrition, good healthcare, and education as a birthright.
We don't do that now. It seems that our system fosters good care, good health, and good education for the well-off and many children are locked into a caste that constrains their potential and the contribution they make over their lifetimes to our society.
Our society is entering a period of enormous economic and environmental challenge that will require lots of enterprising, very smart, and positive people who will be needed to meet these challenges.
I haven't yet selected the candidate that I will support for the nomination but I am certain that it will be a Democrat.
4
Another illustration of policies that shortchange children for the benefit of older people is California’s prop 13. The whole argument for keeping it is “saving seniors” from losing their homes. Nevermind it has absolutely gutted school funding. As long as its couches in save grandma from losing her home argument, it’s untouchable.
3
@Lalene Sorry, as a senior I want to be able to keep my home. Children are not more important than seniors. However, there will be a "split roll" option on the November ballot that (if it passes) will mean businesses are subject to regular property tax reassessments, and no longer benefit from Prop 13.
3
@Frances Grimble
Sorry Frances, but children are MUCH MORE important than seniors.
And I'm just a couple of years shy of Medicare.
4
@EK Why on earth should children be more important than seniors? Most people have 20-30 years ahead when they retire. Any child born at the date a person retired will have already grown up, while the senior lives on. Being a senior lasts longer, and given ageism in the workforce, many people are forcibly retired in their 50s. We already made many contributions, why focus on those who have not made any yet?
5
The childcare issue became more urgent partly because women are marrying late and having children in their mid careers. So, quitting job and care for the child for a year or two and try to re-enter into the job market at later time will be difficult and often accept low pay and less job satisfaction. Our policies, if any, are too slow to adopt to the changing situation of rapid increase in women joining the labor market. Elizabeth Warren childhood experience makes her the best candidate for POTUS, because care of American children is the top issue.
2
Life isn’t just about women’s issues. Warren is a socialist/communist. Is socialism/communism what you want for your children?
1
Lack of good jobs has led to despair,( which can lead to addiction), a low marriage rate,( which means more children in single parent households), people working more than one job, (which means less time for parenting). A lack of good jobs means lacking the means to move for a better one. It means financial insecurity in high cost areas, resulting in increased evictions, food insecurity, poor diets as people rely on cheap processed food. Our "right to birth" political party - the Republicans- would pooh-pooh this. People in low wage jobs are there because of their own personal failures to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" - not due to greed and inability to pay for education and/or training to qualify for a better job. Yes, some people make poor decisions, but many decisions are made based on immediate needs. Many poor, working class people do not have the luxury those in well paying jobs have - in that they can more easily move between jobs, live in a school district with good schools and afford health care -just to name a few things. We have failed many of our citizens by adopting the trickle down theory for the last 50 years. We have only to look around to see it hasn't worked very well for many.
7
Dr. Krugman, I think you're overlooking something that's both intrinsic and defining about America. This country has the Old Testament in its marrow. Because of that, sex must be punished. I don't think that Americans as a people really have it in for children; I think that the burden (financial and otherwise) of having and raising children is seen as the oldest and most reliable means of visiting punishment on those who have demonstrably had sex. In my view, the US will never be able to mature as a nation or as a people until it abandons the Old Testament as its moral cornerstone and adopts the New Testament or something else. I don't expect that to happen until the nation completely implodes in every sense, which should happen well before the end of the century at this rate.
8
Good chance the human race will be extinct by the end of the century. maybe way before. Most people are in denial about the coming decades of chaos due to the incredible rate the world is heating up. Children are unnecessary luxuries in my opinion
Interesting story and timing as the Trump admin is undoing the Obama era rules and nutritional guidelines in American schools.
Less fruit and veg more burgers and pizza wooo hooo!
Idiots.
12
Trump likes junk food, so what do you expect?
@Don Turner
Well, in Trump's defense, to him pizza and hamburgers are health food.
Yes, and another article in today's Times says the Trump administration is threatening to further undo some of Michelle Obama's work on school nutrition programs for schoolchildren. It just keeps getting worse.
73
@KarenB When has Trump made such a statement? Get real girl.
The question is NOT why does America hate its children, it is why does America hate its WOMEN? The whole point of the christian story, Adam and Eve through childbirth, is to justify punishing women into a second class status. It is not going as well as they hoped. Women are tired of the abuse of those who like to spread their seed, but NOT pay for the results.
More interestingly, because of the abuse we are watching the evangelicals not just sell out their god in favor of Trump and his women and children punishing friends, but we are witnessing first hand why a culture quits worshiping its gods entirely. Soon the christian god will accept its place in the Pantheon of Greek, Roman and other long dead gods.
4
I do not think there is one answer to this problem. Wages have been stagnant for a long time so it takes two parents working to make ends meet. Employers are well aware of this so they will just hire some one else if you have a child related problem or complain. We also have a racial problem with helping people of color. As we have seen recently there are many,many racists in this country. It is going to take a complete attitude change and lots of organized help and money. I have been known to encourage bright young people in this country to move to Europe for a better life.
4
@Marilyn
Sadly, I will encourage my son to attend college in Canada (my wife is Canadian, and we are working on
his Canadian citizenship) and then stay there. Knowledge can be a terrible thing.
My eyes were opened over 20 years ago when my cousin moved to Germany, to work at BASF. He came back on a visit, telling me he would be travelling for a month. I asked him how he could take off so much time. He said- "its no problem, when I go back to Germany, I will still have two more weeks of vacation"
1
Elizabeth Warren is always talking about the mommas and the babies, and all the male candidates cringe and make faces. They clearly have no respect for women or children.
6
Krugman tells us what other advanced countries have. He doesn't tell us they DON'T have Republicans, who believe in corporate socialism but don't believe in helping individuals
8
Another answer, is have fewer children. Look around, do we need more people? If you can’t afford children, don’t have them. I’d be all for universal childcare if it were accompanied by population control education. Free condoms. Free IUDs. Free morning after pills, abortions if necessary. How about free childcare for the first two children only? We need strong messages about population control!
11
I'd argue the issue is rooted in the backlash toward liberalism in general. The things we know help children require that we perceive children as human beings who are worthy of respect. Too many still view children as property, and too many view any kind of consideration toward children as just another way that liberals are raising a generation of weak, coddled snowflakes.
Its strange how the GOP claims to be the party of family values etc. What bigger demonstration respect for family values could there be than to ensure that children are given the best possible start in life. Nutrition and education in a secure family environment.
But no - lets let poor kids suffer, from poor health and poor education. Its the American way so far as the GOP is concerned.
8
I almost completely agree with Professor Krugman here. Where I disagree is with his *categorical* dismissal of ‘cultural’ explanations of poverty (“social collapse”, he calls it).
My sister was a Jobs Corpswoman, working in Appalachia during the heyday of the Office of Economic Opportunity. When I asked what her ‘clients’ (for lack of a better word) were like, she responded that they were basically like us suburban young people. However, she said: many attitudes and economic values that were natural and ingrained for most of us, like understanding comparison shopping, like saving money, etc., seemed to be largely outside their experience.
Some of the Job Corps‘ most politically explosive efforts involved counteracting such manifestations of the culture of poverty. Politically explosive, because many of them threatened to undermine the local economic power structures and economic exploitation of poor people. As we know, the Nixon Administration did away with the Job Corps and the Office of Economic Opportunity.
4
A lot of the responses here stress that having a child is an individual decision (though actually, not always) and thus responsibility. Very true, but only if you look at the nation as a string of individuals.
If you look at the production of children from the standpoint of the nation's economy, it is clear that
a) any economy needs a continuing infusion of children-grown-to-adults; please read the article on China's concern about the falling birth rate, and be assured that the Chinese government will not be praising childless people for their "responsible decision" not to reproduce, but rather is concerned only about the future workforce
b) the economy will do much better if these children-grown-to-adults are healthy and competent.
3
What about the heath of the environment? More people, less healthy environment. then finally ecological collapse...
Here's the deal.
If you can convince your teachers unions to stop taking children hostages in public schools, we might be able to finally have an adult conversation about this.
Love the teachers.
Hate their union.
The teachers themselves should be leading innovation in education instead of holding onto the way things were done 50 years ago.
Didn't we get a lecture about how healthcare had to change because what we've been doing the past 50 years isn't working anymore?
If you can see that..but turn a blind eye to the failure of education...then God help you.
I realize it's hard teaching kids who don't want to learn, but that was equally so 50 years ago.
I realize it's hard to reach a kid without a father at home, but that was equally so 50 years ago.
Teachers have given up their power to their union overlords and while that's great for their paychecks and pensions..it does nothing to motivate a kid to read 4 hours more a week..or parents to make sure their kid has breakfast before he goes to school...and has money in his lunch account or has filled out paperwork to get free lunch.
2
@Erica Smythe If teachers are not paid enough to live on, they won't teach. They will enter some other profession. That includes university professors.
2
How have teachers given up their power to innovate to unions? I’m not aware of unions deciding what is taught. Unions do fight for smaller classrooms and greater resources.
Can you expand on your comment with some examples of union interference in curricula?
4
@Erica Smythe
You hate the unions. For what?
Innovations in teaching? The teachers have to buy the kids school supplies. The are among the most over educated, under paid profession in the country.
The Unions are so weak they cannot get the teachers a living wage, nor make sure the kids have school supplies, and the GOP keeps cutting the budgets until failure is assured. To give tax breaks to the rich.
The anti-welfare hardliners I talk with aren't just tough on Those People's kids, they're also tough on their own. In my experience, it's not uncommon for Republican hardliners to refuse to help their kids with first cars or college.
I blame this, in part, on Fox News, which harps constantly about the lazy "snowflake" children of elites. When Republican parents talk to me about cutting their kids off when they turn eighteen, they're not ashamed or sheepish. It's more like they're bragging.
4
I don't buy many lottery tickets, but I've started buying one every couple of weeks. If I win, I won't stay.
4
Well-stated, Dr. Krugman. The answer is UNIVERSAL publicly funded preschool and UNIVERSAL publicly funded child care from infancy to preschool. Historically, programs like Head Start, a federally funded program for low income children, has been limited albeit effective. However, like many such programs, it has been and continues to be targeted by conservative politicians and vilified as "welfare". Making these programs universal. i.e.., open to all eliminates that argument.
2
I am raising my child abroad. I see zero reason to raise her back in the cruel place that was once my home, the United States. None of my parent friends back in the States recommend I return. In fact, all of them openly express envy that I get do what I do with my child abroad.
7
I wonder if it is a apathy towards children or just a punishment for working mothers who are supposed to have provided these things?
3
Perhaps our unwillingness to help children - or our neighbors more generally - has to do with our diversity as a population in the US. It seems that in more diverse populations, people are less generous and would rather save their own pennies to pay for themselves. People support conservative tax structures rather than "paying for the other". In less diverse populations (Northern Europe for example), helping your neighbor is supporting your own tribe, so more liberal tax structures and progressive entitlements are supported. And the liberal policies becomes threatened when increased immigration allows "others" to access a safety net we established for our own clan (as they have been recently in Northern Europe). We are a diverse population and I suspect that this plays a role in our unwillingness to support progressive policies that help a broad cross section of our diverse population but cost tax dollars.
1
@citizen
Your idea does not seem to be supported in reality. For example, Canada is more diverse than the US but does a better job of caring for children.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/18/the-most-and-least-culturally-diverse-countries-in-the-world/
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/child-welfare
1
Leave it to Mr. Krugman to refocus our attention as to what's important and what's important for improving the quality of American lives and particularly our children.
5
The U.S., particularly GOP officeholders and their voters, is logic-proof about societal investments. Our children are no exception.
The difference between us and European countries isn't just in the amount of money we spend. It's the attitude.
We tend to see government spending on early childhood education, nutrition and health as welfare programs or aid to the poor. Very cost effective societally, but even the liberal viewpoint is focused on saving those kids from the dustheap, instead of the concept of investing in all children regardless of parental economics.
When the Prince of Wales was born in the late 1940s, few UK parents probably had less economic need for government-subsidized supplements of castor oil, orange juice and milk. But (then-princess) Elizabeth signed up for them, as the palace stressed, "like every other mother in Britain".
2
I think it was not castor oil, but cod liver oil, lol!castor oil is a laxative
1
Caring for children requires empathy. It entails engaging our own sensitivities and vulnerabilities and allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable. It means having a soft spot for others. This is the age of the fashy haircut. This is a time of hardness and indifference. Strength is equated with not caring and scorning the weak. To be other is nothing but a path down a liberal bleeding heart slippery slope. Fox news was established as the bulwark against such emotional vulnerability and presented it as a strength. In reality it is a deep insecurity rooted in the fear of one's true emotional reality - i.e. too much to handle for these deeply wounded folk. And now, children, our life blood and soul, are not excluded from this insane bravura that confuses grandiosity for strength and sensitivity for weakness.
3
Thank you, Mr. Krugman for bringing attention to an issue that receives little to none. Children are an investment, but, there is no immediate return. However, in the USA, children are viewed as sources of profit, and their basic rights become violated as a result. There are horrible products marketed to them, primarily the electronic cigarettes and energy drinks. Their education is compromised and corporatized. Pharmaceutical companies continuously increase the cost of medications and vaccinations necessary for their wellness. Parents are forced to work long hours, multiple jobs, and drive distances just to be able to survive. The subsequent stress takes its toll not just on family structure, but on the well being of children. I am a pediatrician, and I have had to start two teenagers on psychiatric medications this week alone to prevent them from ending their own lives. To add insult to injury, the consequences of social media are taking a toll on our youth. One of the youngsters I saw yesterday came with her mother, and we discussed how we do not teach children to love themselves and we do not empower them. Everyone is out fo themselves and in a country that is heavily influenced by special interests, until there is a dynamic candidate who truly has the best interests of women, children, and men comprise the fabric of this country, we will always be in this endless cycle.
3
This article overlooks the many other ways we work against our children. Climate Change: Since this country doesn't view Global Warming as a serious threat, we guarantee leaving our children either a serious mess to clean-up, or a threat to their existence. Budget Deficit: Regardless of party (and especially the party that complains the most about this when their not in power), this country routinely spends more than it takes-in in taxes, further burdening its children with a growing bill to pay. The list goes on-and-on (healthcare, proliferation of guns, growing wealth disparity, etc, etc, etc), and to this parent, it's depressing to know what I'm doing to my daughter and all the other kids in her class. When I was a kid, my parent's generation tried to make society better over time. My generation has failed to live-up to that model, and we now live in an era where the cheaters who win reap the rewards, and the truth-brokers who don't win are disregarded.
2
I'll pretend all I know about the treatment of children in this country is what Paul Krugman has asserted, including this astonishingly simple and altogether accurate assessment:
"What this means is that we’ve established a basically vicious system under which children can’t get the help they need unless their parents find jobs that don’t exist."
From that single sentence we understand that children, who represent life and hope, are factors about which combined economic and political interests couldn't care less, except as points of economic data.
Our treatment of children is a mark of the savagery we, as a people, can live with (Sandy Hook aside) -- generation after generation -- something our economic and political elites may chuckle about on their way to the bank. Easy, because they live in a different America.
2
I don't think it's fair to blame Sanders who acknowledged on Tuesday debate--Every psychologist in the world knows, 0-4 are the most important years of human life-emotionally and intellectually. Sanders knows the importance of early childhood development. This Country just seems hell bent on tossing billions at cures rather than than millions at prevention.
5
You can't ignore the import of the disenfranchisement of children though. They're neglected (by society and often by parents) and too often abused because they cannot vote and because no one is charged with representing their interests at the polls (the way someone is charged with representing a child's interest in courts). It's the same thing with animals, really; they have no representatives, so they get what they get.
It's why cars have long come equipped with alarms warning you when you've left your frigging headlights on, but not when you've left your infant napping in her carseat on a 90 degree day.
2
@bess Children are represented by their parents and other older relatives.
1
I'm pretty sure Dr K didn't mean to attack Bernie Sanders for pushing Medicare for All - he really meant that MFA dominates the debates and the differences between the Democratic candidates - essentially, MFA sucks the oxygen out of the debates. Dr K wants the conversation to include other social issues - as in this article, paid leave.
Or maybe he thinks Bernie is unrealistic about implementing such as gigantic change to medical insurance for all Americans - afterall, Liz got slammed for stating how she would pay for MFA - but Bernie doesn't do the math. (Of course, MFA would significantly lower the cost of actually having the baby, but that's probably another column...)
Democrats are finally learning from decades of right wing policy. "Medicare for All" is an Overton window thing, it might not happen but it makes the mid-range policy solutions more likely. After all, 30 years ago discussing carrying guns in schools, bars and churches as rational policy would have got you locked up in the loony bin. Now it's standard Republican orthodoxy. The same thing has happened with unlimited inherited wealth, Republicans have convinced Americans that getting your wealth by falling out of a lucky vagina is a god given right. Pushing the extreme position to get an intermediate one has long worked for Republicans and eventually they got the extreme position as well.
2
I would add to the list the desire to go to college but knowing it means you'll go into terrible debt if you do. There are exceptions, of course, but this isn't the "equal opportunity" country we should be. Okay, and the terrible inequality of schools before you event get to college.
1
Continuing to load up national debt is in and of itself a crime committed upon our children.
Over the years.. everytime I have this very discussion with some coworker who is nearing retirement age.. the answer is always the same.. "I won't be here.. so why do I care?" Trump himself has made this very statement.
35
No mention of this issue by Cuomo in the state of the state. We should be talking about this in NY.
1
"Every advanced country mandates some form of paid leave for new mothers, typically three or four months — every country, that is, except America, which offers no maternity leave at all." If you mandate maternity leave you will greatly increase the gender wage gap. This is why these other nations have a much higher gender wage gap than the United States
I chose not to have children. Why? Because I could not afford them and because I didnt't want government intrusion in the way I raised or educated them. I did not want them brainwashed by the popular culture, such as encouraging girls to aspire to being "princesses." I have no regrets and frankly do not understand why people who cannot afford to feed and clothe children continue to have more. Couples could easily decide to put off children for several years and completely bank one income so one parent could afford to stay at home and raise them; yet few people opt for this. To be blunt, I could not go to the crummiest animal rescue and adopt a dog if I admitted that I could not afford to feed it, vet it, or give it basic shelter. Implicit in this is the cry "but I want a child to be complete!". Go visit a prison or a youth detention facility and see the children whose parents figured out too late that they wern't cut out for the hard task. BTW, why should any business give more than a few days parental leave? The company is not part of the family nor the decision making. This is a matter of personal responsibiity.
6
@Eli Unfortunately a lot of those pregnancies are unplanned. Since we’ve allowed the anti-abortion side to dominate many states, unplanned pregnancies results in unplanned births to those who can least afford to raise them well. So - I hope you are actively supporting pro-choice and birth control programs.
But also, we need children for our future, and - as Dr. Krugman points out - it benefits our entire society to see that all kids are well-nourished, loved and educated.
1
@Eli
You simply do not get it. A nation cannot long exist if
society makes it so difficult to have children that your suggestions are taken seriously.
Things are such now that most of us could follow your
'philospohy". We would soon be depopulated.
Its as if you defend not repairing roads by telling people not to drive.
2
Our society is kidding itself if it thinks that a National Daycare Policy will significantly raise the quality of daycare for the struggling middle and lower class families that need it most - where are the many educated, caring, and motivated daycare workers and teachers going to come from? Recently the Washington Post covered the problems that a Minnesota community faced when it tried to fix it's child-care crisis - it's a lot harder than we think. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-minnesota-community-wants-to-fix-its-child-care-crisis-its-harder-than-it-imagined/2019/12/24/0134b5d2-0b9b-11ea-aa77-66da131c8555_story.html
2
@Northern Virginia Parent
But other first world nations do it all the time.
Maybe its untenable on a piecemeal local level?
And what would be your solution to the issue?
What ever we do in regard to health care, daycare and higher education must be available to all citizens and not just the poor.
The genius of Social Security is that everyone pays in and everyone benefits. That is why it is "untouchable".
Because we are a callous and racist society we must ensure the longevity of social programs by making sure they work for everyone - that they answer "what is in it for us" not only with the truism that society will benefit.
This is something that not all of our politicians understand.
3
@Farron Roboff Getting old is inevitable (unless you're unlucky). So the people who pay into Social Security have a good change of benefiting personally. Having children is not inevitable. If you don't have any, you are being taxed for other people's.
2
Ohhh Paul.... yet again another suggestion that the fruits of my labor should benefit someone else's choices... having children (with all the cheap choices for contraception) is a choice and should not be a public burden... unless you think we should all become wards of the state. Do you think we should all be wards of the state Paul? Remember, a society can't tax its way into prosperity.
5
@Mystery Lits
You deliberately ignore the fact that other first world nations do it, and do it well.
And lets face it- Full employment at starvation wages is not prosperity.
1
While I agree with much of what he says, this is a little dishonest. Many private employers provide maternity leave, some better than others, even if they are not mandated
Plus - how in the world can he write and get this published without mentioning that all federal employees will get 12 weeks paid maternity (and paternity!) beginning October 2020 as part of the NDAA signed in Dec Krugman is too informed to not have known about this - he intentionally didn’t mention it to make his point. So yeah....
3
Wow, Paul, cover up, your bias is showing again. It almost sounds like you're blaming Bernie because America neglects its children. Medicare for all is only one of Bernie's causes. What about his calls for universal childcare and pre-kindergarten programs? Bernie is all about helping working families and that means children.
That aside, you're so right about America's destructive policies towards families and children. Prejudice seems to be at the heart of it. Those supporting welfare cuts would see their own children suffer before helping "those people." That mindset has got to change if America is ever to catch up with the rest of the "advanced" nations. The shortsightedness and the folly of neglecting the future generation is incomprehensible. America has got to get back to "all for one and one for all" thinking, or we're pretty much doomed.
2
The premise of this article is good. However, shameful to diss my friend Bernie. As does Elizabeth, Bernie has a conscience and a good heart. Either one will do come November.
2
God bless you, Mr. Krugman, for your straight talk on how we neglect our neediest children.
2
“Once thoroughly broken down, who is he that can repair the damage?” Fredrick Douglass
1
Great parents -with financial resources -who are commited to maximizing their children's potential (their happiness and vocational fulfillment and security) AND who surround these children with the best educational and emotional skills to achieve those objectives are:
So far removed from the chaos of daily existence afforded to most families in this country -As to be almost a different species!
AND this cultural gap is widening exponentially thanks to policies and philosophies entrenched by the most ignorant representatives of the people - The entire GOP (trumpism) AND the christian absurdists who have always counted children's progress by the number of births.
The red state and swing state white classes are descending rapidly into social and economic incoherence and irrelevence -Pity the poor children!
The Reagan era has to end. Or else our country will end.
2
Krugman has it wrong with regard to key election issue. Why does America hate it seniors and working class Americans? No one is talking about Social Security. Its an issue continually being kicked down the road and a problem (of keeping it viable) that could be solved within a matter of weeks if Congress had the wherewithal. And the amazing thing is that everyone benefits getting this done. That is a travesty.
2
Love your column, but there is only one issue. It's about the climate.
2
Paul - I agree with you on basically everything, but that was a cheap shot regarding your Bernie comment.
Please continue to illuminate problems as only you can do, but please stop taking cheap shots that only help the GOP, Trump, and the rich, by dividing the DEM's.
2020 - Any DEM will do!
2
Wow, Paul---how creative of you! You found yet another way to be critical and condescending to Bernie Sanders. Let's ask, why does Paul seem to hate Bernie? Your implacable hostility to Bernie is downright weird, by now.
What Sanders wants to do is restore the spirit of FDR's New Deal which saved America in the 1930s Depression. And LBJ's Great Society that finally helped move us to the ideals of our nation, with Medicare and Voting rights/civil rights
etc etc. That's when the middle class expanded. That's Sanders' idea now.
Sanders wants our the govt we elect to regulate huge corporations instead of them regulating our govt and us.
Get it, Paul?
You say Medicare for All 'won't become a reality anytime soon'. Oh really? Why? Your pessimism is fascinating.
Of course we'll never get it if supposed liberal, influential columnists like yourself are negative about it. As an economist you might compare our spending now, vs M for All---that's basic.
Yet you use other countries role models for family leave and child care policies. But they also have had M for All for generations already.
If millions of parents don't have access to medical care, then this also affects their children--when the family loses a breadwinner parent to earlier death, or disablitity, or the family finances are destroyed by medical bankruptcy.
This is what a famous liberal economist might focus on.
3
Good article. That is so cool that you are answering letters!
1
Or it’s senior citizens?
1
"Empire abroad entails tyranny at home". H.Arendt
That's exactly where we are.
Trump’s major sin in the eyes of the establishment is that he takes the mask off and shows the real face of American empire.
People like Krugman are the mask; their job is to perpetuate the “noble lies” of American benevolence as it bombs, meddles, kills and exploits countries around the world.
They richly deserve the humiliation Trump is giving them.
This is what you get when you embrace Imperialism, neo-colonialism and advocate for neoliberal economic polices.
The sooner Americans realize and accept reality, i.e. WE are the enemy, the better off we’ll be.
Amerikka has written it's blood-soaked history from the moment the British were kicked out.
It is what it is.
I am though somewhat flommoxed by what 'American values' are since then until now.
Apart from being the very worst bully in the playground I cannot think of any other way to describe it.
It leaves all other empires in the shade.
1
Dr. Krugman, stop being so afraid that MFA/Bernie will cause four more years of Trump. Give him a chance to sell it nationwide and have confidence in his integrity and authenticity as a major selling point after Trump.
People in the Midwest aren't too stupid to understand that the rich have been raking it in while they are suffering. Nobody tells that story like Bernie, and Fox News had better be careful about their coverage. He's not the average city Democrat in a suit.
Education is just like healthcare. The same people who are happy with their private healthcare plan have access to good (enough) schools and will also reject big changes.
Democrats need to stop writing the program of white suburbia and start being ambitious.
2
But if American children get help and become healthy, intelligent adults, who will be left to vote Republican?
3
The left's never ending mantra that is so prevalent in the wacko Dem presidential debates, free healthcare for everyone free college for everyone, free child care for everyone. The term "free" is a joke of course there is no "free" government money tree, the correct term would be entitlement program/wealth redistribution, i.e. take money from those who work and give it to those who don't, and this most affects the MIDDLE CLASS, as this is who pays the majority taxes, we are the engine of the US economy! And does anyone in this country want to live like they do in France or anywhere else in the poorly run and rundown entitlement state European economies!? I surely don't! "substantial sums of benefits" is lefty/Dem code for increasing the middle class taxes to pay for entitlement programs! Of course Mr. Krugman believes more people should give their hard-earned money to the politicians, as they surely know better what to do with other's money than the people who actually EARN the money! Simply absurd.
3
@CW
No. Not free. Only you and yours call it "free", because your and yours view such as a "significant talking point".
Those suggesting these programs know they cost money, and that they will require taxes. Its about national priorities. Do we prefer tax incentives for fossil fuels, or healthcare? Do we prefer another couple aircraft carriers, or child care? Do we want to eliminate all taxes on the 1%, or do we want to fix our infrastructure?
A nation groaning under taxation for the military, while the standard of living falls, is not a "great power".
In the meantime, how would you handle these issues?
According to Feeding America, 85% of counties with high rates of food insecurity among children are rural.
What does it take to convince the "family values" voters of the GOP to actually support families?
3
Parents are ultimately responsible for their children not the government. A stable two parent family is the best gift parents can give to their child. Study after study shows this. As a teacher I see it in real life everyday. Look at the divorce rate in this country...look at the out of wedlock births. Ultimately, people need to be responsible for their own behavior -- when they aren't unfortunately their children suffer.
4
Once again, Dr. Krugman not only makes a strong case about an important issue but he does it with pinpoint accuracy. His point about Senator Sanders' responsibility for setting the policy concern agenda among Democratic presidential hopefuls is exactly right. I, as a health care professional for half a century, would agree that Sanders' 'Medicare for All' pitch is not just impractical proposal at this juncture (as opposed to a possible distant goal), but it has monopolized much debate time at the expense of other issues, many of which are at least as important, if not more important, for the nation's children. In particular, I have been bothered by the buzz over free college and drastic revamping of how college debt is managed (though the latter does need attention) when the real need in the United States is for massive strengthening of early education, including higher pay for those who teach our children as well as an overhaul of the curriculum so that future generations know how to find and assess information better than current generations do. Lousy early education is the taproot of the growing dysfunction in how our population chooses its leaders, deals with our own societal problems and with the rest of the world, and faces the threats to everyone's future. Let's focus on the health of our schools and not just our bodies.
2
I applaud Krugman, but he just needs to take one more step to answer his own question - it's the misogyny. As long as child care is a woman's problem, America thinks it ought be solved by her being supported by a man. That's what Bernie Sanders and Trump have in common (among a few other things) - it's so obvious when they say the word "American worker" (or even "people") their thought bubble depicts a burly white man - when the American "working class" is increasingly female and non-white. But solutions that would empower women to work more and have better jobs independent of men - like childcare - threatens the patriarchy, so it is starved and belittled. When women suffer, children also pay the price.
4
Children won't get attention from most politicians until they can vote, i.e., never. Yet as a social worker, I have thought for close to 50 years that the best way to improve many problems that affect children, such as poverty, food insecurity, poor education and sexual assault, is to start with families with young children. Help them raise healthy, educated children in a safe environment. This would be far less expensive than incarceration of children and adults, for example, while making the generation healthier, more job ready and happier. Good child care is a reasonable place to start. Meanwhile, our puritanical, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps like I did mentality wastes one of our most precious resources, the inds we fail to develop because we fail to care for our vulnerable children. We should not tolerate this one minute longer.
3
This seems old school, and irrelevant in the current day and age, however, my husband saw the beginning of the end for both academic success, and the welfare of children, when he stated teaching special education in 1978 in our small town in Minnesota. The county commissioners in Cottonwood County, Lutherans, and Mennonites who believed in helping their fellow men, increased what the county would give in benefits. This would seem like a good thing, but what happened is, it drew females to the county, especially females that a number of children by different males, but were no longer in a relationship with a male, or had one who was working but living with a man while collecting benefits. Often, their children needed a lot of services, mental health care, juvenile detention, Boy's ranches, etc. These were all white females. The county you are in, is the one the pays for all of these services. One family could cost the county, easily a quarter of a million dollars, or more. Did these services help get these families back on track as functioning members of society, not really! This ushered in the era of pregnant females in high school setting up their own household at the expense of the county, state, and federal government. After 45 years of welfare, Head start, free school lunches etc., academic failure is at a record high in Minnesota, and across the country. Teachers understand it why it is happening, and more will not fix it. We vote Democrat, and no religion.
4
Thanks to the electoral collage, we're effectively ruled by a Gerontocracy that only cares about themselves. They don't care if young adults are strapped with debt, unable to afford homes or healthcare, and if the few children some can barely afford to have go hungry. Forget paid maternity leave, subsidized childcare or school lunch programs, but don't you dare touch their Social Security or Medicare!
1
@nicole_b Seniors are members of families. They often have children and grandchildren. If they are unable to support themselves, their relatives have to do it. Seniors not only paid for Social Security and Medicare (neither is free), they relieve younger relatives of financial burdens.
1
Why does Paul Krugman hate America?
4
Living in the South, I constantly see roadside billboards encouraging women who are with child to call a number where a person is waiting to talk them out of aborting their child. This is in addition to the constant, nationwide shake and rattle against a woman's choice. If we could focus the energy being expended to block the pro-choice block, we could power several large cities.
But once you move beyond the pro-life roadblocks, with their billboards, blogs, bombings and bombast; let a woman call that "helpful" number that is next to the slogan, "Life Begins at Conception" inquiring about how to feed, clothe, educate and provide medical care for the "precious" life that was saved. That call would quickly end with a lecture about personal responsibility, an admonishment about "leaching" off of the welfare system and zero assistance.
But who am I kidding, no such number exists. The Pro Life movement has never shown anything but disdain for each and every fetus after it coerces it to term.
4
Perhaps the answer is that most Americans don’t value children.
That is probably the honest answer.
What we spend money on is a pretty accurate assessment of what we value.
Why aren’t children particularly valued? Perhaps America is individualistic to such an extreme that other people’s children aren’t a personal responsibility. Perhaps race is a factor and children from other races or cultures aren’t a personal responsibility. Perhaps Americans feel that there are enough people in the country to run the place and there isn’t a scarcity of human resource.
Perhaps a lot of children are considered a burden, expense and a nuisance- certainly not an asset that should be cultivated.
I don’t say this to condescend and there ample flaws in a lot of countries including mine. However, admitting a hard truth is better than dancing around a problem.
As a mother, I often tell my children to observe what people actually do or don’t do. What people say is important is often a delusion.
3
So once again, Republicans only care about the "sanctity of life" when they can blame a (usually poor) woman for not upholding an impossible standard by herself, but forget all about it when they're asked to give literally anything to help support the raising of the child.
1
Until the whole system looks for practical solutions, our current system failure will continue.
Pitting seniors against children, healthcare against non negotiated drug costs and private insurance robbery, healthy food against endemic advertising and distribution of junk food, and in general unreality against reality. (That pitting against is a GOP ploy btw.)
People scream about regulation until their car fails, the uninsured guy destroys said car, their sewers back up, the electricity flickers, bridges fall, and only AFTER FAILURE do they allow for regulations and solutions. Other countries have workable solutions. This is crazy.
Cut waste, pay for stuff that works, give me value for my taxes.
2
Poor child care. An indifferent, underfunded education system. Hugely expensive post-high school education that drains the ability of young people to have financially secure lives.
It's like my generation wants to be the last one who saw the United States be a successful country.
3
To those who purport to be "Pro Life", I ask: where is your concern for those same "helpless babies" after they're born? In the U.S., a nation and economy where even two working parents struggle to support a family, how can parents work without safe and affordable child care? Don't those same "helpless babies" need education, medical care, nutritious food, and shelter? So easy to be "pro-birth"; so easy to turn your back on what's actually required to be pro-life.
6
"Why Does America Hate Its Children?"
Simply because a significant segment of the American society is misinformed and misguided. Being progressive is demonized and labeled as "socialist" or even "communist", all the while being "moderate" or even "conservative" is exulted and praised.
Where do we find programs that help the vast majority of a country's population? In progressive - mislabeled as "socialist" - countries.
Conservatives and moderates have no problem spending trillions of dollars on the military and the tax-cuts for the 1%, but have a problem with spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, free public education. They forget that a country's future largely depends on how educated and healthy its population is.
9
America's failure to value and support its children is due, at least in part, to its excessive, even toxic, devotion to "rugged individualism". I will never forget an incident nearly thirty years ago: Visibly pregnant and exhausted, I was coming home from work on a bus in NYC one evening. An older white man sniped at me that it was my fault for being pregnant. (I won't quote him; I doubt the Times would publish his exact words.) Notably, I am white, married and was then over age 30.
After my child was born and I was preparing to return to work, I learned that childcare in this country is a "your-on-your-own" situation. Even now, a generation later, it remains nearly impossible to find affordable, full-day childcare, even for parents with a steady income. And as for safety, well, again, you're on your own; regulation and enforcement of childcare standards are haphazard at best. This massive failure surely impacts children of color even more severely than white children, but it is toxic to all, and deeply corrosive to American society. By contrast, many other countries value and support children and their families. In Spain, for example, children can start public school at age 3. From Europe, to Korea, to Israel, and so many other developed nations, providing meaningful support to children and their families is considered essential to their societies, and is treated accordingly. America has much to learn, and a very long way to go, if we are to survive and thrive.
7
Where should an aging nation that will need a well educated, healthy, engaged young population to maintain a sustainable society place their priority on human investment? Put it in the children. The aging out and aged aren't going aren't going to be around to do the heavy lifting confronting the difficulties that are ahead. The blame for not acting belongs to those of who are in a position to act in favor of those who are powerless but choose not to. Children are the best investment any society can make that has visions of continuation. Children are some of the best people I have ever met. They were the greatest motivator for me during 30+ years of teaching.
5
There can be no doubt that American racism makes this problem worse, not least because many Americans erroneously believe that most welfare recipients are African-American. However, this ideology of dependency is much, much older than the 1980s; in fact it is much older than the 1880s, and it is part of our dubious heritage of British social thought. British attitudes have become much better attuned to reality since then, although there is constant push-back from the Thatcherite right, and current social supports for children are a shadow of what they were from World War II to the Thatcher era. Even in the 1880s there was plenty of evidence that the poor are the way they are because they are poor, not the converse. It was ignored then, and it is still being ignored now.
3
I am curious how much of the challenges kids face could be fixed simply by one parent staying home. It is a hard decision, I know. My wife decided to stay home with our children. I do not have a large income, 55k a year. We are able to make things work but we have to be intelligent with the resources we have. I think the problems often come from people thinking they need a much higher standard of living. Kids thrive with great love and attention, not trips to Disneyland. Our only debt is our mortgage and we live within our means. We are raising our kids, reading to them, and doing homework with them. The bonuses that come with a second income are not worth the challenges and turning our children over to someone else for the majority of their day even before school.
3
@Spencer
You do not live in an expensive area. Two hours out of Boston rent is running $2K ($3K in Boston) for 2 br and up then add health insurance at about $1200/mo and up for a family of three. I also suspect you commute costs and time to commute are far less. Plus my taxes went up with Trump's redo of the taxes to eliminate deductions prevalent on in Blue states.
5
@poslug Where we live is a choice. I do not live where I grew up. I chose a location where, with my education, I could get a job where I could support myself and a family. I have four children and if I made the choice to live in a more expensive area my wife and I may have chosen a smaller number. It is a matter of making choices that allow for the life we want and living within our means.
3
I couldn't agree with you more. Add to what you have said so well the fact that our education system is not properly supported by us "people", and we put Betsy DeVos of all people in charge of privatizing and destroying a system the wasn't that bad when I started school 75 years ago. We could learn a lot from places like Finland and other enlightened societies who seem, somehow, to love their children more than we do.
3
"Every advanced country mandates some form of paid leave for new mothers, typically three or four months — every country, that is, except America, which offers no maternity leave at all."
See how clever the rhetoric? "Mandates" means forces, as in: forcing employers to pay people while they're electing to be out of work. But our good author slips from "mandates" to "offers" to describe the fact that the United States does not force employers to pay people to stay home.
2
Donald Trump, in one of his most-notable campaign promises, promised to make child care available, to any family who needed it.
How come Trump’s child care promise is never being mentioned?
4
why? both dems and rep have channeled their love for children into the choice/abortion 'debate' kubuki theatre issue.
its easy to understand why the repubicans choose this as a signature issue and for the democrats it also gave them a strong issue, but the best analogy would be the marginot line - an endless battle that serves the rulers of either side.
1
In Quebec we have subsidized child care, today parents pay $10 per day per child with the government subsidizing the balance. The day care centres are regulated, and are generally very welcoming places. The day care centres are in every town, city and neighbourhood.
The program is popular, but not without problems, the biggest being the availability of a spot. But we wouldn’t give it up for all the guns in the USA.
6
The kind of child care which assures the better results for children and provides good supervision which parents work, is not inexpensive. Children require well child care, early childhood education, regular child development evaluations, social interactions well supervised, etc. It can cost most of what most families earn to obtain it. The loving care of a family member who offers babysitting mostly does not provide all of these services.
Good childcare follows a child throughout life, but to provide it to all presents the same challenges as affordable universal health care, affordable higher education, and good income jobs or support for all, funding which does not exist.
2
Some good points from Professor Krugman here, but I must disagree with the implied choice between universal health care and improved child care programs. Given that nations with universal single payer care spend far less than we do on health care, and given that a lack of health care contributes to negative outcomes for disadvantaged children, we not only need both but can obviously afford both improved child care and universal single payer health care.
3
@Matt
I don't think this op-ed disagrees with what you wrote.
The question is: what to focus on for the NEXT election? What to work on for the next 2 to 4 years? And what CAN be achieved, during this (very short) time period, in the current political climate?
That's when Krugman argues that massively focusing on Medicare for All, which will NOT be signed into law during the first term of the next presidency, and not talking about childcare at all, which IS possible during the next term, isn't the most effective strategy, and yet, because of the fact that Sanders turned Medicare for all into some litmus test proving that you're a non-corrupt politician, it is what most of the debates focus on today.
At the same time, it's VERY easy to build on Obamacare in such a way that the last 20 million now have insurance too (as the ACA was designed to make that easy), and the bills needed to get it done already passed the House, so IF we want REAL change and if we truly want universal healthcare, then on the topic of HC, it's what we should focus on now.
2
Nice random cheap shot at Bernie in the second to last paragraph, as if medicare for all wouldn't have significant benefits for children of families w/o healthcare or spending a disproportionate percentage of income on healthcare. That's cool...
3
Voting purges, weekday voting, and requiring transportation to got to a polling place go a long way to enhancing the voting power of the elderly and well-to-do (reducing voting by middle-class workers and parents). It's amazing to me how many school benefits are voted down in districts with large retirement communities.
6
@Michael Yes, the generation that 'Got theirs' as in pensions, affordable homes and free college, want to ensure that no one takes THEIR money for these kinds of benefits. Because if they need a government handout they are weak and undeserving.
Bernie Sanders has changed the discussion on health care, changing it from an entitlement to a right. Child care and education should also be rights of every citizen of the United States
1
@Moana I am 64. Neither my husband and I received pensions. Except for government jobs, pensions were pretty much gone by the time I entered the workforce. We could afford a house by both working long hours plus long commutes. For decades. It was not a great house and we worried about paying the mortgage. We did not get free college. We did not have children, did not have time for any given our work hours, and also did not have the money to have kids. Your assumption that all Boomers lived in the lap of luxury were wrong. Most of us didn't. I might also point out that many Boomers are now providing free daycare for their grandchildren, contributing to college funds for them, and other benefits. Instead of arguing that everything goes to seniors, why not think about why the defense budget seems to be infinite, yet there's never enough for social programs?
1
I was on board with your piece, Mr. Krugman, until you blamed Bernie Sanders for the nation's lack of attention to child care.
Sanders' concern for children is evident in every stump speech for the Green New Deal, which always includes some language like "preserving the planet for our children and grandchildren."
How about giving Sanders some credit for breathing life and credence into a platform for paying "living wages" rather than tearing him down whenever an opportunity presents itself?
Medicare for All is a consuming undertaking. How many causes can Sanders champion with concerted focus on his shoulders alone?
And why do you lay blame at the feet of a Democrat anyway for paying attention to this issue? Don't Republicans have children? Just couldn't resist an easy potshot at Sanders? Sure, why not throw a little direct disparagement into your column, too, to tamp down growing support for his candidacy?
I hope you will share your concerns about this issue with whomever the NY Times endorses.
5
Having a child in todays world is a CHOICE... and choice which comes with PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES. If you can not/ will not be able to meet those responsibilities (physical/financial/emotion/psychological), DON'T HAVE KIDS. Your choice to procreate does not oblige you to the fruits of my labor (ie. my taxes).
5
@Mystery Lits
I know exactly what you mean. In fact if I pay more in taxes, then I should get a priority lane on the expressway, cleaner water, better fire and police protection, and my own personal senator.
8
@Mystery Lits
1. So are you supportive of providing affordable birth control and improving access to abortion care? Because it's not a choice if you can't prevent it, or choose when you want to have a child.
2. Moving into suburbia is also a choice - why should I pay for maintaining additional roads, sewer infrastructure, and all the other costs that are incurred when new developments are built?
6
@Sheri DH I support affordable birth control.... Which we already have... condoms and pills are affordable for everyone. Full stop.
2
It is a sad state of affairs in this country when only those with considerable means can afford to stay home and care for newborn babies. Perhaps our (male) law makers should be required to take graduate-level courses in child development then work directly with children who suffer from attachment disorders before passing laws and policies that put corporate interests above those of our most vulnerable populations.
4
Stop assigning duties to the Federal government that are none of its business. Forcing single solutions to anything in a country as broad and diverse as the USA is not going to work, even if the Feds have a legitimate interest.
The push for universal child care just makes the States more in debt to Washington DC, which I'm sure is much to some people's liking. The Democrats persist in coming up with odious mandates for employers, most of whom, as the Dems themselves have made clear, are small businesses who can ill afford them. You can't claim to be a small business supporter if you keep ramming this stuff down their throats.
Leave child care to the states. And note that California, as always, is as much a laggard as anybody else in this area, despite their posturing.
6
I think it's insane that of everything you could have chosen the close this well thought out and eloquent piece with, you chose to Bernie-bash. Am I missing something? The rhetoric that discussing one social issue is equivalent to the dismissal of others is tired and dry. As if Medicare for All won't go a long way in helping not only children but everyone! Dividing the left— to what end?
6
I concur with Paul's argument. But I find it hilarious that he points out that this social problem became more severe due to Reagan-era welfare queen stereotypes - then lays part of the blame for not solving it on Bernie Sanders. Huh?
So Bernie Sanders isn't perfect enough for Paul. But Medicare-for-All would make sure CHIP stays funded, and help parents stay alive and healthy longer to care for kids. A $15 minimum wage would help working parents feed kids, and universal college would help them prosper.
Meanwhile, what about the guy in the White House? Is he exempted from his responsibilities to care about children?
8
America doesn't hate its children. It simply loves adults (mostly Boomers) above all else (oh, and money, that too of course). Boomers love themselves (and money) so much they don't care about their own children, or any children. Thank Ronald Reagan for that. When your focus is simply on "myself" and "money", all the time (which is what Ronnie taught us to do) then that's what you create, after 40 years. We are a country that makes money off its own children (student loans, opiate addiction, etc.) rather than take care of our children.
8
@Van Owen
You may be talking about the 1% more than Boomers. Check most Boomer women's savings, Soc Sec (often $500/mo), etc and it is barely enough to eat and put a roof over ones head plus pay for medical expenses even with Medicare. Add Viet Nam years, inability to get a bank loan or mortgage, being under paid, etc and I do not see your complaint matching most Boomers. The 1% in any age cohort I will grant you matches your assessment.
1
@Van Owen AMEN!
My husband was rural poor and grew up on welfare and food stamps. Children are the innocents here. They did not cause the life events such as divorce, factories leaving, drug use by the parent, etc., that ended with this very special population to be in need.
My husband, at least had a roof over his head and something to eat for 3 1/2 weeks out of the month. These benefits are not generous, they usually ran out of food the last few days of the month, and every winter had periods with no heat because there was no money to fill the oil tank.
My husband was fortunate. He is bright. His teachers encouraged him to go to college. He qualified for Pell Grants. He has had a successful career with a solid upper middle class salary.
5
One of my daughters was living in Germany when she had her first child. She and the baby were in the hospital for 5 days. When she came home a nurse came to see her several days a week and brought a small scale to weigh the baby.
I was amazed and impressed with the care and the concern. It was somewhat similar to the care I received in 1957 when I had my first child in Baltimore.
6
@Claire that happens in the US many times a day. In our state babies born on Medicaid are visited in their home after the baby is born. Cribs, diapers, etc are supplied if needed. We care about our kids but we do really need the parents to care the most.
2
Here, here! As a mother of 4 I can tell you that my children are shortchanged and that general public support for things like public schools, public childcare, universal daycare is not as high as it should be. This especially worries me as society is aging so most likely my children will be supporting a tsunami of aging adults who will want the same financial benefits their parents had.
2
Child care is merely the tip of the iceberg. The quality of education that we are providing our children with is appalling. Instead of free college for students, let's put that money on providing them with a solid 21st century education in preK-12. Start a second language at age 4 like most other countries. Teach global geography and global religion - don't just give students the day off for Diwali but teach them the basics of Hinduism. Ensure that students have a good vocabulary and can write grammatically correct English. Provide healthy school lunches and teach students about healthy food and how to prepare it. Etc.
7
@CDN
True! Not everyone needs college. I was majoring in English Literature because it was closest to majoring in "books." I didn't want to be an English teacher; I just wanted to read because I was curious about the world. When I got to college the whole world was there, waiting for me every time I put down those books! I should have joined the Merchant Marine and learned skills in practical fields. I had no idea.
I believe we are at a point of no return. Those in wield real power are only concerned with their own and the preservation of necessary resources. As we advance AI and automation there will be less need for large numbers of people.
This group will continue to restrict resources until their vision of the future is complete. Tell me Trump and his party see it any other way.
After teaching in the public schools for 30 years I always, no matter where I was, had the same thought:
How can we take care of children solely based on the circumstances to which they were born? In other words, only the lucky ones who are born to privilege have a right to a healthy, good life? The answer, of course, is no.
All children have a right to healthy lives, regardless of the circumstances of their parents.
Nobody asks to be born, much less gets to pick their parents. For God's sake, the playing field must be leveled for our children.
6
Here in the Bay Area, I hear all the time about the high cost of raising children. Monthly child care costs for one child are often higher than monthly rent. For two children, it can be higher than your mortgage. And that's just to watch the kids while parents are at work. What I don't understand is, how are people raising children in the rest of the country? I mean, with so many Americans living paycheck to paycheck, how can they afford child care and the other costs of raising a child? Or, if they aren't paying for child care, what is the child doing while the parents are working?
The concept of "childcare for all" is essentially just a subsidy for having children. Japan has a program similar to this in order to combat population decline, because unlike America they don't have large numbers of immigrants to offset stagnating native births.
The issue in Japan is people aren't getting married and having kids until much later in life, and that's if they do marry, and the same problem exists in the US though to a lesser degree. Like the US, women in Japan increasingly opt for a professional life in their youth and like the US now outnumber men at many universities, and like the US the expected work ethic of professionals leaves little time for an involved personal life, for men or women.
This seems to be a symptom of first world nations in general. Even in the much vaunted EU where maternity leave is more common, birth rates are low and/or declining among native populations, and immigration is seen as a vital need to maintain the population.
So while I don't oppose maternity leave as a policy, I don't see it as a solution to the problem of low birth rates. It has not solved the problem in Europe or anywhere else, because the simple fact is that women in developed countries increasingly do not want to have children. The natural consequence of this is either a shrinking population, and a collapse of the welfare system that depends on a growing tax base, or mass immigration that will bring unprecedented cultural changes to this nation and others.
1
The men who run any business show epitomized in our present real life fable have no concern for anyone save the guy reflected in their mirror.
It really is unfortunate for most and perhaps the majority of us that after millenia of sharpening their knives they have, established such a loyal following.
It is time for a woman, probably Amy Klobuchar to run the show assisted by the cast of characters with whom she shares the stage.
Perhaps optimistc and naive but my sense is all the women and probably all the men with whom she shares/d the stage would be willing and able participants in her government.
Most every one of the readers of this column know our nation needs to shed itself of Mr Trump and his iequally selfish aides. Rather than leading our nation forward they are taking us down the well worn garden path and a pragmatic woman who is true to her sensible values is just the person we need.
I live close to a state line between a very progressive and a very crazy state. My wife works in Idaho, we live in Washington. In Idaho, child care is significantly cheaper. Why? Regulation. They have more kids per caregiver.
My point here is that we need national funding, national regulations, and a national push to improve the situation. The kids in Idaho need better care. The parents in Washington need cheaper care.
3
The start to the cure of what ails America is going to be getting republicans out of power, and keeping them out.
Billions of dollars in subsidies to already profitable corporations is their idea of a free market capitalism.
But spending millions to help our fellow citizens with rent, groceries, and child care "Well, that just plain communism."
On the debate stage Bernie and Elizabeth are asked limited questions, usually pointed at their M4A proposals, by pundits looking to score points with editors, advertisers, and other pundits. So don't blame the candidates for the questions asked at these debates.
The truth is that we will either elect a government for the oligarchs, run by a fascist party with an imperial president (king), or we will elect democrats who are at least willing to try to govern for all of US.
7
Let's not forget deficit spending for tax cuts for the rich that our children and grandchildren are on the hook for. But, hey, look at how high the stock market is. :(
2
Thank you for writing about this Mr. Krugman. My husband and I just had our first child and I have felt gaslighted by society, given that my shock and indignation over generally low state-established standards for childcare are met with "yeah, it's tough but they [the infants/children] will get used to it." I asked myself, does "used to it" mean not getting basic needs met in a timely way, and being sick constantly due to being in a room with 14 other infants?
I would not have moved back to my home state of Louisiana had I realized that the standard in Louisiana is up to 12 toddlers for a single caregiver at a childcare center. As I write it I still can't believe it. In contrast, the standard in my husband's home state of Michigan is up to four toddlers for a single caregiver. I wish I could bold these disparate numbers.
The standard recommended by the American Academy of Pediatric (and which is supported by research in my own arena of psychology) is a maximum of four toddlers to a single caregiver.
It never occurred to me that as a nation we would have no minimum standards established federally to protect and invest in the healthy development of our children. And, this doesn't touch the fact that the cost of daycare is prohibitively expensive for most families.
5
@Sandra Coulon I was just thinking about the same things. Living on a state line, i see cheap and bad in one side, expensive and good on the other.
To be fair to my state, the expensive care can be subsidized if you are low income.
The only Presidential candidate with a detailed plan for child welfare dropped out of the race -- Julian Castro; further evidence that children's issues are off the radar. It's worth noting that the United Nations is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the most popular (in terms of countries ratifying) treaty in its history -- the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The convention has helped advance children's policies around the world. The only country that has not ratified the Convention? The United States, of course.
1
So much of what ails society starts in childhood; unwanted children, abused and neglected children, impoverished children, children born to addicted mothers or in jail. If we valued our next generations as we maintain we do, we would make sure that all children feel secure and loved, that their psyches are not trampled and that they are nutritiously fed and housed. If our children were taught more about healthy relationships as well as critical thinking skills (in school if not at home) that would go a long way to making sure their own progeny would ultimately fare better. Some parents must share in the blame, too; sometimes all that is necessary is that the parents engage with their children instead of paying constant attention to social media – rather than merely providing them with unlimited material goods. Raising children is a selfless task – I did not truly appreciate this until I had my own and recall telling my parents how much I appreciated their hard work and sacrifice. If we choose to have children we need to do our very best by them.
3
As a young person, I would argue that the only way to ensure protections and welfare for children is to extend the vote to minors. It is unconstitutional that, despite being an American citizen, I have no say in the laws that govern me. However, I understand that any discussion of such reform is political suicide. Only Andrew Yang has even discussed the enfranchisement of minors.
The United States is only one particular bad offender in a developed world that is out to get--or get rid of--children.
Why? Because children don't make money for others unless they are illegally or immorally exploited. Investment in their well-being, an investment in the human future, is time and money taken away from adult prosperity today and comfort or the productivity craved by employers right now.
What children can do is spend money or encourage their parents to spend money. Thus we have a vast video game industry that pays psychologists not to help entertain but to encourage addictive, helpless behavior. The indifference to children's well-being online is reminiscent of the callous approach to child labor in the early years of industrialization. Sure, the kids aren't crawling under looms or down chimneys, but they are being exploited just the same.
The developed world's treatment of its children is increasingly short-sighted, counterproductive, and, in the case of North American nations, deeply immoral.
1
Paul Krugman, you're asking the wrong question. The question should be: Why does America hate working mothers? This is who the ire of these policies is directed towards.
The answer is probably multifaceted and likely includes aspects of sexism, religious beliefs, and just plain misogyny. These things just seem to permeate American laws and culture but I'm no sociologist.
What I am is an American working mother, and I'm really struggling for the global reasons you outline in your article, and the more specific day-to-day reasons other readers bring up in the comments.
Thanks for writing this column. It underlines the fact that these American policies may be aimed at working mothers but at the end of the day it's the children who get hurt worst.
PS-- I'm voting for Warren.
9
In the early eighties, I was working in a high status, high paying job on Wall Street. With two masters degrees-including an MBA-I was earning in the top 4% of all American working females. Then I got pregnant. I calculated the cost of full time child care (my hours frequently extended far later than five in the evening), clothing, commutation, and housekeeping-OUCH! Next I looked at what was happening in my industry-banking. I saw the consolidation in the financial services that was to come. I saw that the glass ceiling, somewhat penetrable in the seventies and early eighties, was becoming concrete. Although I was earning 50% more than my husband, I left my job to take care of the children (another was to arrive a few years later.) His job in a helping profession was more secure than mine, even though I was highly respected and well paid. My days on Wall Street would have been numbered-and as a woman, I knew I would have been let go sooner than a man. If someone like me could not juggle the numbers to make it work, what about that single mother working in the bodega?
4
With all due respect, plenty of women make it work, especially those in the 'top 4%' salary range - if they are the main breadwinner.
1
@Cal
Perhaps in Maine, much harder in other locals. Eighty hour work weeks, lack of job mobility, long commutes and hostile work environments are exceptionally hard to overcome.
1
In graduate school in 1967, I picked up a study of early childhood education. Over 300 pages it reported on study after study that showed that government investment in schools and teachers paid off much more than the costs.
Over the years I have come to realize the problem with this well-accepted notion. Politically, it does not pay off. By the time the quality education reaches its fruition, the politician who promoted it has ended his career.
But tax cuts pay off immediately. Cut taxes and Americans will vote for the tax cutter. Raise taxes, for example to increase aid to education, and kiss your political career good-bye.
Can a candidate run on the promise to help children in ways that pay off fifteen years from now? It is awfully hard for elderly voters to cast votes for an effort that will never benefit them, and so many people who are sure to vote are in that class.
My solution? Campaign for the youth vote.
2
Are there no economists in the house? Or is the economy in such a mysterious shape that economists have nothing to write about?
It would seem so- all PK can think about when Dow goes over 29 300 is "why does America hate its children?"
Surely the topic should be how to get chronically underemployed, undereducated, those on intergenerational welfare on their feet. But no, it's much more easy to be woke, and complain.
3
@Kai
Good morning Kai.
Mr Krugman makes the case that money spent on child welfare, development and education pays off by making the children more likely to become well adjusted, productive adults.
If this is true, they will be better educated, less likely to be the next generation on welfare, and are more likely to have a good paying job. I think that he made a classic capitalist economic argument for the accumulation of human capital.
You are correct that the click-bait subtext "why does america hate it's children" is nonsensical.
As to your point about the Dow being over 29 thousand, take an old man's perspective. Think 1971, 1987, 2002, 2008; diversify and have plenty of dry powder (liquid assets). The current value of the Dow is not indicative of the health and strength of the economy. Think about public and private debt. Is the housing market strong? What about manufacturing employment? What is the state of our infrastructure? I look at these and a lot of other indicators and I think the economy is worrisome (reference the dates listed above).
1
@AnEconomicCynic
"The current value of the Dow is not indicative of the health and strength of the economy. Think about public and private debt. "
I agree. But you'd expect an economist to talk about this rather playing (badly) at being a social worker.
A government policy that denies children the help they need to become healthy, well educated, and reasonable adults is an attack on the entire society. Kids don't ask to be born. When are are, parents and adults are conscripted into a moral social contract. We deny them the right to vote, so we have to be responsible for them. It is a deplorable policy to ignore the needs of the future. Why bother being a good person if there's no future in it?
1
@Max People who choose to have children are indeed conscripted into a moral social contract, for their own children. People who chose not to have children are not.
The whole American experiment seems designed to traumatize children. Crazy gun laws, no maternity pay, no healthcare that's affordable, no childcare provisions, climate change denial, throw in a few anti-vaxxers and you have a recipe for a society that appears to be self-destructing. I live overseas now and it grieves me that the place I grew up in and thrived is becoming a basket case among nations. And it's not the old folk who are suffering, it's the young people - my sibling's kids aren't having children because of the cost to give birth, and the expense to raise them. Who can blame them? Americans now eat their young.
427
@Sue I'd add a toxic environment in terms of things like the pervasive marketing of unhealthy food. I have foreign friends who made a point of having their children born here, for the citizenship, but were determined to raise them abroad, because they consider America a terrible place to raise kids.
245
@Sue
Only those of us who have had the good fortune to live abroad can see the stark difference. Children are held in high esteem right down to the French who give 'mother's money" regardless of whether or not a mom works or is a French citizen, and the Finnish who have the best education system in the world with recruiting of the best and the brightest to be teachers.
I wish there was a way to get another citizenship to have the chance at a better quality of life; not until we better educate our populace that taxes are an investment in "us", for our greater good, will people ever get that they are truly missing the good life.
49
@Paul Krugman It's great to have options, but an American passport is not cheap due to citizenship based taxation and FATCA. As of adulthood, your friends' kids will have to file taxes with the IRS and report bank account data no matter where they live. They will also be rejected by some smaller non-American banks abroad.
On that subject, I'd love to read your opinion on a wealth tax. Bloomberg dismissed it on Colbert as tried and failed in other countries, but I feel he's either misinformed or disingenuous.
America's worldwide taxation system really is unique (apart from Eritrea).
I have a hard time believing the ultra rich would denounce their citizenship in favor of one "purchased" in Malta some Caribbean country, which would come with heavy restrictions on US travel and assets.
13
Elizabeth Warren does seem to be the one candidate that knows, really knows, the struggles of raising children. It is one thing to know that families everywhere struggle, it’s another to have really experienced it for oneself— the daily struggle a working mom has (not so many dads in my experience) in facing the questions such as—do I send my sick child to school or can I afford to take the day off? Snow days, weather delays, early dismissals, teacher in service days, school vacations, sick children, there is nothing nada, zilch, in the public sphere to fully support parents in all these situations. I almost laugh at the pablum of promised maternity leave. Maternity leave is just a beginning. There are fully 18 years—and beyond in which a child needs a parent, and there is nothing now in public policy to support a parent to lead typical life of work that also allows them to fully be a parent without a great deal of luck and super extraordinary skills. I’m not saying that it can’t be done. You either have the luck and skill to land high paying jobs to afford high quality child care in your child bearing years or you cobble stuff together, but public policy does not help you.
In this, I agree with the column. The care of our young should be the priority. Billions are allocated for “national security”— just who or what are we keeping safe?
834
@Suzanne - Even with professional careers, there are still those days with sick children, snow days, teacher meetings, etc., when some kind of alternate child care must be found. My husband and I, and his older system, are retirees providing part time child care for his grandchildren, along with his retired sister, and we're the ones who step in on the days the kids can't go to school or day care for whatever reason. It can take a lot of juggling. Think of all the people who don't have loving family members happy to step in. I certainly didn't have that help when I was a young mother - which is one reason I'm so glad to be able to help this time around.
54
I think you’re also forgetting the amount of time Andrew Yang has spent talking about his family and raising children with autism. He speaks about rising levels of depression and anxiety among the youth. He speaks about raising a son with autism and the toll it takes on families. He is equally knowledgeable about what’s going wrong in America regarding our children.
61
@Dylan B He hasn't had to do this without enough money. She has. And that's the issue that is being addressed here.
31
The United States was a fairly great place until 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan. That is where the decline began, and look where it has taken us. Bad as Nixon was, he looks progressive compared to what came after 1980. We can only hope that now is the bottom, that there will be a reaction to the so obviously destructive present administration, and we will turn things around. Starting with the children is a good plan.
1023
@dairubo it was (I grew up in the 50s and 60s)...we were not well off (paycheck to paycheck), but my parents could raise three kids, and my mother never had to work outside the home...no government assistance, no paying for child care, parent home when you got home from school (even came home for lunch in elementary school)...those were the days...
27
@dairubo Reagan was a terrible President, but as someone who was 19 years old in 1980, things were not "fairly great".
19
@dairubo
Nixon was a flawed person, but he had one trait that the GOP of today does not have, he actually cared about the country. The GOP in Nixon's day was no angel, it started the "Southern Strategy" to key on white racism to get them to vote GOP, but Nixon himself ended up spending more on social programs than Johnson had, and in some ways he had a heart. On the other hand, the GOP of today is the party of Ayn Rand, demonize the poor while saying holy hosannah to Christ and slashing any kind of safety net they have.
29
If a Republican is financially successful, he needs to justify himself to himself by believing that his personal success is entirely a result of his own efforts and other people's lack of financial successful is due to their moral shortcomings. If a Republican is not financially successful, he believes it's because those immoral poor folk are stealing his job or the government is taxing him to pay for their Cadillacs. In either case, it's a self-centered justification that requires blaming others to fell better about themselves.
2
Thank you for this! It's sad and shameful how hard we make it to raise children in this country. No wonder the birth rate is dropping.
2
The Republicans rail against any form of government assistance as being socialism and then they foist some joker like Trump on us. Socialism works for the benefit of average people. Republicans are mainly concerned about tax cuts for the wealthy.
1
You'll never go broke in America betting on its capacity to enact policies that disadvantage people of color.
While, Krugman is right that it costs more to not provide benefits for children, the fact is that this argument will never sway the right. The reason is that they don't care. They will do everything they can to not pay for childcare benefits, then to not pay for the education that would help that child succeed, or the food stamps or insurance that might improve their health. They will not support livable minimum wages that allow their families some dignity in life, even when they *are* working hard, or meaningful unemployment or job retraining benefits when the jobs disappear.
Basically, as far as the right is concerned, once that child is out of the womb (because before then, they have *all* the rights), they'll watch them die on the streets and tell them that they're lazy bums and they deserve to do so, before they offering the slightest bit of assistance. Because, you know, that's what Jesus would do.
4
@Josie Very well articulated and spot on.
Maybe this article should be re-phrased in a few different ways... why does America dislike 90% of women and children? Why does America find lower/middle class women and children "less than" others?
Because there is family leave, on-site day care, day care subsidies, flex time, telework, etc... for those who work in the corporate world and federal government agencies. Working Mother magazine releases a list of their top 100 companies who offer all of the things above... the chart (albeit from 2017) gives a full breakdown. There may not be a huge push for these as a universal benefit, because those families already have what is theirs... and lets face it, they are majority of the voting constituency since they have the money and political leverage.
As for the federal gov... there is on-site day care, or remote affiliated day care, for civilians and military members. Many of them have been long established even before corporate America caught on. Examples: Langley Day Care at the CIA has been around since 1989, and the one at the NSA since 1992. The Pentagon had accommodations prior to the 9/11 attacks. About a year ago, the House opened their own day care... the Senate has had one. The list continues, as well as the Child Care Subsidy Program for those who are on the lower-mid GS pay scale. Flextime and telework is available for most employees, so working parents definitely take advantage of that to schedule their days accordingly.
Only if it was easy to bridge the gap!
When we don't support Earth in America and therefore, children are not loved. We can't love people while simultaneously destroy Earth. We're Earthlings. Even with our technology, we're still Earthlings. And look how we destroy what our Mother gives us.
Professor Krugman doesn't elaborate on health care. Many countries, and not just those in the developed world, do far better than the US in providing prenatal care, early childhood care and immunization a low cost. The current system is shameful, and Medicare-for-All will only begin to fix the problem.
Here are data on immunization rates. The US is 27th.
https://data.oecd.org/healthcare/child-vaccination-rates.htm
And then there's France. French friends resident here go home to have their babies. An uncomplicated pregnancy and delivery is virtually free, and if there are complications the family won't face catastrophic expenses.
1
Paul,how about how we hurt our children's future with regard to the environment.
1
Why don’t we devote more resources to child care? Because we stopped creating new social programs back in the days when women still stayed home with the kids and men went out to work. So there’s still an attitude that if a woman wants to go out to work, it’s up to her to figure out how to pay for her kids’ daycare. Oh and BTW, she’s probably a bad mom, too
The problem is America just isn't that advanced.
2
Why does America hate the childless!? That's my Q. Why are the childless subsidizing those who chose the child-life-style? Why do the childless get none of the perks those with children get? The childless pay more in taxes, no matter their bracket. They also pay equal in school taxes. Why? Contribute? Sure. But equal or even more? Tha'ts wrong. The childless don't get paid work leave. But they very often have to pick up the slack of the parent having to leave work early,or when the parents go on leave, and then come back to their jobs. No extra income for those left behind...
You wanna have kids, great. Just dont expect the rest of us to subsidize you for doing what is likely the results of your apathy. "Oops, honey guess what...? Im pregnant...again...."
I jest...a little, but there are issues here that need to be dealt with. Namely, parental leave demands the offering of an equal perk for the childless. Only fair. Those left behind to pickup the slack of those absentee employees, need to be compensated. And if child-care is paid by an employer, then the childless need some sort of extra benefit as well. Maybe by paying less for equal health insurance.
This is the problem this nation is having...we're caught up trying to micro-managing every gap and "injustice". Instead of truly aiming for more egalitarianism in all aspects of our lives.
Everyone wants benefits and special treatment, just not for everyone else.
3
@Boregard
"Those left behind to pickup the slack of those absentee employees, need to be compensated."
Of course they should. And if they're not, then that's an issue caused by your company failing to properly staff matters so that you don't have to pick up slack or failing to compensate you for the work you're doing. Not a problem that your fellow citizens are causing to you endure.
I'm childfree by choice but your attitude is just gross.
1
There are days when I think that the corporatists running the country have made a basic calculation that they'd like the lower classes, or at least most of them, to shrivel and die off. Their labor is no longer necessary, so why should we subsidize their existence? If you can't get a job, you shouldn't breed, and if you do the result is your problem. Oh, and by the way, no birth control or abortion--abstinence only. That is basically the message sent by Republicans. Along with the healthcare message of "Don't get sick," and "If you get sick, die quickly."
1
Because they are noisy, messy, and expensive.
2
Most adults are narcissists, much like the president (he is a common man), and so they don't want their children to take a different path from them and do better than them, because it would suggest that they aren't the great people their own mind tells them they are. So, they force their children to become them, and in most cases that is being an serf. They insist that their children believe in their cult, their politics, and most importantly their subservience to wealthy people.
The majority of Americans don't want their children to do better than them. That's just a fact.
C’mon. No child can hold a candle to Ayn Rand.
3
You blame Bernie at the end? One of the only Democratic candidates who are fighting for government-paid-preschool and maternity/paternity leave? Now that's hateful.
2
"the bums on welfare, the welfare queens driving Cadillacs."
And what about the farm bums on crop price supports and the corporate welfare queens driving Cadillas? Not to mention the Pentagon Plutocrats who get to roll in cash like Scrooge McDuck in his piles of gold coins?
3
I completely agree with this editorial. But I would add one more thing: America really hates its old people.
1
Why does America hate its children by not bothering to pass any kind of gun reform and letting our children be murdered in their school rooms every week? Not only do we feed them like farm animals with school lunches, we throw those lunches out when their parents slip behind in paying for them and let them go hungry.
The treatment of American children is very short-sighted and cruel.
2
America will never have universal child care programs for the same reason it will never have universal healthcare. We are too divided by race, ethnicity, region, and class to want our tax dollars to go to all those people we don't like, but mainly we are too racist.
3
If you expect the "pro-family values" and "pro-Christian morals" GOP to take any action that actually reflects those concepts and helps the nation's children then expect to wait an eternity. If only they devoted the same time and effort to bettering the lives of born children as they do to what happens in a woman's uterus.
1
Can’t afford kids? Don’t have them. Please. Too many humans on the planet. We don’t need anymore.
4
you seem to be blaming Bernie for the media's lack of coverage of him.
1. Get the kids away from TV.
2. Get the kids away from TV.
3. Teach the kids instead.
Because as minors the law treats children all equally as a protected group rather than splintered off into tribes. So the tribal ideologues among us (read: deplorables) see children as “the other” and, therefore, a threat to their self-centered tribe.
"I went to my congressman and he said quote,'I'd like to help ya son , but you're too young to vote' "
Eddie Cochran
1
You say "whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, I hope he or she will give our nation’s shameful treatment of children the attention it deserves" and also note that Warren has a comprehensive, fully-financed plan for universal child care.*
Shouldn't we put two and two together and say that this is one of many excellent arguments for Elizabeth Warren to be the Democratic nominee?
*Warren's plan is here: https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-plan-for-universal-child-care-762535e6c20a
1
Make no mistake. The cause are Rich Religious Republicans.
2
Children do not vote and they don't mobilize the economy. There you have it!
Reading down your column, I wondered how far I'd get before you blamed it all on Bernie Sanders.
1
"America" does not hate its children.
Republicans hate them.
It may not even be real hatred so much as what they have to do to those children to create the dystopia they need to keep themselves in power looks like an act of hatred.
1
"“Medicare for all,” which won’t become reality anytime soon"
Especially when prominent pundits keep nay-saying it.
Americans don’t want to feed children. Americans don’t want to provide health care for children. Americans will not regulate guns so that children can feel safe in school. Americans insult children who are not white. Americans don’t want mothers to be able to care even for infants. Americans don’t want to help families. But oh how Americans love the rich. And war.
2
I want to point to a segment from a CBS Sunday News show on school lunches served in France:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovO18E-hgew
See also Anthony Bourdain's visit to a 2nd grade lunchroom in Lyon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nth_j2jhsM
The values shown are worthy of discussion. Don't call it socialism. Socialism rightly implies Soviet austerity and empty shelves. Central planning can't beat the free market. Call it caring. It sure isn't conservative.
Trump cut SNAP so 688,000 fewer qualify for family food assistance starting in April. The heart of a conservative is clogged with fast food. Food insecurity? Get a job.
2
When articles like these appear, I would like to see an additional paragraph or a follow-up article on how the ordinary person can help - something beyond the usual, “Vote!” or “Give money.” Show us what has been done, help us to be involved, don’t just tweak our emotions.
How does one respond to the blatant disrespect of Bernie Sanders and his many supporters (yes, I am one) by the New York Times. Bernie has a proposal to make healthcare affordable for everyone in this country - a single payer healthcare system which is hardly a radical idea, and indeed is implemented in many other countries - and NYT refers to it as a progressive purity test and bright shiny object? Should presidential candidates stop proposing policies which could improve the lives of American citizens for fear that these policies might actually garner media attention?
Perhaps someday the NYT will write an opinion piece which discusses the many benefits of a single payer healthcare system. Until then, the NYT will continue using its voice to advocate the systemic oppression of working class Americans and call it "incremental progress."
Will I see this comment as a Times Pick? Doubt it.
2
So 'part of the blame' for the sorry state of many to most of American children's present, or their future possibilities goes to, wait for it, Bernie Sanders, the can't be bought by billionaires guy who has advocated for income and social justice equality, organizing for working people's rights, and fairness, against greed and cynical amorality for decades?
Paul Krugman, who I read for decades and have admired in the past, are you kidding? OMG.
Wake up, Paul, you've fallen. Can you get up and return to your senses?
1
Think 1973. When the very youngest of our children can be aborted as a matter of convenience simply because they live inside the body of a mother who, in the great majority of cases, engaged in the consensual act that created that new life, we give children very little value. It is no surprise that older children, essentially the same creation as the unborn but bigger, are treated so terribly.
All life is sacred, though, including fertilized eggs they say, but don’t dare ask for disability or healthcare if the child is deformed; don’t ask for help raising them; don’t ask for food stamps to feed them; and publicly shame those little sacred children if they don’t have lunch money. That’s the Republican “pro-life” agenda.
3
Good article, sure could do without the reference to the entirely media-made "Warren-Sanders spat". Talk about a worthless discussion!
1
I've never understood why there's fervent support for the unborn and then upon birth the attitude changes to "got mine, now go get yours."
5
Your article is somewhat mis-titled. It should more accurately be worded "Why America Hates its Poor Children" but then most readers (at least foreign observers like myself) would already know much of the answer to that question.
4
We don’t hate “our” children we hate a bunch of children who really don’t exist outside hateful twisting of statistics.
We hate “their” children - the ones who “everyone knows” are overbred by “those folks” for a bigger “government handout”.
The ones those few who will never benefit directly from AFDC or “food stamps”, even paid leave to care for a newborn and a guarantee of a job as soon as they can return ...
The demagogue-created children of parents who really don’t want kids except they “benefit” from them.
And those who buy the demagoguery, the lies, twisted statistics - and don’t read the details about who proposed changes in the law would benefit - the people they see every time they look in a mirror.
Paid family leave, jobs to return to and daycare only benefit parents with good jobs they want to return to!
Sure, some programs help poorer people, including a lot of working poor who deserve raises, more than they help the “middle class” and their “betters”.
But better health care, school lunches, programs to help working people with kids would, in the end, help us all.
Now to stop people from listening to the lies - oh, that would have meant better schools for the past 70 years, but there must be a way to say - “the following people will benefit from better programs for parents”, flashing an image from the cell-phone camera they get their “news” from right below.
And yet, these Western and Northern European countries that have fantastic pro child and pro family social policies have abysmal birthrates. Why?
1
I've been reading Dr. Krugman for perhaps 20 years. I don't know if i have disagreed with him even once. But certainly I never saw something that shocked me like this: For our decades-long lack of attention to the welfare of children, Bernie Sanders is to blame? Huh???
Donald Trump & his people couldn't have thought that one up. OMG, what is Dr. K. thinking? Or drinking?
1
Thank you for talking about this. We obsess over the unborn and neglect the ones that are already here. Stop talking about abortion so dang much. Let's talk about caring for pregnant women appropriately and proper care for all children. Let's be like other civilized countries.
1
America doesn’t hate its children- it just loves dollar bills more.
1
We don’t hate our own children - we just don’t want to support other people’s kids.
3
Obviously Americans hate children. Today I stood behind a mother with a sick child at my local CVS. She gasped when she saw the price of her child’s medicine and left it on the counter. (I have done the same. ) Just this week I received another GoFundMe. A neighbor needs help paying for treatment for his seriously ill child. Unaffordable health care—even for children.
That’s hate.
My granddaughter, a first grader, is subjected to lock down drills. She knows she could be killed her classroom, in her church, at the mall. The word “gun” scares her. But even the mildest gun regulation cannot be passed.
That’s hate.
5
I don't hear any children complaining. We could always be better but first take a look at the children in the world who don't have parents, go to bed hungry and are left to fend fo themselves then look at what we've got. What's really a shame Paul is how you dis Bernie.
1
Excellent childcare starts with daddy, and or mommy having a well paying stable job with benefits!!!!!
Our unemployment rate is impressive. Our underemployment rate is miserable!!!!!
Employed Americans sometimes have to choose between filling a prescription and eating that week!
3
I am very angry at my generation, the boomers for going to the government trough and supping deeply at benefits for seniors! Health care, social security, tax benefits etc.
We have dumped on our children massive debt, no health care and massively expensive higher education cost. And job benefits we take for granted gone. We have our pensions. What do our children have? Goose doodle. I can explain that if you wish.
We have been greedy beyond comprehension and to heck with our children.
Oh...we gave our children a massive prison system and corporate farm subsidies and the trillion dollar F35 fighter that has a range shorter than its shadow.
Oh...150 billion dollars in aggregate costs of gun violence each year...
What else. Please help me.
VietnamVet
1
@Michael Seniors paid into Social Security for decades. Many have been forcibly retired in their 50s due to ageism. Medicare is not free. Why blame seniors for taking what they paid for to get by? And why pit them against children? Why not, for example, think about how much money goes to the Defense Department budget?
In my experience the Canadians don't. And they are American. Because America is a continent, not a country.
What a clever ending: It’s Bernie Sanders’ fault for Americans not being focused on the welfare of children because Bernie has put so much emphasis on Medicare for All! I can’t stop laughing!
This argument by Pulitzer-prize winning economist Paul Krugman would have fit beautifully into a Mel Brooks comedy!
In fact, he’s making Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins look like serious editorialists!
Professor Krugman, I’ll see you and raise you. Why do Americans hate their children so much they abuse, rape and torture them. Every week I see another article where an eleven year old girl goes missing or some child is killed in a parental “murder suicide”.
Mothers drown babies. Young teens are abducted and raped. Fathers take children hostage in amber alerts.
Basically, we are a sick country and I dare anyone to deny it.
Although your article is right on, answer me this before we get to your question.
America is a very hateful Nation, a Nation that thrives on the sound byte and hatred.
The Evangelists crave power and they have used their voting bloc as a sledgehammer. They wish to deny abortion rights to women and then finally abandon women and their children. This is all similar to our solution of mass incarceration, cage everything and then ignore. The wish is for this nation to be ruled by wealthy, white powerful men who will decide.
This is where America lies, with the hatred of women, mothers, and their children. Men have only one job, the fun of impregnating and abandoning. American society is not willing to pay for these children, shelter, food, healthcare, and education costs money. This takes money out of the pockets of the wealthy.
Krugman…still slandering Bernie Sanders after all these years.
High crime rates in the consequence of the culture of "hating American children".
Two considerations:
-- If you cannot afford children, don't have them. Paying for your decision to breed is your responsibility.
-- If there are no jobs where you are, move. Remember the Dust Bowl? People left to go to where the jobs were.
3
It is not the government’s responsibility to raise children. It is the parents’ responsibility. If you can’t provide what your child needs, then you have no business having them. In this country the people least able to afford them are the people who have the most children, then they complain that they are poor and no one helps them. It costs money to raise children and if you don’t have it, you shouldn’t look to others to foot your bill. How many single mothers on public assistance have child after child, often by different fathers, without the means to even take care of themselves? The rate of out of wedlock births is out of control. Is it America that hates kids? No, it is the irresponsible people who have them knowing they can’t give them any sort of decent life. Those are the people you should be lecturing about hating kids.
2
to overcome the fear of the others , why not
1. restrict benefits to only two children per mother{at a time of climate catastrophe for which overpopulation is the main factor it's essential that people act responsibly }
1a. abortion services provided with due counseling and pregnancy prevention care and permit easier access to family planning measures for all
&
at a second phase [once people see that heavens didn' t
fall ] extend the benefits
1
@Baron95: Great example of the thinking that is behind the cruelty to children.
The USA's cruelty to it's poorer population knowd no bounds. Shameful.
America simply hates its poor.
No matter what age they are.
1
We care enough to make sure they are born, right? Is that not enough?
/s
Once again, the Times finds an opportunity to take a swipe at Bernie Sanders -- even in an article that doesn't analyze him or his ideas.
Thanks to the conservative policy of greed and the devil take the hindmost, we have gone from oligarchy and kleptocrocy to a third world nation with a big military and a tin pot dictator straight out of Orwell.
In the new America ignorance leads the charge into a planet which cannot support life and we shall soon have tornadoes of fire scorching the earth, the Stable Genious says that climate warming is a hoax and science is to be ignored by presidential proclaimation.
1
America does not hate its children. Republican Americans hate children. This shouldn't surprise us. They hate everybody else, too.
3
Americans are exceptional. At not treating all American children well. Shame.
Keep voting republican if you want to cut child care programs and food for kids.
1
America does NOT hate children. America hates POOR PEOPLE, BLACK PEOPLE, HISPANIC PEOPLE, etc.
White, rich children are protected, educated (privately, please, or in some "church" school paid for by state taxes so rich white people will not have to spend any of their entitled money=FLORIDA and "vouchers").
Evidently the philosophy now being carried out in our various levels of government is simply that rich whites are to be favored as abject fear of losing a white America looms.
Thus, we provide whatever is necessary to ensure white success and we have more than enough white kids to fill all the IMPORTANT jobs and roles in society in the future.
Therefore, we do not need anyone else. OK, a couple of token women and a black or hispanic person or two, but let's be clear: rich white men are in charge and intend to make sure this never changes.
The small victories they let women and others have are simply there to placate these groups and to give the white guys talking points. If I can mention ONE person of color or of some other group that "made it" I can disenfranchise all the other members of that group=LOSERS!
As for poor white people, they are encouraged to hate everyone but other whites by telling them "those people stole their jobs" or are going to "take away their guns." This way poor whites can forgo education and simply support those who tell them they are victims and that "those people" are responsible for their failures in life.
Works every time.
2
Krugman doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We absolutely love children in this country. Ours. Not yours.
1
Thank-you Paul.
Another policy desperately needed: free universal birth control coupled with real sex education in all public schools.
1
Because they aren't innocent fetuses anymore?
Oh Yes, the "Compassionate Conservative Clan" want to force you to have your baby whom they claim they Love,Love,Love.
Then, the moment it is born it is: "Get away from me. Get outta my face".
As someone just commented here: "America is a sick, soulless country". Never been said better.
2
Americans, it seems, hate everything and everybody, including themselves
1
Maybe we're tired of paying for free stuff for other people?
1
I'm getting pretty sick and tired of "Americans" being called out for problems created solely by "Republicans".
1
thanks Paul for consistently showing how racism poisons so much of American life
1
Again,Thank God for Nancy Pelosi whose focus is always on "the children".
I'd like to know what school lunch programs Paul Krugman is familiar with. What I have seen is caring, dedicated, hard working people doing their best to deliver nutritious and appealing lunches and breakfasts while pushing fruits, vegetables, salads, low fat milk and yogurt while also doing their best to minimize the amount of food the kids won't eat. And the value of the meals provided is nothing short of remarkable. Many schools also have food pantries and other programs going the extra mile to ensure disadvantaged kids have meals in addition to what they get at school. If Mr Krugman is implying that schools are buying substandard produce just to support US agribusiness I think he is wrong. That is just my view from knowing personally some of the people working to provide those meals but I cannot imagine that going on to any large extent without somebody speaking out.
1
Quebec (Canada) has heavily subsidized day care, and therefore women there have the highest participation in the labour force among all provinces in Canada.
And it probably keeps the birth rates much higher, which is important to avoid a rapidly aging population.
Hi Paul:
There is a great line in the movie "Spotlight". It goes like this: "You can tell the values of a society by the way they treat their children." In our country, children are merely an extension of capitalist thinking, where each of us needs to fend for ourselves. Each family has to take care of their own. And as you say, kids don't vote (and I'm afraid their parents are often too busy to do so), So US education scores fall far below those of other countries as does the health of our kids. It is not only poor children who suffer in this paradigm -all kids lose. The United States does not put children and parents in a priority position. I've lived in countries where kids and mom are a societal priority, it feels like your living in a different reality!
1
Perhaps government isn't in play when it comes to raising children, unless you believe a monopoly power of central planning and of course government youth education camps are the answer to raising kids instead of parents.
1
Keep it coming, Mr Krugman, please. Our short-sighted competitive, market-driven, and individualistic tendencies are nothing but destructive for children and the people who care for them. In 1999 Cornel West and Sylvia Ann Hewlett observed in their book "The War Against Parents" that "...market work, centered on competition, profits, and greed, increasingly crowds out non-market work, centered on sacrifice, commitment, and care." This is only more true today. The market won't correct this (paying for all this child-rearing work) without sound legislation and taxation. Only then, maybe, would the endlessly challenging labor of raising & caring-well for kids be supported rather than punished.
1
my son married a lovely croatian woman and they have my 2 grandsons, and they live in croatia. i am so thankful that they live in a country that cares for its children from the pregnancy, where they have socialized medicine. my daughter-in-law took 18 months off after her first child was born, and another 18 months for her second, both with job security as a teacher. at the same time, there is no speech therapist on the entire istrian peninsula of croatia, and the 2nd child still sleeps with his parents (at 2 1/2 years old). that's the culture. big trade-off.
This suggests an attractive compromise position. Instead of Medicare for All, why not try Medicare for Everyone Under Six Years Old?
This will not only benefit our vulnerable children, it will also give us some practice at running such a system and figure out how best to get to coverage for everyone.
We will have to whistle past the fact that the majority of children are not white.
"At least part of the blame rests with Bernie Sanders, who made Medicare for All both a progressive purity test and a bright shiny object chased by the news media.."
Amen. The chances that a Congress will pass no-private-insurance Medicare for All in the foreseeable future are nil, andpurist devotees show an appalling naivete about what voters will support and how easily opponents of single-payer-only could kill a bill -- including many doctors and hospitals. It is a shame that the media is so obsessed with simple conflict narratives.
There indeed was a Democratic Candidate that called for a transformational focus on children as a cornerstone of her campaign: Marianne Williamson. Her proposal for a Department of Women And Children was to provide a cabinet level position and department to address all the issues from trauma to education to child care that children and families are dealing with today. Sadly she suspended her campaign due to the derision of her as being ‘out there’ because, I believe, her message of spirituality being misinterpreted and seemingly not part of typical political messaging. But she speaks truth. If we do not care for our children and families and address deep social and psychological wounds of our collective psyche we will as a nation and as a society reap the negative consequences.
1
Come again? Bernie Sanders is the reason we're not talking about the needs of children? Fine, I'll blame him for this cold that I can't seem to shake. How shall we ever escape the malevolent clutches of the senior senator from Vermont, currently running a distant second for the presidential nomination behind a guy who's told billionaires that they have nothing to fear?
It should go without saying that America is about preserving and growing the wealth of a narrow plutocracy. Nothing else matters. And certainly not children, until such time that they can be mined or fracked for fossil fuels.
There are some, not many in a proportional sense, who want to have children more than any other goal in life. Yet why anyone else would choose to have kids, especially in our country, is a mystery. Young and future generations are treated like dirt. On top of this neglect, the very biosphere they inhabit is collapsing, all for the near-term benefit of that same plutocracy. One might as well start a puppy mill and throw each new litter into a bonfire.
Umm....let's look at it another way.
25% of children in the US are born to a single-parent household. Not the best way to begin a family. 21% of children are born into a household that exists at the Federal poverty level. These are not the Middle Ages. We live in the Age of Choice. And many are making bad choices.
Essentially, these are parents who choose to begin a family knowing they are incapable of raising this child without significant help from...the government.
Compare with, say, another developed country like Japan where roughly 3% of children are born to a single parent.
Sure, the US government's priorities are lousy. But there are those making decisions on the other side who hold responsibility, too. Arguing the other side, that the poor "have no choices," is akin to treating them as if they are children themselves, unable to make decisions that determine their own best interests and those for their future. It is the nature of Conservative to bestow on humanity the ability to make rational decisions. It is the nature of the Liberal to deny humanity rationality and declare it up to the government to save them from their own fate.
1
With all due respect Mr Krugman the operative word for this discussion is "jobs", which you only mentioned briefly, not "children". What are the new jobs, where are they, what transition needs to take place in our education system (from kindergarten to post graduate) to creatively prepare for this new world. The highest paid and most robustly trained educator should be the guidance counselor. Who is doing the homework on this? This collaborative focus between schools and the workforce would simultaneously result in a nurturing environment for our children, and their parents. Condalesa Rice recently said that "a revolution is what happens when we don't see an evolution happening". The evolution will rapidly becoming the revolution.
I am a substitute teacher in my local school district, where the median house price is $850,000. This week, I have been substituting at a middle school. I have been observing how much unwanted food has been left on the food cart reserved for unwanted food at the lunch line. The answer: none. Yesterday, I peeked into the trash cans stationed at the end of each table to see if perhaps children from an affluent area were tossing unwanted food away. I saw only wrappings.
Could it be that child hunger extends further than we realize?
How much would it REALLY cost to give every child in the US a free school lunch?
In 1947, when I was a primary school child in the U.K., the good farmers of Wisconsin sent FREE malt under the Marshall Plan which was mixed into our FREE milk provided by a nation that was literally broke. And the winter of 1947 was cruel. I can still remember warming my little cold hands on my mug.
President Trump, Mr McConnell and Congress, why aren’t we doing that now? Children do grow up. And have memories!
1
I usually love Paul Krugman's columns. And as a working mother of a preschool age child (in an area where preschool costs are equivalent to our mortgage payments and have ridiculous amounts of closures and hours that don't work for working parents, and daycares near my work have [paid] waitlists so long that my son will age out before he ever gets a spot), I do agree with the bulk of his column, about 10 times over. I've also had the opportunity to live in northern and eastern Europe, and have seen what family-friendly policies look like in practice.
However, Paul, I have a bone to pick with your opening. You start by saying (I paraphrase),"No one is talking about this. Oh, Elizabeth Warren is." What does this mean? It smacks a little bit of, "Well, men aren't talking about it, so no one is."
I keep getting the sense that Elizabeth Warren is only listened to when 1) someone wants to tear apart her plans while offering nothing in return 2) she says something that rattles someone else's feelings 3) they want to tell us that she's unelectable. Paul, don't join that crowd. It looks pretty misogynistic from my view.
4
I would suggest that along with the items Krugman and readers point out that our lack of caring for children is part of a larger generational narcissism . Consider the lack of action on the world climate catastrophe , the rampant exploitation of public trust for personal gain , and our continued use of armed conflict to settle differences as part of this idea that the now -- that my life-- is the only thing that matters. Certainly there are religious members of the army and the political class who are believers in the end times hence a cavalier attitude towards our planet,violence, and next generation But I would also suggest as a baby boomer that the " me generation" evolved into " just me adults". While many good things emerged out of that sense of individual agency there was also a loss of connection and responsibility to others .
There is a politically powerful group that would respond to this issue: grandmothers.
My mother in law is a good example. Any story about a struggling child catches her attention. Every time we visit, she tells me not just about her grandchildren and the kids in her church, but about stories she's read in her local paper about kids facing hunger, illness, and family tragedy. She's not the only one. There are many older women who dedicated their lives to raising children, and, now that their own kids are grown, are expressing that dedication outward. You can see it in the comments on any article about parenting in the NYT, where older women, in particular, share their experiences and strong opinions about childrearing. If they didn't care about kids, they wouldn't bother posting.
Kids don't vote, but senior citizens do. A well-crafted campaign aimed at grandmothers could be very effective.
4
The USA is the world's "wealthiest nation" but has thousands living on the streets, millions of children deprived of decent nutrition and education, and people with millions or even billions of dollars that want to keep as much as they can for themselves rather than pay the taxes (wealth, inheritance) that would help the have-nots become the have-a-littles.
4
The most fundamental job in any society is for adults to raise their children to be the next generation of adults to take over as productive, responsible adults, And so it goes...
True: The evidence shows that other developed nations do a lot more to support their parents, children, and well being of society at large, compared to the U.S.
But, how can we be the richest country in the world, where health care, preschool, college, mental health are considered privileges not rights? These are rights in other countries, including countries not nearly as wealthy as ours.
Basically, it is a matter of a society's priorities, as determined by political elites, politicians, and citizens. I would not say that America "hates" its children; it just gives them very low priority. So why do other nations give their children's well being and future much higher priority than is the case in our most wealthy nation?
Obviously, a high GDP and roaring stock market don't mean much when far too many children in a country are neglected, go to bed hungry, and shortchanged, while the children of the 1% live like little princes and princesses.
Explanation: With right-wing Reaganism in 1980, we abandoned our human caring values in favor of prioritizing money, wealth, power, militarism, business, and elitism. How? By hawking libertarianism, a fake ideological capitalism, and false myths to support it.
It's a psychological and structural problem and it can be fixed, if we care and vote out GOP
4
We cannot afford universal health care until we optimize the health and education of our children. Investing in healthy pregnancies, early child care and education and healthy lifestyles and exercise taught in schools now will save hundreds of billions, but the only catch is those savings would not be seen for a decade or so and thus with our immediacy only mindset, we’ll never see them.
I don't agree that senior citizens in America are doing ok.
7.5 million seniors in the U.S. can't cover the costs of a drug their doctor prescribed. Many can't afford to eat balanced meals and several go to food banks to survive. Many skip meals to take their medicines. Many seniors now are living in their cars across the country due to the high costs of rents.
America treats is senior citizens like it treats its children, without caring much if either survive.
3
Excellent analysis, with this one glaring exception:
"At least part of the blame rests with Bernie Sanders, who made Medicare for All both a progressive purity test and a bright shiny object chased by the news media at the expense of other policies that could greatly improve American lives, and are far more likely to become law."
Professor Krugman, your establishment biases are showing. By demonstrating that Medicare for All is both feasible and politically popular, Bernie Sanders has revealed the deeply undemocratic prejudices of the Democratic Party establishment. What you call a purity test is really the revelation of the oligarchy controlling the Democratic Party -- people who (though they try to hide it) mostly prefer Trump to Sanders. And likewise, Bernie didn't make Medicare for All "a bright shiny object chased by the news media." The corporate media are quite able to manage that by themselves. That Medicare for All isn't happening immediately is no excuse for your tepid support for it.
1
We've done a terrible job "marketing" these programs to the rest of the country. Many people believe that the overwhelming majority of people needing subsidized or free childcare, pre-k, etc. are welfare queens. These people don't know or see the people who benefit from these programs.
Educating people about the benefits of these programs would have been useful up until recent years. In the post-facts environment we live in, I fear it's too late.
I'm not sure I follow the logic behind "Bernie wants universal health care, ergo it's his fault we don't help children enough."
But I otherwise agree that the Puritanical Boogeyman of Idle Hands (and who some folks imagine to be most afflicted by that) is significantly to blame. It doesn't even really stop at childhood: Talk about student loans and watch "personal responsibility" narratives come out of the woodwork. There too, it's probably too much to claim that helping students pays for itself, but again it is surely a lot closer than tax cuts for the rich. Educated people innovate, cure diseases and invent things. People who can afford education become people who can hold jobs, buy cars and houses, etc. In other words, in addition to the basic humanism of not yoking people to usurous loans as the cost of participation in professional tracks of life, there's also a monetary payoff: They're less likely to need public aid and are likely to pay more in taxes.
But closer to Krugman's point: A society that tolerates the caging of immigrant children is not one well equipped to show concern for families -- "family values" platitudes aside -- even in less jarring circumstances.
1
I disagree with the title of this article. I would call it neglect, a deliberate refusal to acknowledge the reality that American children live. Hate implies an active emotional response. What I have witnessed after 40 years of public health nursing, is policy makers spout off feel good rhetoric—“pro-family”—and an absolute refusal to deal with the poverty of children in our country. Refusal to assure our countries children’s needs are met at any level, from safety, to adequate food, physical and mental health care, to education at all levels. The hypocrisy is astounding.
Children don't make campaign contributions. Until money ceases to be the driver of political action, children will suffer.
1
@Larry klein Their parents do make campaign contributions.
The ludicrously early school start times are also worth a mention. 7:30am and earlier for some high schools. Such early starts and the concomitant lack of sleep are proven to impair physical and mental health and academic ability.
2
Agreed. But childcare is just the start. What about gun control? When 20 first graders can be gunned down and not enough parents care enough to enact meaningful changes to gun control -- that's a dystopian culture that doesn't care about kids.
3
There are many fundamental principles here in the US. One of them is that we use children as leverage when we want to punish or manipulate their parents. For example, we want parents on welfare to work, so we threaten to take away support for their kids as leverage. Another example is that we don't want immigrants crossing the border illegally, so we take away their children as leverage. Nothing motivates a parent more than threatening their children.
I've listened to every Democratic candidate float their version of universal health care, and not a single one of them has offered a version that says "First, before we extend Medicare to people at age 60, then 55 and eventually everybody, first we're going to extend Medicare to every single child under the age of 18. We're going to provide medical coverage to the children first, then we'll work on getting it for the adults."
Well, Dr Krugman is right, children don't vote. But their parents do, and we're right back to using their kids as leverage. Vote for me and my health care plan, or no health care for your children. Sure, M4A would cover everybody, but the focus is not on the children, it's on the adults. Same as it ever was.
1
It was with Ronald Reagan that the Republican Party's attack on public education overall in the United States began, and was added to the infamous "Southern Strategy" of Lee Atwater, Paul Manifort and Roger Stone (ever hear of them?) which turned the Party into a "Whites Only" Party, which it still is. Unfortunately, it is by now evident that many whites also suffer, however the Republicans and their so-called Christians (and much of the media) have been able to blame that on some weird idea of an "educated liberal elite." It's very sad, and very frightening.
1
My wife and I combined make a reasonably middle-class income, but the cost of caring for our small children is pushing us toward bankruptcy. We make too much to qualify for assistance, and the once-a-year tax credit is laughable.
Just one more way in which the middle class gets utterly shafted in the U.S. system. If "socialism" is the cost for implementing universal childcare, where do I sign?
7
@Brian But you were not forced to have children you could not afford.
The absence of affordable child care is one reason that single parents on welfare stay on welfare: if you take a job, not only are your kids with someone else, but a big chunk of that extra income goes toward paying the costs of child care. Or else the kids are by themselves for a portion of the day.
Also, it's unlikely that the jobs they can get will provide affordable, decent health care.
Unfortunately, sometimes the best decision for your kids is not to take a job.
2
The outsider perspective tells me US is obsesses with money and "me and my personal choices" and some with real reasons.
There are exceptions but that really broke the family and so kids are fed school meals ( even in extreme affluent families and that breaks their health from the beginning )
Parents are staking their professional careers more than their kids future and life.
Eventually kids grow up with same feelings of missing someone in family and the family gets further apart and we get all the social evils that's breaking us.
My thought is if you get a kid since kids don't happen by chance .. make a decision to keep the family close so its stays close for future generations and little ones can spend real valuable times with grand parents who are mostly all ears for them.
@weary traveller Huh. I guess grandma and grandpa aren't allowed to work. Or travel. Or do much of anything? I say this as a retired person who takes care of my step-granddaughter on an as-needed basis, something I am happy to do. But it is pure happenstance that I retired early and am able to do so. When my kids were born, my mother was not physically able to even babysit them for an hour, much less take on significant childcare duties.
2
America's childcare system or lack of it reflects on our values at large. We lack any sort of social democracy and as long we don't have M4A we will never achieve anything like a childcare program that benefits people on a meaningful scale.
The logic that keeps M4A from happening will also be what prevents a large scale childcare effort, at best we will get some neoliberal, means tested, selective tax credit based entirely on whose deserving enough to apply through a mountain of paperwork designed to be labyrinthine and difficult to access to weed out the undeserving. All those left out will be angry at the few who are 'allowed' the help, stigmatizing those who benefit at the expense of those who don't. Neoliberal solutions great their own gravediggers. We cannot push for a universal programs, because Krugman is against the very idea of solidarity or that things like basic human dignity only belongs to the deserving and those off his love list should die in poverty.
1
The moment when it became crystal clear that this country does not care about it's children (and only for those that had any doubts left) was Newtown.
If you had previously been able to ignore their rising suicide rates, their deaths on the streets of Chicago, their dramatic increases in anxiety and depression, the inequality in education for our nation's poorest (and brownest) coupled with overall poor school performance as compared to other nations, their soaring obesity rates, the 'school to prison' pipelines we built that exist in every town for every child of color, and the treatment of their planet (it is not ours) that we are systematically destroying so that their futures hang in the balance, Newtown happened, giving us all the opportunity to examine our souls and ask "Is this really ok? "
and lo and behold: it was.
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Thanks again for your insights into one of this country's lack of oversight. The NYT recorded the number of homeless children in NYC alone at 166,000. Astounding. The homeless population in Austin has grown. The lunch programs have always bothered me tremendously and reflect a verity that kids are not that important. Education is left to states, in a broad sense, and after carving out the religious and private school and charter school numbers, not counting wealthier school districts, the poor will be segregated by race, income, ethnicity. Certainly parents should be entitled to child-care credits for time to be spent w/newborns; other credits for nursery school and/or day-care, often left to haphazard places where anyone almost can open a "school" for poorer kids. We pride ourselves too much without observing where we fail, where we fall behind other countries less wealthy than we are.
2
I see two trends that both form a comparison of the US to other developed countries and explain the divergence on social policies.
In the US, people resist higher taxes on those wealthier than they are because they may "one day" be in that group. In fact, it is more likely they will be in a lower economic group one day, and would like to have more benefits at that time. In Europe, they've seen how quickly people can drop from comfortable to needy and want to be sure there is protection.
The second is that social programs in Europe - child care, health coverage, retirement payments - are for everybody, at the same basic levels. No one thinks it's just for the "other", it's for everybody. That's why social security is not ever seriously threatened, it's for everybody. Any proposal to limit payments to wealthy people is a way to put it on the road to elimination. We have to give child care credits to people who are comfortable, as well as those in need, not based on different criteria for different groups. Then it can get and stay popular.
4
@Jordan But let's be honest. European peoples are also just more compassionate. Individualism, for better or for worse, is deeply ingrained in the American DNA.
The country is ready to move left from vulture capitalism (at the expense of environment, climate, needy people, ...) it has now, but after 4 or 8 years of Bernie they will vote in a Republican away who starts chipping away at public services immediately.
2
@Jackson OECD development aid per capita ranks almost all EU countries ahead of the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_country_donors
My husband and I volunteer as "reading buddies" at a local elementary school. We were shocked to learn that 30% of the students there--70 children--are "housing insecure." While they may not be homeless, their families may be "couch-surfing" because rent in our city is no longer affordable, and public and "affordable" housing are in extremely short supply. It's obvious the two girls who are my "buddies" have NOT been read to at home, and my husband noticed that one of his buddies, a first-grade boy who is not reading at grade level, regressed over the holiday break.
Are the parents of these children too busy, working more than one job, or too stressed with trying to make sure they and their children have a place to stay and food on the table? We don't know.
We do know that all of these children are "ours." They are the future of this country, and we need to invest in them now to ensure a safe and prosperous future. Under Republican leadership, I have absolutely no hope that will happen. I have only faint hope that it will happen if a Democrat is elected. Most of these children are black, and I fear they are viewed as disposable...by the same people who claim to support "Christian values" in government. Those people ignore Jesus' admonition to "suffer the little children to come unto me" and to care for widows and orphans. Shame on them.
6
My grown kids are accomplished professionals who have already calculated that they can't afford children.
2
@Jane
For most people, if you wait until you can afford children, you never have them. It does take some money, but mostly time and love.
@Michael It is economically sensible to wait till you have saved up enough money to buy a house, a new car, anything expensive in life. Why are children somehow different?
People in the US don't hate children. They don't like other people's children. It's just like support for Congress. They think Congress is corrupt by a late margin. But...their Congressman is doing a great job. Just look at the polls.
People in general don't understand the difference between sympathy and empathy. This allows them to be harsh in their evaluation of Others in the most general sense. Our version of Capitalism also has created a win-lose mentality in almost every part of society. Indeed just describing our society as a capitalist society is a real problem. We are not economic animals but social animals. Indeed we have deluded ourselves into thinking of the human species as successful predators. We are not we are successful prey. Successful because once upon a time we found strength in cooperation and sharing not in fighting and hating the Other.
4
My son is 30 years old, and is currently finishing up a medical residency here in the United States. I am American, his father is Mexican and my son was born in Mexico City. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. I am very grateful.
In spite of what you might see on the television, Mexican society embraces children and makes them part of all aspects of life. Resources vary across economic lines and there are many problems, but society is very supportive.
My husband's family helped with child care, neighbors joined together to organize activities. Our pediatrician was only a phone call away (always personally).
Healthy eating was normal--my son's favorite food was "arboritos"--broccoli. Many people strive for their children to learn languages--so today my son speaks three.
I was shocked when I returned to the US. We are stingy with children, from support for schools, to supporting health lifestyles to encouraging parents. Enriching day care for all children is almost impossible to find and afford. No wonder no one wants to have children.
I propose that, like Mexico, we adopt Children's Day on April 30 as a way to being to value children. It is not an answer but it is a point of departure.
3
Our daycare costs are ~$14000 per year. It's basically like having a second mortgage. Even with my wife's salary from her job, it's barely enough each month to pay all the bills. Saving money is simply impossible.
By the way, many of the girls working at daycare are largely college students trying to make ends meet with college expenses. They're struggling even more with their student loans and whatnot, not to mention that they're not spending time on studying for their classes.
I just can't see how this is a fair, much less good, social system for this country. Having more social services available for children and young people would be greatly beneficial socially as well as financially.
2
I believe part of the solution to move us forward will be to combine elderly care and child care facilities.
The people (usually women) who work at the facilities can take their own kids there. Maybe their own elderly family members live there. Even if not, the kids can visit the residents and brighten their day.
That's the kind of daycare my child attends. It's amazing.
I don't know the ins and outs of how this can be government subsidized (some sort of tax break to the developers, I don't know), but I think it will help address the future of fewer children and a large population of elderly people needing care.
@someone As a senior citizen, I don't want forced visits from other people's kids.
I realize that in this country the following will be seen as insane, but many of these problems could be addressed fairly and equitably by completely nationalizing the public education system. Every school in every city and town and suburb should be a place to which people want to go and in which they feel welcome and valued. That means infrastructure, maintenance, and yes, aesthetics. Every school in every city and town and suburb should have an actual medical doctor on staff. This could be accomplished by something akin to Teach for America within the medical profession. Every school in every city and town and suburb, should have a functioning and well-funded arts program. Caring for our children should be a national project. But alas, in a nation that cannot even keep automatic weapons out of the hands of its children, none of this will come to pass.
3
@David Excellent idea. Public buildings can/could serve multi-purposes and county and city administrations could work w/school districts to create more value for each of their constituencies. To continue w/another reader in this column, reading to children who need that after school, planting gardens for better food for school kids as Alice Waters did in CA, and offering dental and well-care for families and children who are income-challenged would be good for many communities.
First, please stop taking shots at Bernie.
Second, the right wing opposes any and all social programs. They don't want to pay the taxes for welfare, education, medical coverage or retirement. Nor do they want to pay higher wages that might reduce profits; even though people with more income need less assistance.
Average Americans do not obsess over sticking it to the kids. But people are swayed by constant propaganda that pounds on tax cuts and lower spending on benefits. The wealthy pay for that propaganda and the politicians that spew it. they do that because it works.
8
I'm not sure I agree with Dr. Krugman on this one.
I think the same people for whom MFA is a losing proposition do not like more investment in public education either.
These folks are happy with a status quo in education too, living either in a good school district, paying for affordable (mostly smaller and religious) private education or of course the really expensive big private schools.
There's a divide between the centrist candidates (~ moderate Republicans of 30 years ago) and progressive ones that's just really hard to bridge. I can't think of universal issues, apart from getting rid of Trump of course, or middle of the road solutions.
In essence, Democrats will have to choose between a strategy that catches enough of the suburbs to win, with a centrist, or rally behind a progressive who might appeal more to suffering rural voters.
I think it's worth trying the latter, as progressive liberalism has momentum and suburbans are harder to persuade in a booming economy. There are no centrists with the energy of the young Obama this time either, Biden would all but guarantee an A. Gore/ H. Clinton redux.
2
Daniel Patrick Moynihan often made this point. Part of the problem is race but it is also the Trump base. They see education as a place for indoctrination. See the issues revolving around textbooks. The more that is done for children the more they might grow up healthy and think for themselves.
4
Here is a statistic from my state of Illinois:
The average annual cost of center-based care for an infant in Illinois has reached $13,474 — which is a staggering 52 percent of the median income of a single-parent family in the state and nearly 15 percent of the state's median married couple's income
My daughter and son-in-law live in the bay area of CA, but are not in super-high-paying tech jobs. Their childcare costs are closer to $20,000 a year. That is after-tax income and only 35% of childcare costs are deductible.
Some of the best and brightest young married people are choosing not to have children. The U.S. is dying a slow death by failing to support its treasure...our children and families.
4
@Lilnomad I used to live in Belgium, where private childcare is marginal. Most childcare facilities or moms (who take in about 5 kids in their adapted home) used the government system which charges according to income. I was in the highest bracket (as most double income families) but never paid more than $500 per child per month, of which half was tax deductible I think. It was great. Prices here have gotten out of control.
Failure to regulate services everyone needs results in prices that are the maximum people can afford.
2
Spot on! To me this is just the beginning of a long list of ways that America mistreats its children. Including, but not limited to:
- Allowing guns to run rampant to the point where kids don't feel safe in their schools.
- Inaction on climate change issues leaving our children a deeply scarred planet.
- Running up enormous deficits with generous giveaways to today's "welfare queens" - corporations.
- Meddling in public education by instituting a multitude of unfunded testing mandates that feed an engorged and harmful testing industry.
Let's face it. America works for those who can pay for political favor. We are devolving into the Dickensian more each year. I will be voting for people who want big structural change and a brake on increasing corruption.
6
As Dr. Krugman points out, one of the issues with Medicare for All is the $3 trillion a year it will cost (and possibly much more) leaves almost no money for other worthy social initiatives like increased support for children.
Cutting defense spending and government waste and raising taxes on the wealthy don't get us anywhere close to the money we need. We do ourselves a disservice by not being honest about how we're going to fund things. "We'll figure it out" is not a strategy.
Well, if you're going to accuse Sanders of sexism, you might as well accuse him of child neglect while you're at it.
The whole premise of this column is fallacious. To wit: since Bernie is for Medicare For All, it naturally follows that he doesn't care about kids.
The fact is, M4A would help moms, dads and kids. If parents can't afford to see a doctor when they get sick, their kids suffer as well. If parents spend thousands of dollars on co-pays, premiums and deductibles, there's less money to feed, clothe and educate the kids. How can you say that calling for M4A is neglecting kids when it would provide them with a good start and quality of life for both them and their parents?
Times are so hard and good paying jobs are so few that adults can no longer afford to have babies, let alone afford the rent on a two-bedroom apartment in most areas of the country.
Warren's plan is good, but the catch is that the states would administer the programs and disburse the funds. Bain Capital, for instance, already runs a billion dollar-plus chain of day care centers. With more federal money possibly on the horizon should Warren's plan pass. look for Goldman Sachs and Evercore and KKR Little Tots Schools popping up in to pop up all over this land, raking in the cash while parents slave away at precarious low wage jobs with no health insurance.
This is not an "either/or" thing. If we spend a trillion bucks a year on war, we can afford to take care of our people.... cradle to grave.
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@Karen Garcia
Krugman has been anti-Sanders for quite some time now, as have been Sydney Ember and a slew of others at the New York Times and elsewhere. The media is owned by wealthy concerns who have the exact same interests as the rest of the oligarchy. They benefit in the exact same way the wealthy are benefitting from Trump.
Does that mean that Krugman and the others at the NYT meet in a secret room to strategize against Sanders? Probably not. But the thought that must hand inside all of their heads is this one: can I write a pro-Sanders series of op-eds or articles and still keep my job? I think we can all assume that answer is no.
That doesn't excuse the virulence of Krugman's anti-Sanders writings from 2016 and until now and it certainly doesn't excuse the distortions. That is why I invited people to go read for themselves on candidates' sites, show up at town halls and ask questions. That is what those are for.
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@Karen Garcia I didn't get that message at all from this, but I respect how you can see that. I share your frustrations over the way we talk about M4A. It would certainly help my family, despite my wife having a high paid (relatively) job with full benefits.
We can have M4A and child care for all. We can have better schools and cheaper public colleges (free!) too.
Hmm, the more I write, the more i agree with you.
(I say all that as someone who is not a Bernie supporter, at all, because of his views on immigration)
12
@Edward Allen
and Rima too....
Krugman took a perfectly good column advocating for children and managed to turn it into a smear of Bernie. He comes right out and says that Sanders "bears part of the blame" for "us" not talking about our children.
True, he doesn't get together with his fellow pundits to plot strategy, but they do feed off one another's discourse. You can see the same talking points all across the A to B spectrum of centrist neoliberal narrative. One common trope is "you can't have this or that program because then Ivanka and her spawn would only take advantage of it."
We should have guaranteed universal programs for everybody, both rich and poor. Warren's child care plan is certainly better than nothing, but parents would have to jump through many bureaucratic hoops to get approved, the govt would not build new centers or train and pay providers -- and the biggest catch of all, as I mentioned before, is that it's voucherized. Red states, especially, would find ways to re-allocate the money for other programs or just use it to reward cronies and private equity vultures. We saw this with Clinton's welfare reform package. The job training money that went along with kicking people off the rolls went to subsidizing businesses. Moms got zilch and the poverty rate skyrocketed in the ensuing decades.
Warren's plan is capitalist to the bone, which is not so much of a good thing when the whole point of capitalism is to extract resources and dispossess people.
71
Children are undervalued in this country because they aren't profitable. Our society, business and government measure each person's value by their wealth. A lot of the upper middle and upper classes refuse to part with a penny to help the less financially fortunate, and most Americans whine and fight over paying taxes for better public education or for strengthening the social safety nets.
America is a sick, soulless country.
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@Jodrake
Thank you for observing, “Children are undervalued in this country because they aren't profitable.” Where are you, Jonathan Swift, when it comes to ‘solving’ our ‘children problem’?
2
Americans don't hate their children.
But Republicans do. Republicans always oppose any public spending that might improve the lives of Americans who make less than a million dollars a year. Kids are just another human commodity to exploit, especially at election time. Once Republicans get elected all that nonsense is quickly forgotten.
However tax cuts for corporations and billionaires are fine with the GOP, as are relaxed environmental standards that poison our children.
Eat tainted food. Breath dirty air. Help only yourself.
It's the Republican Way.
8
@Ignatz Farquad
As Bill Clinton said,"How do you say you're for family values when you don't value the family."
It's quite logical. Crony capitalists oppose welfare for poor people. Crony capitalists fund political campaigns. Politicians oppose welfare for poor people. Welfare, in the form of tax cuts and tax breaks, is for the wealthy.
3
I think the answer is a lot simpler. We live in a country where noone is willing to pay any taxes, which severly hampers any social support programs, consequently those without other support systems suffer the most. Additionally, it is to the conservatives' advantage to keep the poor poor and uneducated as they tend to vote republican. So there is the malicious demon.
3
Hate our children? We treat animal better. Beyond all the issues raised here, we are destroying the very planet they are inheriting and we are impoverishing them with deficits that enriched to 1%. We impoverish them further with college debts that last sometimes for decades. We feed them with worse food than we eat ourselves - ever try a 'Kid's Meal".
2
Thank you for this. I used to work for a non-profit dedicated to raising the profile of children's issues, and it was pretty darn thankless work. The racism is baked in, and seasoned with a deep-rooted anti-urbanism -- "real" Americans don't live in cities. Then there is the suspicion of the whole enterprise of public education, the stupidity of funding schools through property taxes so that the rich kids get most of the resources, the idea that children "belong" to their parents 100 percent, so society has no stake in their flourishing.
2
We once had retired neighbors whose garden was a work of art, with sculpted round bushes, about a foot high, at the front of their property where the sidewalk was. It was disconcerting to hear that a new neighbor and his son, out on a walk, gleefully destroyed those round bushes, the son jumping into them with his feet and his father laughing while his son destroyed them. I witnessed them in action once. They kept at it.
Another neighbor, a female, raised her fist in my face several times and demanded that I quit practicing a musical instrument because she could hear a bit of it. Her children mocked me when I watered the herb garden on our back porch. Their dog barked incessantly. They paid no attention to their dog.
Another "adult" neighbor stood on the corner and created vicious lies about her neighbors, making her tiny dog sit all day long in the hot sun while she stopped traffic and transmitted mean gossip.
One problem in the US is its culture that does not respect boundaries, nor people, and is loaded with racism. It seems to originate in early episodes of "The Simpsons."
Contrast these sick scenarios with the culture I experienced in the Sixties and Seventies in Atlanta, Georgia, where as a child I walked to piano lessons unescorted and was safe; where respectful neighbors did not stalk one another; where music-making on all sorts of instruments was allowed and appreciated, and where there was a teaching mother in many homes while the children were young.
Civility?
1
"Advanced" countries elsewhere have universal healthcare, maternal leave, quality public education for all, economic security nets, and no food insecurity for anyone young, old, or in between.
Lifespans are longer, fewer die from violence, especially gun violence, and financial bankruptcy from medical costs or long term care doesn't happen.
Only in America are "corporations" "people."
Only in America is "Socialism" such a dirty word.
Only in America are the very few rewarded so well for the work of so many others.
6
Why is Sanders the only one named and shamed here? Reagan and the GOP are gently alluded to but somehow Sanders is the villain here? And for wanting healthcare for all Americans (which, it should be noted, includes Children).
This sort of pointless self-bashing is what wrecks the Democratic party, their nominees, and their policies. Why pre-negotiate away Medicare for All, or tar it as unrealistic and a waste of time, rather than package it and other worthy programs together?
The Left should be clear-eyed about what it can get done and in what amount of time. But it also needs to highlight all of its ideas aimed at helping people. The GOP already exists to tell everyone who will listen that [insert helpful program here] is a pipe dream or too expensive or a socialist purity test or whatever. Democrats don't need to be pitting responsible childcare policies against responsible healthcare policies. They don't need Mayor Pete dumping on tuition assistance. The more Dems abandon their own goals, the more the GOP looks like an actual party of action.
Consider: the southern border wall is madness; the Muslim ban is madness; the tax cuts were ill-conceived and dishonestly sold; "school choice," abortion bans, corporate personhood, environmental deregulation, etc are all terrible ideas and pie-in-the-sky dreams of conservatives and/or bigots. They're awful goals if you're a human being, but the GOP puts its money where its mouth is and does what it can to deliver. Dems, take note.
4
America doesn’t hate its children. It just pretends to care about them. A great example is the right’s opposition to abortion. Once the birth occurs, the right has no interest in the well being of the child. It opposes spending for healthcare or education or safe and affordable housing. Knowing this, many poor and middle income women want to end pregnancies because they can’t afford to raise children based on the lower wages they are paid compared to men. Yet the GOP wants to end abortion as a privacy right. If the GOP enacted policies to protect and support the raising of children, their position on abortion might make sense. As it stands, it’s just hypocrisy,
6
Sometimes I think Trump is president because he's a perfect match to America's real values. Greed, selfishness, ignorance, lack of empathy, cruelty—these are things we don't like to associate with ourselves. But look around at the actual society we live in, with all its violence, greed, and lack of caring for others, and what else can you conclude? Trump is so powerful because he embodies what's in the hearts of so many Americans.
8
I fail to see any humane design to our approach to providing services for those in need: children, mothers, the physically and mentally disabled.
We start before the beginning of a new life by failing to provide sensible and clear instruction on birth control for people whose hormones are raging. We outlaw and criminalize abortion, an approach that most directly affects women with fewer resources and support.
We deny school children lunch because they owe money for previous meals. Imagine the shame and embarrassment of a 8 year old when that happens. Not to forgot that she is hungry. What are our schools?? American Express, where if you don't pay they cancel your card?
Dr. Klugman is right. We as a people probably spent more on sports programs for certain groups of kids then we pay tax dollars to feed and care for the poor and needs.
I think that how we care for our poor and our children says much more about who we are than GDP or market valuation or average housing prices.
And right now, it says we're a pretty stingy bunch.
3
Today, my daughters are experiencing exactly what I did 35 years ago...no affordable childcare, almost no quality childcare and women forced to return to work within six weeks of childbirth. It’s disgusting. It’s heartbreaking. It never changes.
1
@Lori Hausman I was a partner in a law firm when I had my kids and had three months off, while my benefits continued. In contrast, the firm's employees (secretaries and attorneys) only got six weeks off. AND, the firm stopped paying for their health insurance the day they went on maternity leave. (As a junior mint partner, I complained about these policies but couldn't fix them.)
Part of the blame for the neglect of America's children rests with Bernie Sanders? You mean his Medicare for All is on par with all the cruel policies of Republicans and their hateful rhetoric about welfare scroungers? Criticizing Bernie's, or any other candidate's, policies is entirely fair game. But this low blow implies that he is as heartless as someone like Stephen Miller, a claim that is both unfair and untrue. Krugman may favor Warren, who is indeed an impressive and principled candidate. But it's disappointing to see him trash the bona fides of Sanders. Is it because Bernie now seems more likely to win the nomination?
So disappointed in you, Dr. Krugman. That was a really cheap shot at Bernie. You know better than most that it's not an either-or choice between universal health coverage and programs to help children. How about cutting the military budget? The corporate welfare? And a million other boondoggles that smug congresspeople fund in order to get reelected?
You also know that having healthy parents, including those who can access treatment for mental illness, drug addiction, PTSD, etc., is always better for children than unhealthy parents, and will be able to help them thrive more than any other source. Lack of access to health care is the root of so many of society's ills. What were you thinking?
The dismal state of public education and the lack of quality affordable day care are another indication of the selfish and suspicious nature of the people in the U.S. Soon we won’t have scientists, critical thinking citizens, or artists because we are afraid.
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Socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor, as MLK once said.
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There is, in addition to the mean-spirited, racist view of the hundreds of thousands of minority children living in poverty, a horrific tendency to criminalize childhood in this country. Children, and especially young teens who have attained nearly adult-looking bodies, are not given the leeway that psychologists agree is necessary for people whose impulse control and higher thought processes have not developed enough to overcome the hormones of puberty and the inherent entitlement of babyhood. What used to be excused as high-spirited pranks, or just 'kids being kids' have been changed into criminal offenses, especially for black or brown children, for whom 'attitude' can become a lethal flaw. Kids who challenge or taunt authority don't need to be handcuffed, tased, jailed, or shot - they need to be given a time-out and an age-appropriate penance by an adult who allows them to voice their objections in a civil manner and explains - also civilly - why the behaviour they were exhibiting in considered to by unacceptable. Being mouthy should not be a capital offense.
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America doesn't hate children. But children in America are now mostly nonwhite and not very rich so they are not worth a penny's investment according to the GOP.
Its really that straightforward.
What's less straightforward is how the dem nominee, no matter who it is gets enough senators on their side to accomplish anything considering how over-represented red states are at the federal level.
That is a Constitutional problem. There is zero good reason that states like North Dakota and Wyoming have two senators when they have the population of Staten Island.
That's your barrier to progress Mr Krugman. Uneducated deep red states.
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None of the "blame rests with Bernie Sanders." It all rests with the Republican Party, which has gotten so extreme that it sees nothing wrong with its 40-year record of putting working-class parents into the bind you describe: no help without a (nonexistent) job, a job, by the way, that the GOP hopes will be low-paying and nonunion so that rich white men can get richer.
Which brings up the reason these right-wing zealots hate children: they come out of women, and the McConnells and McCarthys and Meadows of DC really, really hate women. Especially women of color. To blame Democrats for Republican misogyny, cruelty, and austerity is misguided.
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@Julie It also rests with the centrist Democrats, who have moved into moderate Republican territory. They too are partially to blame for Republicans ending up unhinged.
When the Democrats embrace extending Bush tax cuts, free trade deals, privatized healthcare, increased military spending, etc. there is no profiling space for folks like Nikki Haley and Mitt Romney.
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Like health care, housing, education, and other basic needs, parental leave is seen as a privilege, not a right, in the USA. The well-off have all sorts of nauseating justifications for this.
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Well, we don't force people to experience the results of their policies. We should. Every politician who turned their backs on the children we kidnapped, with no plans for reunification, should be trying to rock those lost and miserable children to sleep at night. The Senate Dining Room should serve the slop fed to public school children, and they should all be compelled to eat it, with no alternatives, until they decide they need to change. Etc.
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I am white, nearly 60 and have 2 daughters. Neither was planned but we were in our mid 20's and firmly established in careers and financially capable of raising them. Now we are raising my wife's grandchildren due to her son being a meth addict. Yes, too many children are born to parents who lack the financial ability or desire to raise the results of their lifestyle.
While Republican and detesting bigger government, I think the solution is easy access to all forms of birth control which has to free in most cases and easy access to abortion, morning after pills and low cost vasectomy and other procedures to control unwanted pregnancy.
I find the far right and their hypocrisy over these methods disgusting. I know more than a handful of well to do parents who have made their daughters get abortions in order not to "Shame" the family name!!
I do not agree with the far left either with their solution always being another government program that is riddled with so many rules and regulations it fails!!
The burden of raising so many unwanted children is the root of most of our problems. These children are raised in terrible situations, not educated and have no real parenting to direct them in the right direction. Adoption is also a solution regardless of the gender, race or sexual orientation of the couple adopting these children because they have the desire to raise children.
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This lack of care for our children (and the intense greed of our system which requires parents to work so much that they can't raise their kids) is bearing fruit. We have more and more young people committing suicide because they see no future. What have we offered them? A lifetime of college debt with no secure job prospects? A planet that may self destruct imminently? We have not taken care of our most precious resource: the future generations of Americans. I work in a high school, so I see this daily. Teachers do what they can under impossible circumstances. Parents do what they can under impossible circumstances. Only the very rich (and usually white) people are somehow able to carve out a decent life at the expense of every working man, woman, and child in this country. Greed is killing us. We've forgotten the collective good.
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You're right. Period. It's outrageous. Your analysis and explanation is spot on. Will this country ever ever evolve away from its endemic racism? It is dispiriting, and worse it perpetuates the shameful legacy of our past.
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The neglect of children manifests itself in the gross disparities of education along economic and racial lines. In order to maintain power, it's in Republicans' interest to perpetuate that injustice from generation to the next.
This was a strong piece until you wrongly blamed Bernie Sanders for why we as a society are not talking more about children's well-being. That assertion is ridiculous.
We don’t do more for children because we are a short sighted people. Children are our future workforce. Yet we don’t help families. Oh but also we hate immigrants so we have less ways of replacing that future workforce. Yet we want social security to support us when there are less young people to sustain it. Our selfishness as a country will eat us alive.
Anyone who cares about children and families should not vote for Republicans. They like to weep and wail about abortion but they do everything in their power to make sure children have no assistance from the government. Stop letting them get away with their lies - the Trump "administration" is in court right now trying to overturn mandated coverage for pre-existing condition.
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This is anecdotal ,of course,but maybe indicative of our collective lack of concern for the common good. An old coworker, soon after moving into a new surburban "townhouse",complained about the taxes. Since he had no kids, he argued he shouldn't have to be taxed so much. Every "cut" sheet on a property lists all the taxes pertaining to a property.
Not hate, indifference.
We stopped raising adults in vast swathes of this country a generation ago and are now acting shocked that one parties platform is a 5 year old’s lament that all their problems are somebody else’s fault and give me my cookie.
The longer the rest of us transfer our wealth to protect them from fundamental adult responsibilities the worse it will get. The cookie isn’t helping, it’s not a path to maturity, it’s a reward to placate infantile behavior and just reinforces that behavior.
Two countries m, two tracks. You want to reject modernity and refuse to take responsibility? Do we have a country for you. We’ll call it Real America, just don’t come screaming to us for you cookie anymore.
There are a lot of people who would rather hurt 99 people than help 1 who was "undeserving", unfortunately.
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It was bad enough, and then Trump and red state Republicans started doing everything possible to limit SNAP (food stamps) whose primary beneficiaries are children. Republicans clearly hate poor children, because their families are "undeserving" and therefore so are they. Their cruelty is unrelenting and a stain on all of us. Security expenses for Trump's weekly golf excursions cost more than the SNAP reductions. Shameful. No child in America should go hungry.
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We don't hate as much as we love - money. The best countries to live in have very high taxes on the rich and very good benefits for those with the least. This is what government should do: help create a 'more perfect Union'.
If mammon, if lucre, is material wealth is our goal, then God help us all. This leads to corruptions and selfish motivation and plutocracy. I can see this in the United States, Russia, China and India. The capitalists and communists are all rotten, today. They've become fevered with greed.
America, and most of this world, does need a spiritual reckoning and a movement towards service and community, including how to help our children and their families. I taught high school at a low-income school with great students and teachers. But, giving me 140-150 kids a day was a great disrespect for them, myself and quality education.
Hate is a strong word, but it fits when talking of this 'system' the wealthy, their lobbyists, lawyers, politicians and judges have cooked up. I mean, the system we, the People, have cooked up.
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Mr Krugman got so close to hitting the nail on the head - it’s not that America hates its children, it’s that America wants to punish women for their family planning choices. Children are only ancillary victims.
Single or can’t afford to be a stay at home mom? How dare you have children in the first place.
It hurts women, children, men, families, and society. It hurts our country and reflects poorly on us to the world.
I can’t stand how Republicans have corrupted the phrase ‘family values.’ So many of the policies they’ve pushed only hurt regular American families.
It's such grim humor that the party that governs (or until very recently governed) the most poverty stricken states claims to have the answer to poverty. The situation can be summed up quickly:
Democrats: "Attack the farmers! Attack the doctors! Attack the home builders!"
Also democrats:"Why come there ain't enough food, shelter, and medicine?!"
Luv you Professor. I have to say it over and over because you cause me to believe that the things I think are extremely important are getting the exposure they need. Of course the nexus of racism and the young being less white everyday is the reason for this sadism. Media images of white children have always caused sympathy and warm feelings. While not-white children on the other hand, are all too often the victims of overly excited state, school and police punishment. We all worry about the future and what it holds for our kids. They will never admit it, but there's a ton of white parents out there going nuts that the racial advantages they and those before them enjoyed won't be there for their children. It explains Trump and the open but unsaid need to fight to make sure the children of "those people" do not get aid at the expense of white children.
The conservatives will argue that restricted child care is the cornerstone for keeping families together. Women are stuck bearing children, their hormones want to make them take care of them rather than give them for adoption. So they ought to stay at home and do this, remain dependent, and then men will presumably stay around to care for children.
This is why child care will continue to be a private matter.
Listen carefully to conservatives, one always ends up slipping and telling the real motives behind a position or policy. This allowed me to realize that the reason they so oppose abortion is NOT babies or children, but because they believe that “women shouldn’t have sex with the consequences”.
That’s right: babies/children are viewed as consequences to penalize women for having sex.
No wonder same conservatives refuse to fund any program for kids and only try to take food away...
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Speaking as a bit of a geezer, there’s no real doubt that we invest far more in geezers than we do in kids. Though of course this is accompanied by such charming American rituals as stuffing granny into an iffy nursing home and then forgetting all about her until the obligatory once-a-year ritual of hauling her off to an Applebee’s for a couple hours.
Luv you Professor. I have to say it over and over because you cause me to believe that things I think are extremely important are getting the exposure they need. Of course the nexus of racism and the young being less white everyday is the reason for this sadism. Media images of white children have always cause sympathy and warm feelings. While not-white children on the other hand, are all too often the victims of overly excited state, school and police punishment. We all worry about the future and what it holds for our kids. They will never admit it, but there's a ton of white parents out there going nuts that the racial advantages they and those before them enjoyed won't be there for their children. It explains Trump and the open but unsaid need to fight to make sure the children of "those people" do not get aid at the expense of "deserving" white children.
It isn't Sanders fault.
The money in this country goes to the wealthy. The poor eother need to buy thejr own congress people, or just need to adhere to the prosperity doctrine and worship that other god, Mammon.
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Because children don't generate short-term profits, and that's the only thing that matters in America.
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Your children are also risking their lives just by attending school.
Many are actually dying out of curable diseases. Your statistics on infant mortality is hardly what one can expect in the richest country on the planet.
Many are deprived of dental care .
And let’s not forget , your government are going all in to turn this planet into some kind of pressure boiler, making it uninhabitable
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"Hate" seems hyperbolic. We do need to make parents' lives easier, however.
It really boils down to the fact in the U.S. we don't really care about the condition or welfare of people. Not just our children, but people in general. Look at the countries in Europe and how they care, treat, respect people. Pay lots more in taxes too, but there governments don't waste money on $billion war planes either. It is true, we in the U.S. care about ourselves only, the tangible things we own.......got to upgrade to 5G before they come out with 6G. I don't want to miss the boat.
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Painful reading and right on all points. We don't live in a progressive country, it's dog eat dog for the vast majority, who support a greedy aristocracy, once again. But our country has a shiny veneer of Benevolent Superpower credibility. Ahem.
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Paul fails to mention another cruel and very common outcome of highly educated working women having children. Along with pitiful tax breaks and quality options for childcare working mothers get demoted, reassigned or geographically displaced after returning to work. They technically still have a job but not the same career path prior to leave. There is unspoken perception that mothers are not capable of their duties any-longer...a sexist driven topic that could easily explode into a #MeToo topic if someone famous raised this to the media’s attention.
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Well, maybe if children made larger campaign contributions, politicians might start listening to them. I believe this concept was presented in one of the earlier episodes of Schoolhouse Rock.~
Without focused attention in the first year of a child's life, core shame sets in, resulting in a lack of impulse control and a lack of self esteem. Could a lack of maternity benefits and childcare be the reason for so much drug addiction, suicide, overpopulated prisons, etc.? I also always wonder about conservative men who are so worried about abortion. Once the baby is born, they are dropped into an oubliette. Cue the politician pounding the stump, going on about "family values."
My take on this important issue is that Americans value “me and mine” not “you and yours” for a variety of reasons. Yes, some racism is involved as is the focus on the individual rather than the group. Selfishness has a hand in it too, as does the worship of money above all else. But really, the heart of why Americans don’t help society’s children is because society itself is broken. There is no longer a “we”, just a me and a they.
Why do you refuse to say programs like childcare pay for themselves?
Take healthcare, for example. Studies show that children who get free healthcare largely pay that back in terms of the increased income taxes they will pay over their lifetime. There is no doubt that other Democratic programs such as childcare, preschool, and college are economic investments that pay dividends over time and not just in terms of increased income taxes those children and their parents will pay, but also in terms of other economic benefits, psychological well-being, and strengthening families and communities.
This is the defining difference between Democrats and Republicans -- Democrats understand that investments like childcare pay for themselves, not in terms of next quarterly profit statements with which Republicans measure quality, but in terms of the long-term economic and social well-being of our families and our country.
https://www.vox.com/2015/1/12/7531707/medicaid-expansion-tax-revenues
Boy does this burn me up. Not that Mr. Krugman isn't right on every count; he is. But why did people dismiss Marianne Williamson as a kook when she talked about creating a Department of Children?
Because children don't vote? Because children are needed to keep the prison pipeline moving? Because children are assumed to be resilient?
There are all kinds of reasons we hate our children, but the general meanness and cruelty of this society top the list. Our money should say, "Profits-over-People" instead of "In God We Trust." America's big lie.
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My expensive for profit health care nearly killed me. I will not vote for any candidate who will not support Medicare for All. Insulting me won’t change my mind. Americans—children—are suffering. (As well as everyone else. )
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The US is the only developed country on the planet that does not guarantee paid maternity leave. Advanced countries like Sweden pay both parents. So, yes we absolutely need to do something about that. But I simply cannot believe that you found a way to blame, at least partially, Bernie Sanders for that?! That's an absurd slander. This constant unwarranted attacks on Bernie by MSM are becoming transparent because they are so numerous. We got it. Corporate America really does not want him as president. But that makes him even more popular with his base. He does not push Medicar for All as a purity test or a shiny object. It is the media that chose to dwell on that all the time. He doesn't get the air time to talk about anything else. Because the MSM are on the mission to prove that is impossible, that does not have support, etc. But it does have support. Who would not want to have guaranteed health care regardless of changing jobs without all the administrative hassle. Would I rather pay $300 a month more in taxes than $500 a month to my private health insurance for the same product? Profit margins of private insurers increased from 2.4% to 3.3% in 2018. Hospital profits increased 43% since 2011 (while they treated nly 12% more patients). Big Pharma has a profit margin of 20% on revenues of close to $800B. Yet our life expectancy is DROPPING. In 2018 US health care cost was $3.6T. Meedicare for All cost is projected at $2.8-3.2T/year. This is savings of $400-800B/year. Make it.
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I have long argued that in the case of many social problems, America’s policies, at both the federal and most state levels, cost far more over the long run than if we addressed these issues with more compassion and social ethics when these people were children. By gutting programs for children and socioeconomically struggling families, by failing to address the gross inequities in the quality of education based on local property taxes, we are creating problems down the line which are incredibly expensive to attempt to manage at this point.
The CDC’s ACES Study proved that adverse childhood experiences, especially if they are routine both in the family unit and in their environment/communities, nearly guarantee physical and mental health problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_Childhood_Experiences_Study
I have worked with these populations for nearly half a century. By the time these children become adults, many are nothing but economic holes we pour money into. Plus, the negative affect these broken adults have on society in the form of crime, addiction, corrections, child protective services, etc., is nearly immeasurable. And while most reading this think of Families of Color when this subject is discussed, primarily White communities with limited economic opportunities noted in the article demonstrate the same phenomena given the same conditions.
Childhood is the place where, in just economic terms, our attention and budgets should be placed.
.
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Maybe it’s the women they hate. The attack on AFDC was an attack on single mothers as much as on their children. Our country is way behind other advanced countries in accommodating women in the work force. We need day care as well as family leave.
This is a country that let its children get shot, injured and killed at schools like an epidemic while all the adults have been helpless and pretty much used to it now.
Care for the kids? You must be kidding. This country is not looking forward. It's looking backward to wrap itself around old ideas, old people, old conflicts.
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I’m sorry ... the only prudent course of action is to NOT have children.
To paraphrase George Carlin, the sanctity of life in this country ends the moment you’re born.
Oh sure. Universal childcare. Universal healthcare. Free college.
When the golden goose can't pay anymore, maybe the Chinese will foot the bill buying our junk bonds.
@MikeInNewton And then we can give more tax breaks for the rich!! and they can party down among the ruins of all those lives which their greed has destroyed.
Wait. This country has for decades slowly phased out help for needy children... but Bernie Sanders is to blame?
Because he wants a health care plan that covers everyone, including children?
Paul, I love you, but like seriously?
I agree with Martha Shelley. Why did Paul Krugman go after Bernie? To insinuate that Bernie did anything to diminish help for kids is just silly.
Yes. The Republicans are trying to make abortions illegal and a crime, but have no programs to help poor children - daycare, medical care, proper pre-school and education. What are they thinking!?
Based on media coverage we care more for dogs than children. By the way, didn't we separate a bunch of kids from their parents and lost track of them? Too bad there isn't something like ASPCA for kids. Be Best.
Medicare for All includes children.
On a grossly overpopulated planet, with that overpopulation contributing significantly to climate change, we should not give people economic incentives to produce yet more children.
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It should come as no surprise that fertility rates have plunged to all time lows. America has 600+ billionaires but it cannot afford to care for its children or support parents.
You seem to have missed the point, Professor Krugman; it's natural. And they're not hating their children - just the other guy's. As when another male lion kills the offspring of another lion when it takes over the loser's pride. The same behavior has been documented among the taxonomically nearer primates ('primates' - that's us.). So you see - it's all natural. Oh no sir, not climate change, that's fake news.
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Here is a possibility. Right wing Americans believe in traditional family. Women stay home, have children, raise children and maintain the family unit. They do not work or run for power positions. Much like the separation of the immigrants, those children deemed undeserving don't count.
The last time I checked, 1 in 5 american children were living in poverty. It is not a campaign issue. Please make it one.
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The most important issue he's written about. It's a painful truth.
Why does America Hate Its Children? The answer is simple: the Billionaire Class is hateful -- see Donald J. Trump and the Kochs (typical billionaires in America).
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Our treatment of this country’s children ought to be a headline issue for Democratic candidates. It isn’t. It never is. They grandstand about Medicare, on the other end of life’s continuum.
Decades of inattention to our children explains why 14% of the adults in the US (~32 million) cannot read, 50% read at an 8th-grade level, and among developed nations, the US ranks 16th for adult reading skills. Is that not shameful?
Is it any wonder our kids are committing suicide at at at unprecedented rate? They understandably see their illiterate or semi-literate futures as hopeless.
Suicide deaths among black females aged 13 to 19 rose 182% between 2001 and 2017, while the rate among black teen males rose 60% during that same period. The methods black teens used most often in suicide attempts were firearms and self-strangulation (hanging).
Schools should have 1-800-273-8255 (the suicide hotline) on posters in all high-traffic hallways and in classrooms. The same material should appear everywhere in electronic media - Facebook, and all other high-use websites.
School assemblies should include speakers on hopelessness and suicide, and should offer help. Coaches (often parental surrogates) should be given crib sheets with talking points, to talk with the children about. Ditto for all home room teachers (also often parental surrogates).
We have to reach our kids in their schools. We have to IMPROVE our schools. Candidates: Please start by admitting we have a huge national problem.
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I was a liberal. Now I am a real American Conservative. Money is the most important thing. Kids cost money. They are not productive. They sponge off the parents for decades.
They want clean air and water, which cost more money. They want to be healthy, which costs more money. They want safety and a Rule of Law. More money. They want social justice. More money. There is no reason to value kids at all. Only money. MAGA.
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It's not America that hates its children, it's Republicans. They care a lot about unborn children, which guarantees them the evangelical vote, but once born the kids are on their own. School lunches? Forget it. Food stamps? Work for them. Education? OK but it's the first victim of any budget cuts. As for health care, if your parents can't afford it don't look for any government handouts. Why even our president couldn't be cured of his bone spurs.
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First of all, thank you for highlighting this issue. Then, combining the excellent reader comments by Socrates, cynicalskeptic and Rima Regas, we have the answer to your question.
If you can’t help your own kids then you shouldn’t have had them in the first place. Get married before you have kids, get at least a high school education and work hard, your kids won’t need the government’s help.
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America doesn't hate all children. Just the children that aren't born into rich families, aren't male, aren't Christian, aren't straight, and don't swallow the American myth about individual ruggedness and exceptionalism. Otherwise America loves its children.
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I'm supporting Michael Bennet because he is the only one talking about child poverty. The former Denver school chief isn't advocating for free college, but free preschool. Check him out.
Harris was literally running on this set of issues. But the media took her out.
Don't forget climate change, national debt, and lousy public education piled on the backs of tomorrow's adults.
Maybe no one has noticed but this country is governed both politically and in the business world by greed. This is indefensible but it’s old news. We have a totalitarian in the White House who is trampling all over the Constitution and right after we solve that we might be able to do something positive in this country. Maybe. It was no different when the bankers got their bonuses and everyone else paid for it. The fat cats call the shots.
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Especially harsh is the wholesale termination of pregnancies which deprives children of their lives.
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One of the realities learned in over fifty years as a teacher is Americans care about their children, their religion and their wallets but usually not in that order.
So, Krugman says the US spends less on its kids in terms of percentage of GDP than other advanced nations. The other advanced nations don't have a national debt of $23 trillion. Amazing how liberals think we can keep piling on one entitlement program after another with no regard for the expense. The only reason the national debt isn't more of a problem is that interest rates are low. Does the Fed really have total control over the level of interest rates? If not, and relevant benchmark rates spiked up to, for example, 7 or 8 percent, the US would have a serious problem.
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First, let me say that Medicare does not pay beneficiaries. It pays providers, and as we know well by now, providers must always be paid, and anything that can be a profit producer must make a profit in this country. If it helps out the old folks like me, fine, but that's not the point of it. At least not since Medicare part B was designed.
Second, please remember that in this country, white supremacy is the tool employed by those in charge to prevent working folks from joining together to demad a better life--as they have done in Europe and elsewhere. It has been operative since day one. Franklin Roosevelt had to work around it in order to get the support of southern Democrats. Only Lyndon Johnson was able to get help for poor people, and that was solely because of the Civil Rights Movement, which scared the bejesus out of the powers that be. We are living through the reaction to those times. A large section of America wants women back in the home and brown people kowtowing. That's why we can't address better lives for Americans.
I wouldn’t mind a “means” test for Social Security and Medicare. However, that means test would be looking back at the career of the person to see what they had done, with meaning, to make this a better place. Did you join the military? Were you a firefighter? A teacher at a public school? A nurse at a public hospital? Work for a social welfare non-profit? Than good, you qualify, if you worked long enough and you have a good record doing it. Did you just work to get the maximum money you could? Well then, let’s hope you invested some of that money wisely.
Professor Krugman fails to mention that because of Abrahamic religion LGBT children commit suicide at 5 times the rate of so-called heterosexual kids.
Deaths which are absolutely inexcusable because they are entirely preventable.
I have a friend who tutors inmates in the county jail who are hoping to get their GED. He is currently working with a woman in her mid 30s whose mother was alcoholic and whose father abandoned her. She is so lost. She does not know what the Sahara is; she does not know that Portugal and Spain are countries in Europe; she does not know what AD and BC mean to a date. Her vocabulary is extremely limited; e.g., in a recent session she did not understand a passage because she does not know the meaning of the word “forbidden.” This is the child neglected by society as an adult. She has children of her own and so the loss extends to another generation. Hillary Clinton has been mocked by many on the right for her book “It Takes a Village.” This country produces excellent people who would be great leaders, if we would allow them to lead.
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Welcome to another example of where the so called religious right shows its true colors. The religious right goes around talking about the sacredness of life, how they are all so big on protecting the unborn.......then basically say when a child is born, "nice to know you, see ya, hope you have a good life". For all Christian scripture talks about the need to protect the weakest among us, for all it talks about helping the poor, the religious right and the leaders of the Catholic Church, to get their anti gay, anti sex, anti abortion agenda coded as law, either actively,or by their silence, sit back and watch how the poor, especially children, are demonized and allowed to free fall. We have heard Catholic Bishops telling politicians who supported same sex marriage or abortion rights not to take communion, when was the last time they told Catholic politicians that demonizing the poor and slashing aid to the poor was against church teachings and they should no longer take communion? (Answer, they never have).
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Thanks for this. I recently created a new file folder in my computer called "Decline of America." And I just placed this article in it.
The folder rapidly is growing in size.
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Shameful? Cruel? What are you talking about? This isn't Venezuela. Surplus farm food for school lunches? You lack credibility when you excessively exaggerate. It's almost comical if it wasn't for the subject. Is there some issues in this nation with the poor and its kids? Yep, you better believe it. A large part of it stems from the adults of these kids that made poor choices earlier in their lives. Choose your profession wisely - it makes a difference down the road. Let's look at root causes first. That's the scientific principle in action, Professor.
I am child-free by very deliberate choice, but I’m a children’s healthcare provider because I really like kids. Still, I’m not on board with the “Free Kids Movement” - free childcare or free college - and won’t be unless the argument is paired with compensatory sacrifices from the parents and kids themselves. Mom, Dad, Junior, Sissy, what are you offering the community in return for your paid parental leave or your free college? Will you delay retirement until age 75 to return your gifts to the system? Will you give 4 years in service to the nation in exchange for free college? Are you willing to pay increased taxes ages 50-75 when your kids are grown and off your payroll? Will you take a chunky salary cut in middle age so your companies can finance paid leave? Will you accept that children are a huge expense and choosing to have children means you probably won’t accumulate the financial wealth of those who don’t have children?
Anyone who works with kids works with parents and parents are not generous people, as the recent college admissions bribery scandal reveals. I get it: parents want The Best for their kids and even in the most liberal nirvana, there’s only so much Best to go around. I’ll come on board when parents and college kids show me what they’re willing to trade in their future to get the help they need in the present.
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There’s one simple thing we can do: elect more women. Won’t be easy, though.
First thing we should do for children is reunite ALL separated from their parents, closing the holding facilities where they’ve been penned up, paying restitution and helping asylum seekers to settle in the U. S.
Paul Krugman you are doing a huge favour highlighting this plight as children don't have the vote.
Once again, you’ve hit the Racist nail right on its head. The vast majority of GOP Voters are terrified that someone, somewhere will benefit from any new or expanded “ social programs “, and not be a “ regular “ white person. I’ve heard it myself, from lower level Co-workers here in Kansas. I heard it elsewhere, in other States, but not as openly and proudly. There’s another factor, keeping Women in their place. It’s exhausting to parent Children and Work outside the Home. That leaves very little free time to become politically active, to work for Union organization, to Volunteer, to have a spare hour. It’s like THEY want all Mothers to stay at home, and take care of kids. Besides, those uppity Women are taking Jobs away from Men.
For all the talk about the “ Pro-Life “ Party, the GOP really do hate Children. Actual, born, breathing Children. Except their own, and that’s often transactional. Right, Trump “ Kids “ ?
Had Enough ? Vote them ALL out.
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I am always enlightened by Mr. Krugman's thoughtful columns. He needs a cabinet position in the next administration, maybe Clinton's Secretary of Splainin' Stuff.
It makes little difference whether we’re talking about Medicare for all or universal child care. America lives in its own mythology. The black citizen, the black vote, women’s vote. It’s all a hundred years from first thought to enacting.
I attended a peace and conflict resolution summit at Emory U in Atlanta several years ago. HH Dalai Lama and several other world religious leaders held a round table discussion, and then HHDL gave a teaching. He began by asking this question: Why are Americans more compassionate toward their pets than their children?
It's clear to me that the American rightwing/Republican(s) is trying hard to push women back into the barefoot and pregnant paradigm. To them, children are just collateral damage, punishment to be used for putting women back "in their place".
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Republicans concern for children, stops the first moment a child breathes outside their mother’s womb.
So much emphasis is placed on ensuring a mother gives birth to the child she is carrying, but as soon as birth occurs, the child and their family, are virtually ignored
If only Republicans were just as concerned with the health, education and housing of all children and their mothers, instead of being fixated with forcing mothers to give birth.
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What the election needs is a Matt Santos (of West Wing fame) running for president.
It all makes sense once you realize the right to life ends at birth. Republicans may not believe in evolution, but they sure believe in Darwinian selection.
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It s simple, the people in power Republican or Democratic mostly had the means to care for their children, their wives did not work, the poor were seen as irresponsible having large numbers of children they could not afford, many poor children were born in single mother homes so there was the taint of immorality and many were Black even though the majority of children on AFDC were White.
Women still are perceived to this day particularly in patriarchal cultures like evangelicals, ultra Orthodox Jews and the LDS to name a few as primarily as brood mares, good for reproduction but suspect if in the work force or single parents.
Now most families require both parents to work to afford a home, the ordinary luxuries, and to educate their children and the jobs that provided an adequate standard of living for the less educated are mostly gone or going.
Issues like child care, health insurance, education, nutritional support and paid parental are now becoming white and middle class problems. That is why the Democratic contenders must address these problems and to change in tax laws to support programs to alleviate these serious problems if they hope to beat Trump..
So many people think that if people are poor, they're defective and deserve their misery. Such people look at poor children the same way.
A couple of other ways to ask the same question
1. "Why is America Obsessed with its Rich" or
2. "Why Does America keep Ignoring its Women".
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You started with Warren and Sanders as pro children and end saying the suffering of children is because of Bernie Sanders. He is to blame? So you don’t see a connection between access to health care and children? NYT 2016- anything to diminish Sanders, again.
The Left’s response to the failures of its expensive bloated government programs is always a call for more expensive bloated government programs. Schools are great example. Democrats have failed to educate the children of Baltimore, Chicago, Newark, and Detroit. Billions of dollars have been spent and the schools continue to get worse. Krugman should really think about who hates America’s children.
You’re missing the point here. America doesn’t hate children. America hates women. Women who aren’t mothers. And who dare to have ambitions above and beyond being a stay at home mom. Or those who choose not to have them in the first place. Then there’s those SAHMs who are doing it all wrong. And don’t forget single mothers who do the “Christian” thing and have the baby anyway but are forced to rely on social assistance.
And we have been brought to the brink of nuclear war by a stable genius who got elected because he was seen by far too many as a better prospect than a female POTUS.
America will improve when women are seen as people and misogyny is understood as a societal problem — not a women’s issue.
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True, but we’re not choosy. We seem to hate all children. Look at we did to children at the border.
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Did he write this column before Ivanka Trump pushed through paid family leave for all federal employees?
By the way, they are not America's children. They are their parents' children.
I don't want to hear sanctimonious statements about how much we love and care for our children as a people. You may, but it's crystal clear that WE don't. All I have to do is point to the current status quo: we know the facts on global warming, but rather than rise to the challenge, we continue with the status quo, knowing that the convenience we enjoy now is catastrophically degrading our children's futures.
We are just past Christmas and we have already forgotten that under the Ghost of Christmas Present's robe, he had two children: Ignorance and Want. And he warns especially of Ignorance.
I don't think it can be summed up any more succinctly and simply than that visual representation.
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I think Quebec's experiment with subsidized daycare, family parental leave and cheap post-secondary education have proven Mr. Krugman's premise is true. The province is booming in large part because its investments make having kids less expensive, while giving parents every incentive to go back to work.
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96% of the families on food stamps are unmarried single parents. Conversely, 4% of families with married parents in the home are on food stamps. Sequencing of life events is also critical. Of the people who complete the following events in order only 3% live in poverty. Those steps are 1) Finish high school 2) Get married and 3) Have children. If you don't have children before you finish high school or before you get married, it is highly unlikely that you will live in poverty. I'm not sure Mr. Krugman can so easily say that the collapse of the culture has nothing to do with the social dysfunction in our society.
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The discussion of child care is always revolving around the idea of whether a woman should work out of the home or not.
America still hasn't decided whether it's okay with that or not.
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This piece is hilarious. The policies that have reformed or slashed programs to help children, over the course of the last 40 years, aren´t what we should be focusing on. The blame for the plight of today´s children lies with (drum roll) -- Bernie Sanders! And not because he voted to eliminate any program to help children but because one of his aspirations is to provide all Americans with the kind of single payer, guaranteed health coverage that smaller, less wealthy countries provide to their citizens. Something that would be of immense benefit to children as well as their parents and the country as a whole. So if you support M4A today, that makes you responsible for the neglect of children´s needs up to this point. Wow.
In other words, we don't hate Our Children. We hate Their Children.
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@Elizabeth Ellis Hurwitt
A lot of Republican voters will forego government benefits (like Medicare for all) if they think that "undeserving" people in their eyes also get the benefit.
The main thing that unites Republicans is that they despise liberals- the reason Trump is so popular despite being the polar opposite of what once passed for "conservative" principles
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@Elizabeth Ellis Hurwitt But we're willing to hurt "our" children if it also hurts theirs.
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Plus devaluation of our public education systems and unequal access to quality schools. How about clean, lead-free water? Etc. Children are not born with bootstraps with which to pull themselves up. They should not have to pay for the "sins" of their parents, many of whom in their childhoods were themselves subject to our societal neglect. Forty years ago, my social democratic Scandinavian mother remarked to me, "The U.S. is anti-child." That has not changed.
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Here's how this works...There are only so many jobs to be had in this country now that manufacturing is limited and it is essential that those jobs be limited to a 'certain class'. When speaking of the less educated and immigrants Ivanka trump declared that 'We need these people to clean up after us'. Limiting access to a good education is the plan.
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America doesn't hate its children. There's not an America. There are Americans, each a free individual who, like, every other American is free to sleep under a highway bypass.
Americans of means LOVE their children. For example, in San Francisco, more than 30% of school age children now attend private school. With the exception of those run by the Catholic Church, these school charge $50K/tuition providing them with the same opportunities as children attending SF public school at $8K/head.
We are an exceptional country. With exceptional people like our President. May he, Mitch McConnell and other great Americans be exceptions in the long run.
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There's not much room here for anything or anyone that doesn't lead directly to profits in one way or another. Children are notably not very productive members of society--too young to work or shop. They're kind of like open space, trees, insects or clouds--pleasant enough, but where's the money?
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: If *I* get to take 3 - 4 months paid leave every year I don't have a baby, then I'm all for maternity leave. We'd just have to call it something else. "Maternity leave for all"?
As for government subsidies for families? No. People who can't afford to have children should not have children. Period.
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Every year? How about twice in a lifetime? On average, Americans have less than two children.
Why do we have public schools? Playgrounds? Why don’t we require parents to join private clubs and schools, and pay for every last child amenity themselves?
Answer: we used to. America invented compulsory public schooling precisely because — while everyone can "afford" children — not everyone can provide for them adequately. Society benefits from children getting an education instead of working in factories, from letting them seize opportunities to fulfill their potential. So Elena Kagan can grow up in the projects and become a Supreme Court justice.
Now, 100 years later, we know early childhood education is at least as important as primary school. Why not act on that knowledge? What use is there in insisting that having children is strictly an economic decision, like deciding on a car or house? Cars never grow up to commit crimes or pays taxes.
@Nadia Yet people who can't afford children do have children. Is the solution to punish that child?
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@Nadia
There are a lot of people who are having children that they can't afford, and the ones who can afford children aren't having them.
That is the way life works.
Do you think the republicans will go for mandatory birth control for the poor?
Excellent column. The disappearance of good jobs fractures families, whatever nationality. It's interesting that while far more sympathy is given to the woes of white families in the rust and coal belts, the amount of actual aid is too little to make much difference. The evidence is overwhelming that countries which make care of their children high priority with social programs and commensurate funding have less youth addiction and crime and uniformly better educated children ready for adulthood. The right wing trope that social downfall started when women started working has been proved false by the evidence in western European societies with strong programs. There is no way that society can go back to the "good" old days when mothers stayed home with the children, nor should we want to keep women from working.
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Twenty-one percent of all children (about 15 million children) in this country live in families with incomes below the federal poverty guidelines. It really takes about twice that income to provide for minimal needs. The typical family living in poverty consists of a young woman head of household struggling to raise her children. A disproportionate percentage are people of color and people with disabilities.
This is criminal. People should be arrested. What is wrong with us as a wealthy society with the strongest economy on earth?
We could have used the cost of the tax breaks for the rich, the cost of a war, or the cost of new military weapons to address this poverty, but we as a society had different priorities. Winston Churchill is quoted as having said that you can judge the quality of a society by how it treats the most vulnerable.
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America's hatred of its children is exemplified by its having too many of them.
The story started in the Garden of Eden with a story that had hidden insight. Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden because they discovered sex and had too many children. Two sons represented a doubling in the population and to rectify this Cain killed Abel.
Ever since, wars have been necessary to kill off the excess children. Of course parents didn't see it that way. My children will succeed, they said.
But too many children took up room in the Garden. At first this led to hunger, but technology came to the rescue. People learned to produce food more efficiently.
The population grew. By 1798, when Malthus wrote his essay on population growth, world population was a little under a billion.
Then the Age of Enlightenment gave birth to the Industrial Age and population growth began in earnest.
In 1968 Ehrlich wrote the Population Bomb, which warned us that continued population growth was unsustainable. World population stood at 3.5 billion. It has more than doubled since then.
Now we have every presidential candidate proclaiming the need to fight global warming. None of them point out that the most important step is cutting population growth to zero.
Instead they echo Krugman's view that encouraging smaller family size is "racism."
The result is that population growth increases the yearly use of fossil fuels even as we make prodigious efforts to shift to solar power.
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This is completely absurd. The average human on earth does not contribute to fossil fuel usage on an order of magnitude that even approaches that of the US military. Growing population will not be the cause of our impending climate disaster - it is being caused by the inaction by global powers due to institutional greed at the highest level.
Further, overpopulation is and has never been the source of societal problems. It certainly isn’t any excuse for war; no society has ever needed to cull its population in the way you describe. Overpopulation is merely a scapegoat used by the powerful to offset blame: people do not starve because there isn’t enough food/money - they starve because food and money is disproportionately allocated to the already-wealthy.
The poor treatment of children goes hand in hand with the poor treatment of women. Single mothers (the mythical “welfare queens) were particularly demonized and their children suffered.
As other commenters have pointed out, the roots of this disparity in the treatment of working class and poor children is traceable to the Reagan administration. I don’t know if he was the useful fool of the right, or if he truly believed in dismantling social obligations like feeding children (he also destroyed the pension system in favor of fidelity and vanguard and ignored the AIDS epidemic, yet he was beatified) to encourage bootstapism (which never existed).
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"There has also been a poisonous interaction between racial antagonism and bad social analysis." is on target in my opinion. The 'anti-tax rebellion' can be understood as a reaction to the civil rights movement and the great society. Much of it started in California with Prop 13 which, despite what anyone says now, was led by reactionaries who made only thinly veiled racist appeals. Older white people simply did not want to pay to maintain the greatest public education system the world had ever known for kids that did not look like them.
More fundamentally, most of the populace does not believe in meritocracy and makes it known in plain sight (see the executive branch). They believe in giving advantages to their own. Disadvantaging other children in a zero-sum social and economic environment is in their children's interests. That a true democracy rests on an assumption of meritocracy does not even register for most.
Why does it America Hate Children (even their own)?
Oh so easy.
They do not vote
They do not pay taxes but put demands on the tax system (ie, the wealthy) and provide no benefit
They require resources, usually governmental, to thrive and grow (which again harms the uber rich by taking money that is rightly theirs)
It really has not been that long since we developed child labor laws. It is a short fall back to those horrible times.
However they make excellent Election Props to be trotted out by politicians as proof the politicians care about children and families. Then they get the same short shrift from the Mom and Dad Politician. They are just chattel in this country.
I answer on the children with a PS on Medicare. I have all your columns since Advantage was approved. I
The children. The children. The world has always had an. aristocracy that considered inferior those of their own race.
I am an American citizen a New Yorker for many years. since 1959. I always worked in major corporations but back then one had to prove as a divorced mother my kids would not be cause of absences. my mom stayed w them.
Children then that lived in the South and other regions and were white and lived in the wrong side of the track white did not have good schools and in many areas African Americans had no chance. in New York there were then bad areas as some and some groups were discriminated.
What do we do today to remove a child from a home with abuse or inadequate parents? What do we do today to make sure any woman of child bearing age have prevention of pregnancy not needing abortion. Where does a single mom or dad reside in thus market.
The parental leave will be adopted by companies with more benefits A a person on Medicaid today who has not worked here or
long has services than I on original Medicare fee 4 service Advabtage has created a very profitable industry of related services some making millions with mediocre clinics. others catering well to the young old but not providing similar services to otherwise viable individual
. I do not believe in free Medicare 4 all. But in another time paid 4 by all w options
There is as simple reason why funding for child care is so low in this country. The ultra rich, who currently have control of our government, see no reason why they should pay for other people's progeny. If things get worse, they can just put more money into policing and build higher walls around their gated communities. They feel no responsibility for public welfare.
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America doesn't hate its children. We give generous tax breaks to parents with dependent children. I have no children, but I recalculated my income taxes as though I had 5 dependent children, like my dad did. My tax bill was cut in half. The dollar savings was far higher than the allowance my dad paid me for mowing the lawn. He was ripping me off.
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@Mark Your calculation works if your above a certain income level. I know a lot of single parent families where this doesn’t apply. Why we’re the only ‘developed’ country that doesn’t provide free basic health care to everyone as well as maternity/paternity leave is beyond me, especially when we’re the wealthiest of all!
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@drrjv "We're" not the wealthiest of all, although some of the people living here are.
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@Mark
You write as if children are free. "My tax bill was cut in half" - but you don't account for the cost to feed, clothe, house, and provide health insurance for 5 more people. You also ignore the indirect cost of having someone on call for sick days, snow days, etc for 5 kids.
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Mr Krugman says that the antagonism is racial. OK. But the hatred of children goes far beyond that. Just three generations back, in rural areas or towns and small cities, children and adults shared the same world. Myriad spnetaneous interactions were possible. Now children are a tribe apart, minimizing their interactions with adults, who they see, quite correctly, as the enemy. And many adults see children simply as a rowdy nuisance. This is one divide more. In the context of a divide between whites and all the rest, the rich and the poor, right-wingers and left-wingers, the coasts from the heartland, this alienation of adults from children and children from adults is one more feature of a world dominated by work and consumption. Life, just life, ordinary life, is what we "have no time for." And that world where children and adults shared the space and the time, it is lost. And we are the poorer for it. No matter how dollar-rich or fantastically equipped we are.
I would suggest that it's not the children we hate and punish, it's the parents. What the children get is more trickle down hate that was intended for the parents. For children of single parents it's more of a deluge than a trickle.
100 years ago when we were an agricultural country we could take our kids to work with us on family farms or had grandparents in the home. Then unions came in to guarantee decent living wages. We now live in this nether world where our families and communities have been ripped apart economically and of course it's the kids who pay a disproportionate price.
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I think a critical issue if we really cared about our children is the multi-trillion dollar deficits we are racking up for them to pay off in the future. We ask not-too-much of those who can pay more in taxes while spending a whole lot of money on weapons and wars and, frankly, the geriatric set (of which I am one) while short-changing infrastructure projects and disastrously mis-managing our education system.
Of course, the debt has never been an issue for Krugman who's never met a printing press he didn't like.
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Americans do care about their children, just not someone else's. OK, I exaggerate. Children in the US are segregated by the amount of money their parents have to buy a house in a good school district or private education. This is bad for both rich and poor kids.
That kind of class segregation is not found in most of Europe, children poor and rich alike mostly go to the same schools depending on where they live. Private education is marginal, limited to English speaking schools mainly for expats. Starting school before 3 years old is heavily encouraged, as children then make friends before their parents' biases influence them.
There is a constant pressure from all voters to improve the whole education system.
And investing in children does pay for itself. The most advanced societies achieve economic performance through high employability of their workforce, a result of investment in education and healthcare. That's why the Nordics can achieve full employment despite high labor costs, high taxes etc.
Some of the European resistance to low educated immigration, resulting in far right victories, was/is rooted in this.
It would be interesting to analyze the ways in which the US compensates for the poor output of its system. High skilled immigration is of course a huge part of it, not only the H-1B and L1 visas but there are the doctors, dentists, engineers, ... who immigrated here, attracted by the higher wages.
It takes pressure off the system and perpetuates the problem.
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We also do not support children because, well they haven't paid for it (in the womb?).
Social insurance programs (our social security) were well established in Europe long before we instituted it, but was initially called socialism in this country. It is now supported in part, is because it is not means tested and because we pay into it.
The largest problem in the public eye with child support is that you can't support the child without supporting the mother. (Yes the father as well, but we don't see it that way) And, the perception is that if she can't afford the child, can't figure out child care, can't provide a nurturing environment, well she should have crossed her legs at the appropriate moment.
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Great column, until the totally unnecessary dig at Bernie. While I supported Bernie I the last election, I support Warren in this one (though I'd be fine with Bernie as president), so I'm not defending Bernie out of reflex, I just think for such a brilliant columnist it is quite a stretch to blame the lack of good programs for childcare on the emphasis one of 27 democratic presidential candidates who are out of power puts on one of their signature issues. You know who is more responsible (and it's not really close) for the lack of child-friendly programs? The Republicans.
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Fifty percent of American births are paid for by Medicaid. That means that half of all children are born into families that can’t afford them. When a problem is this huge and this broad it can’t be their fault. They can’t all be irresponsible.
We must all vote in every election.
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