Investing in America’s children pays, even if Mom is on drugs

For too many American children, the future is already written. Their parents’ income broadly predicts what their earnings will be in adulthood. For those in poverty, the chances of breaking out are dwindling — resulting in a less prosperous, increasingly ossified society.

If today’s presidential candidates wanted to rewrite that future, if they wanted to break the link between background and opportunity, they’d be talking a lot more about a specific stage of Americans’ lives: early childhood.

In the U.S., economic inequality is already imprinted on children when they show up for the first day of kindergarten. If their parents lack resources, as measured by education or income, they’re much more likely to have suffered substandard child care or food insecurity. They’re twice as likely to be obese and only a third as likely to have the skills and behavior to be ready for school — factors that demonstrably influence health and education well into adulthood.

Progressive Democrats have long embraced an aggressive and evidence-based solution: Do everything possible to ensure that from age zero to 5, all kids receive high-quality care, nutrition and education, even if their families can’t afford it. Establish a universal paid family leave so parents can spend time with their newborns; affordable, high-quality child care; and two years of public pre-school with a healthy breakfast, lunch and snack. Such policies generate returns for children, families and the entire economy — for example, by allowing more mothers to work and freeing up spending that child-care costs erode.

That’s not all. A child allowance, along the lines of the briefly expanded child tax credit of 2021, would deliver further net economic gains. So would addressing the doubling of maternal mortality in the US, the high out-of-pocket cost of child birth and the lack of paid sick days.

Nobody in Washington wants to deny opportunity to innocent children. So why aren’t conservatives on board with such policies? Given the positive returns, objections about cost aren’t compelling. If the US can afford a $1.9 trillion tax cut, it can afford federal child care, which would cost a quarter as much. The state wouldn’t be encroaching on anyone’s freedom. On the contrary, the vast majority of Americans — not just parents — have said they want paid leave policy, they’re worried about the price and availability of child care, and they want the government to step in.