A universal childcare benefit

In the wake of Greenland, Ukraine, and the future of NATO, there is much talk these days about the foreign policy differences between the United States and Europe. But we cannot overlook the widening gap that exists in domestic politics. At the beginning of the year, the Heritage Foundation, one of thethink tanksone of the most influential people in the US, published areport to "save America by saving the family"Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced a temporary freeze on federal funding for childcare services and family assistance. The time and cost of raising children are presented as a responsibility primarily borne within households, often by women, with increasingly limited public support.

In Europe, however, most countries have for decades assumed that raising children has a private cost but a collective return. In practice, this means using public funds. The policies that most effectively reduce child poverty are those that directly increase family incomes. This is not an ideological stance, but a consistent empirical finding. A country's economic growth or finding a job does not guarantee escaping poverty. This explains why today, in Catalonia, one in three children lives in a family at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

This diagnosis has long been known, and even shared. Data on child poverty has been provided for years by third-sector organizations and academia, and has ultimately been reflected in theStrategy to Combat Child Poverty 2025-2030 from the Generalitat. And it cannot be said that some measures haven't been taken, such as the State's supplementary child benefit (CAPI). But the limitations of the model are evident: Nearly 80% of the families who would be entitled to it do not receive it.Not because they don't meet the requirements, but because the very design of the aid leaves out a very important part of those who need it.

In the European Union, only eight countries do not have a universal or near-universal child benefit. Spain is one of them. In the rest, this support is a standard feature of social policy. Recent studies show that such a benefit implemented here could lift between 400,000 and 500,000 children out of poverty. It is a policy with a significant budgetary cost, around 1% of GDP. But nothing is much more expensive: child poverty currently has an estimated economic cost of approximately 5% of annual GDP.

The debate on a universal childcare allowance is also opening up at a favorable political moment. In Catalonia, the measure enjoys broad support in the Parliament, and in Spain, it has ceased to be a fringe idea. The diagnosis is shared, and the evidence is well-known. What remains to be decided is whether child poverty is addressed as a collective problem or whether it continues to be left to families. In the US, the debate on the family is moving in this latter direction, with less public support and greater private responsibility. Here, we still have time to make a different choice. In this, we shouldn't be afraid to distance ourselves from the US.