Tag: Child Care

Biden’s Child Benefits Don’t Make Child Care Cheaper

Nick Ottens
Joe Biden
American president Joe Biden meets with staff in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC, June 2 (White House/Adam Schultz)

Last week, American parents received their first monthly child benefits worth $300 for children under the age of 6 and $250 for kids up to the age of 17.

Couples making under $250,000 per year, or single parents earning less than $112,500, qualify.

President Joe Biden described the cheques, worth $15 billion, as “the largest ever one-year decrease in child poverty in the history of the United States of America.”

That’s probably true, and the hope is that the benefits, introduced as part a COVID-19 rescue plan, will become permanent.

But it doesn’t make child care itself more affordable. Read more “Biden’s Child Benefits Don’t Make Child Care Cheaper”

Child Benefits Could Outlive Biden’s COVID-19 Stimulus

Nick Ottens
Joe Biden
Former American vice president Joe Biden campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa, July 4, 2019 (Gage Skidmore)

The United States Senate has approved President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus recovery plan, more than twice the size of Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus.

With the exception of a $15 hourly minimum wage, the soon-to-be-law includes nearly all the provisions Biden had called for, including additional spending on health care, extended unemployment insurance (if cut by $100 per week from the original version) and rental assistance. For detail, check out my post about the bill from January.

The part I want to focus on here is a child allowance that ranges from $250 to $300 per month per child. Read more “Child Benefits Could Outlive Biden’s COVID-19 Stimulus”

Dutch Government Falls Over Child Benefits Scandal

Nick Ottens
Mark Rutte
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte addresses parliament in The Hague, September 17, 2020 (Tweede Kamer)

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has tendered his government’s resignation to King Willem-Alexander.

With only two months to go before elections, and the government remaining in a caretaker capacity to manage the coronavirus crisis, the resignation is largely symbolic.

But smaller parties in Rutte’s coalition felt they had to take responsibility for what an inquiry described as an “unprecedented injustice” in the tax service, which wrongly accused more than 20,000 families of fraud.

Lodewijk Asscher, who was the responsible minister in charge of social affairs in the last government, stepped down as leader of the now-opposition Labor Party on Thursday. Read more “Dutch Government Falls Over Child Benefits Scandal”

The American Dream Could Use Some European Inspiration

Nick Ottens
Copenhagen Denmark
Cyclists in Copenhagen, Denmark (iStock/Leo Patrizi)

One can tell two very different stories about the American economy.

In one, growth is robust, unemployment is at its lowest in half a century and the stock market is booming. This is the story President Donald Trump likes to tell.

In the other, two in five Americans would struggle (PDF) to come up with $400 in an emergency. One in three households are classified as “financially fragile“. Annie Lowrey writes in The Atlantic that American families are being “bled dry by landlords, hospital administrators, university bursars and child-care centers.” This is the story Bernie Sanders and the Democrats tell: for millions of Americans on seemingly decent middle incomes, life has become too hard.

Sanders’ solution is to bring “democratic socialism” to America. He cites European countries like Denmark and Sweden as inspiration. They’re not bad places to imitate — but they have actually moved away from socialism and toward a mix of free markets and the welfare state. It is why they rank among the freest and most competitive (PDF) economies in the world.

Americans can learn from the Scandinavian experience, if they get the balance right. Read more “The American Dream Could Use Some European Inspiration”