Forget It Jake, It's Baltimore

 Jazz Shaw at Hat Hair hears Baltimore May Pay Couples to Have Babies

There is a ballot initiative currently being considered that would create a program that would pay new mothers $1,000 after the birth of each infant. Could this really work? (CBS News Baltimore) 

An advocacy group wants to give Baltimore City voters a voice in moving a campaign forward that would give a one-time, $1,000 cash infusion to new parents of Baltimore City.

Maryland Child Alliance President Nate Golden said the goal of the proposal is to offer financial support to residents who birth or adopt a baby.

"The Baltimore Baby Bonus started as a campaign where we could go around state legislators, around city legislators and take our message directly to voters," Golden said.

The advocacy group has canvassed for more than a year and said it has collected upwards of 13,000 signatures.

To be clear, the group in question isn't trying to do this to address a decline in birthrates. They're just looking to help families deal with the costs that are associated with bringing a new baby into the world. They also want it to apply to adoptions, which is a nice feature. They have already collected enough signatures to put the measure on the 2024 ballot, assuming the signatures are all validated. It's also interesting to note that there is no income eligibility requirement attached to the "baby bonus" so even more affluent couples could apply for it if they wish.

With all of that said, what if such a program were specifically focused on addressing the nation's declining birthrate and expanded to the national level? Could you really bribe people into having children if they weren't already planning to do so? It seems unlikely if we were to base it on the Baltimore model. A one-time payment of $1,000 dollars would probably be nice for many people and it could certainly help pay for some diapers and baby formula for a time. But it's still not even a drop in the bucket compared to the total cost of delivering and raising a child. Forbes recently estimated that the average cost of hospital bills for having a baby (without insurance) is $18, 865. Raising a child to adulthood costs an average of more than $330,000.

The title says "couples", which would be ideal, since one of the problems with cities like Baltimore is large numbers of unwed wed mothers who immediately go on the dole, but the source article doesn't seem to specify, so I guess it would apply to all births.

In the grand scheme of things, it's probably not a huge incentive, nor is the cost all that high. With 7,000 births a year, it's only $7 million. I'm sure Baltimore has spent far more on far worse.