Being a new mom is one of life’s greatest blessings. But between the feeding, crying, lack of sleep, postpartum recovery and everything in between, it’s also exhausting. Add to that historic inflation, a labor shortage and the ongoing supply chain crisis happening on President Joe Biden’s watch, and being a new mom has become more expensive, too.
In June 2020 when my daughter was less than a year old, I paid $46.40 on Amazon for a one-month supply of Pampers diapers. Today, as I await the birth of my second child, that same package of diapers on Amazon costs $69.94—a 50% price increase. A bulk purchase of Pampers baby wipes that I purchased in March 2020 for $14.59 today costs $19.99. Baby formula, bottle parts, pump supplies and other newborn items have all increased, albeit less significantly.
Add to this other inflation costs affecting family staples such as milk (4.3%), eggs (11.6%), cereal (4.3%), beef (20.1%), bacon (20.2%), shoes (7.5%), daycare and preschool fees (2.7%), along with the surge in oil and gas prices, and you get a sense of how parents with babies and young children are getting hit especially hard.
In all, prices of consumer items increased by nearly 1 percent last month, with overall costs rising by 6.2 percent over the past 12 months. This increase marks a historic 31-year high.
In one of his first acknowledgements of the strain Americans are facing, Biden said last week, “Reversing this trend is a top priority.” But in the same breath, he claimed, “there is no question that the economy continues to recover and is in much better shape today than it was a year ago.”
According to the Bureau of Labor’s inflation calculator, $100 last October is worth only $93.78 today. Under this devaluation, few Americans would argue they’re doing better. As Patrice Onwuka highlighted in Fox News, low-income families are getting hit hardest. “The lowest quartile of households spends twice the proportion of its budget (36%) on food than the middle quartile (15%) but 4 times the proportion of its budget than the top quartile (8%),” she wrote.
The only solution President Biden has offered to address the nation’s growing inflation concerns is passing his nearly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act. The legislation, Biden said, “will lower costs for American families and give folks a little bit of breathing room.”
Under the Trump administration, Americans saw an economy that worked. Deregulation, tax cuts and a reduction in wasteful government spending led to a period of historic economic growth. Flooding the economy with trillions more in reckless spending will do nothing to mitigate the nation’s inflation problem. If anything, it will make the problem worse.
Like all Americans, parents of young children need relief. Instead of cradle-to-grave government spending that will make life more difficult, Biden should focus on what families really need: Affordable diapers, eggs and milk.