American parents need a bailout.
Suffering from stress, money woes and loneliness more than their childless peers, nearly half of parents can barely function, according to a new report from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
Murthy says government aid, in the form of child tax credits, universal preschool, early childhood education programs, paid family and medical leave, paid sick time and investments in social infrastructure, can help. That’s in line with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign pitch, but GOP contender Donald Trump is also considering how to get more cash in parents’ pockets — an issue his running mate JD Vance has championed.
“The stress and the loneliness that parents are dealing with at a disproportionate level has real implications,” Murthy told POLITICO. “We’ve got to provide more financial support.”
Chronic and excessive stress caused in part by the bills they have to pay exacerbates parents’ mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety, and can hurt children’s development.
Four in 10 parents say they’re so stressed they can’t function most days, according to Murthy’s report, with two-thirds citing financial hardship.
Harris’ and Trump’s campaigns agree there’s a problem and have jockeyed over which will do more to help families.
Harris has said she wants to restore pandemic-era tax credits of up to $3,600 per child and create a $6,000 credit for newborns. Other Democratic platform proposals include providing a free universal preschool program for 4-year-olds, paid leave and child care for less than $10 a day for working families.
Vance, who thinks people aren’t having kids because of the cost, has floated doubling the child tax credit. Trump is considering it, a campaign official told Semafor earlier this month.
Asked on CBS News’ Face the Nation two weeks ago whether he agreed with the Biden administration on the child tax credit, Vance responded: “We think it should be bigger.”
Adrienne Schweer, a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank who previously worked for then-GOP Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, told POLITICO that whichever way the election goes, proposals to boost families are likely to follow. “Both Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance — all four of these sides — have some history of doing work on paid leave and pro-family policy in ways that we haven’t really seen in a suite of candidates,” she said.
The Republican-led House earlier this year passed legislation to expand the child tax credit — before GOP senators shot it down this month, revealing GOP divisions over whether an expanded credit is a disincentive to work.
Trump and Vance could revive the measure since they, as representatives of new currents on the right, provide “more room to think creatively about how to solve the problems of the American family,” said Duncan Braid, a coalition director at the conservative American Compass think tank, noting longtime GOP support for the credit.
While Murthy said he doesn’t endorse specific pieces of legislation or legislative proposals, he’s a fan of the credit.
“What we have to recognize is that parents do need a lot more support than they’re getting right now, and the child tax credit is one way to do that,” he said.
Mo’ than money
Money isn’t the only thing parents need, Murthy said.
Murthy’s recent public health advisories — on youth mental health, social media, loneliness and gun violence — have made a case for reinforcing social infrastructure and beefing up in-person bonds as a way to revive Americans’ flagging mental health.
Isolation is a common problem for parents and caregivers, one that Murthy, 47, says he struggled with after having kids. His report found that 65 percent of parents and 77 percent of single parents report feeling lonely, compared with 55 percent of non-parents.
While online parenting groups and advice forums are critical lifelines for parents, they’re not a substitute for real-world interaction, Murthy said.
“Ideally, we need a core of in-person relationships that can be complemented by online connections. That ratio has become flipped in many people’s lives, where most of our relationships are online and we have a smattering of in-person interactions. We need to change that ratio,” he said.
And while neither of the presidential campaigns has issued plans for combating loneliness, the issue is attracting bipartisan attention.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has taken up Murthy’s call to find policy solutions to Americans’ social malaise, proposing legislation to create a new office of social connection at the White House, among other things.
Next year, he’s likely to get a new colleague on the GOP side of the aisle who’s also concerned about our lackluster social lives. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who’s a Trump ally and front-runner to replace departing Republican Sen. Mike Braun, introduced bipartisan legislation earlier this month to screen more Americans for loneliness and direct them to services.
Before having kids, Murthy had friends around the country and thought he’d stay in touch with them when he became a parent. He dramatically underestimated how essential in-person connections were, he said.
“I learned the hard way that the kind of community I needed as a parent was different than the community that I had before I became a parent. Had I known, perhaps I would have made more of an effort to invest in in-person community,” he said.
Eleanor Mueller contributed to this report.
