The recent report by the Pew Research Center that births per every 1000 American women have dropped to historic lows kicked off a flurry of concern amongst conservatives that American culture is beginning to undervalue the future. However, that concern ignores the rather dismal job the country’s economy is doing to care for the children Americans are already having — and the way conservative policy preferences are exacerbating the problem. In particular, Amanda Marcotte flagged a recent round-up of studies at The American Prospect detailing the ways low-wage jobs not only harm the workers who hold them, but can harm the children of those workers as well.

One out of every five children ages 12 to 17 currently live in a low-income family — one making twice the federal poverty level or less. And as the recent round of labor protests against Walmart and the fast food industry highlighted, two out of every three jobs the United States is predicted to produce over the next decade will be low-wage and will not require more than a high school diploma. The proliferation of low-wage work as an ever greater share of America’s job supply can have all sorts of damaging effects on the country’s future generations, as the paper found:

Low-wage work prevents parents from participating in their children’s development. Many low-income parents face longer hours, unusual hours, inflexible schedules, and lack benefits such as paid sick days, paid medical and parental lave, and vacation. This prevents them from providing the same attention and care to their children as higher income parents — often forcing a choice between their family and their income. They’re often less able to involve themselves in their child’s schooling, or to even ensure the child regularly attends class and completes homework. The kinds of jobs to which low-income parents are constrained are even associated with higher levels of depression, which of course effects the emotional health of the family as a whole.

Children of low-wage parents are often forced into the labor market early themselves. Bringing in enough money for the family to make ends meet can often force low-income youth themselves into the labor market prematurely, which can damage their socialization, development, and schoolwork. While studies of the effect of work on youth is mixed — with some positive results in terms of experience, literacy, and positive social influences — multiple investigations have also found a negative correlation between how much young people work at a job and how well they perform in high school. In one investigation of teens who dropped out of high school, 29 percent cited family concerns as a reason for leaving. The demands placed on low-wage parents can force their children into roles caring for other family members at a young age, or to take care of themselves.

Children of low-wage parents are more likely to face educational difficulties. Low-income youth are three times more likely to drop out of high school than middle-class youth, and six times as likely as young people from high-income families. Less than half of low-income youth between the ages of 18 and 24 remain consistently involved in school or connected to the labor market. As for higher education, a 2010 paper found that three quarters of students listed their family as “their top source for college support” and “the place they turn most for help” — precisely the kind of support low-wage work can prevent a parent from providing.

These trade-offs can trap parents in economic or familial hardship. Often times, advancing out of low-wage jobs requires an employee to take on longer or more unusual hours — something parents are less able to do. Thus a feedback loop begins in which low-wage parents must sacrifice the developmental needs of their children to raise the family’s standard of living, or in which parents refuse offers of higher-paying jobs precisely because they do not want to leave their children without the attention they need.

Children of low-wage parents are more at risk for health problems. Children of low-income parents are more likely to suffer from obesity, and female teenagers in low-income families are more likely to become pregnant, again largely because of how the demands of low-wage work can hamper parental involvement in their children’s lives.

All these effects are particualrly pronounced for minority, immigrant, and single-parent families. The paper — by Lisa Dodson at Boston College and Randy Albelda at the University of Massachusetts, along with Diana Salas Coronado and Marya Mtshali — recommends policy responses including more paid sick and parental leave for workers, more vacation time, more schedule flexibility for workers, and efforts to increase hourly wages.

Republicans are dead set against President Obama’s plan to raise $1.6 trillion in new revenue through tax increases on Americans making over $250,000. Their argument generally boils down to warnings that the drag of the added tax burden on “job creators” will be so severe it will damage the entire economy. But as a new report by The New York Times detailed yesterday, even a significant minority of those making over the $250,000 threshold would see no increase under Obama’s tax plan, and for the rest the added burden would be minor in comparison to the size of their incomes:

A close look at the president’s plan shows that a large majority of families making up to $300,000 — as well as hundreds of thousands of families with even larger incomes — would not pay taxes at a higher marginal rate. [...]

While the president has said that he wants to raise tax rates for the top 2 percent, only about 1 percent of taxpayers will face higher marginal rates, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a widely respected research group.

The restoration of the other provisions temporarily suspended by the Bush tax cuts, including limits on deductions and higher taxes on investment income, still would raise taxes for only about 32 percent of families with income from $250,000 to $300,000, according to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice. About 77 percent of families with income of $300,000 to $350,000 would face an increase.

That $1.6 trillion in revenue can be raised by applying a relatively small tax burden on a very narrowly defined set of Americans is an indication of how extreme and concentrated income inequality has become in America. It also reveals why multiple studies, the latest from the International Monetary Fund, have concluded that Obama’s preferred set of tax increases will have a negligible effect on economic growth — the income being hit is largely separate from the low and middle-income Americans who provide the bulk of the demand driving the economy.

It’s also evidence of White House policymakers’ desire to strictly adhere to the president’s promise that taxes would not go up on Americans under the $250,000 a year threshold. The cut-off was inflation adjusted to remain consistent with dollars in 2009, when Obama made the promise. And due to the complexities of the tax system, carve-outs aimed at protecting those under the threshold sometimes bleed over to benefit those above the threshold as well. And admittedly, these numbers do not include tax hikes passed under the Affordable Care Act, some of which will fall on the wealthier families spared by the President’s tax plan specifically.

On Thursday, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) backtracked on his commitment to avoid so-called “right-to-work” legislation and by the end of the day, both the Michigan House of Representatives and the Michigan state Senate had introduced and passed separate bills aimed at the state’s union workforce.

Michigan Republicans claim the state needs the measure to stay competitive with Indiana, where lawmakers passed “right-to-work” last year. In reality, though, such laws have negative effects on workers and little effect on economic growth. Here is what you need to know about the state GOP’s campaign:

THE LEGISLATION: Both the state House and state Senate passed legislation on Thursday that prohibits private sector unions from requiring members to pay dues. The Senate followed suit and passed a different but similar measure that extends the same prohibition for public sector unions, though firefighters and police officers are exempt. The state House included a budget appropriations provision that is intended to prevent the state’s voters from being able to legally challenge the law through a ballot referendum. Due to state law, both houses are prevented from voting on legislation passed by the other for five days, so neither will be able to fully pass the legislation until Tuesday at the earliest.

THE PROCESS: Union leaders and Democrats claim that Republicans are pushing the legislation through in the lame-duck session to hide the intent of the measures from citizens, and because the legislation would face more trouble after the new House convenes in January. Michigan Republicans hold a 63-47 advantage in the state House, but Democrats narrowed the GOP majority to just eight seats in November. Six Republicans opposed the House measure; five of them won re-election in 2012 (the sixth retired). And Michigan Republicans have good reason to pursue the laws without public debate. Though the state’s voters are evenly split on whether it should become a right-to-work state, 78 percent of voters said the legislature “should focus on issues like creating jobs and improving education, and not changing state laws or rules that would impact unions or make further changes in collective bargaining.”

THE CONSEQUENCES: While Snyder and Republicans pitched “right-to-work” as a pro-worker move aimed at improving the economy, studies show such legislation can cost workers money. The Economic Policy Institute found that right-to-work laws cost all workers, union and otherwise, $1,500 a year in wages and that they make it harder for workers to obtain pensions and health coverage. “If benefits coverage in non-right-to-work states were lowered to the levels of states with these laws, 2 million fewer workers would receive health insurance and 3.8 million fewer workers would receive pensions nationwide,” David Madland and Karla Walter from the Center for American Progress wrote earlier this year. The decreases in union membership that result from right-to-work laws have a significant impact on the middle class and research “shows that there is no relationship between right-to-work laws and state unemployment rates, state per capita income, or state job growth,” EPI wrote in a recent report about Michigan. “Right-to-work” laws also decrease worker safety and can hurt small businesses.

Union leaders are, of course, aghast at Snyder and the GOP’s right-to-work push. “In a state that gave birth to the modern U.S. labor movement, it is unconscionable that Michigan legislators would seek to drive down living standards for Michigan workers and families with a law that will do nothing to improve either the state’s economic climate or the quality of life for Michigan residents,” RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of National Nurses United, said in a statement.

For some Republicans, their November 6 general election defeat at the hands of President Obama and the Democrats served as a teaching moment, a chance to reassess their opposition to raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and refusal to compromise with the administration.

Not so for failed vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who appears to have gleaned the opposite message to the one that voters delivered last month. In an interview with Time Magazine, Ryan signaled that he plans to embrace the most radical aspects of his original budget proposal that voters and lawmakers have already rejected:

Rather than moderating his positions after November’s election, he has returned to an earlier, hard-line version of his controversial fiscal plan, including turning the guaranteed benefits of programs like Medicare and Medicaid into limited government checks, and even revisiting big changes to Social Security. That, he believes, is the only way to end the dependency responsible for entrenched poverty in America and save the social safety net from bankruptcy. Election defeat just means those reforms have to be made one step at a time, he says. The fiscal-cliff talks are the first test of whether that post-2012 incremental strategy can fly. So far, it’s not going well.

Ryan’s radical proposals are hardly new. His march to privatize Social Security dates back to the Bush administration, and most recently resurfaced when Ryan took over the chairman’s seat on the House Budget Committee in 2011. Ryan’s original budget also sought to close the existing Medicare program and force future beneficiaries to purchase private insurance with depreciating vouchers.

Ryan’s interview with the publication took place on his way to the 2012 Jack Kemp dinner on Tuesday, where Ryan gave a speech on poverty in the United States. Lost was any sense of irony for doubling down on his budget proposals that not only disproportionately hurt the lowest-income Americans, but have now been soundly repudiated by voters in a national election.

With Congress barreling toward the end-of-year deadline for the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the package of automatic spending cuts and tax increases that will hit at the start of 2013, another potentially damaging deadline is fast approaching. The government will reach its borrowing limit sometime early in 2013, meaning Obama will have to again ask Congress to raise the debt ceiling.

The fiscal cliff is itself a creation of the gridlock caused by last August’s debt ceiling impasse, when Republicans demanded massive spending cuts in exchange for a debt limit increase but would not accede to Democratic demands for new revenues in any grand debt deal. And while Obama is seeking a clean debt limit increase, like those that were standard procedure before 2011, Republicans are already talking about the leverage they will have to create another spending fight:

STEVE DOOCY (host): The good news for the Republicans is that the looming raising the debt ceiling talks, that’s just around the corner. You guys obviously have the upper hand on that.

THUNE: I think we have — we do have some leverage with the debt ceiling increase. More than we do right now because right now, he’s got the cards. If nothing happens, if congress doesn’t act, taxes go up automatically. The debt ceiling at least requires congress to take action. What we’re told is the president is even thinking about what he might be able to do to raise the debt ceiling without going through congress, which would be a huge mistake.

Watch it:

Thune is right: the debt limit gives congressional Republicans more leverage because it requires action, something the GOP has largely been unwilling to take. And House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has already indicated that the GOP plans to use that leverage by demanding more spending cuts. But by using that leverage, Republicans risk a repeat of 2011, when a possible default caused significant economic pain. Scott Lilly from the Center for American Progress estimated that the debt limit fight cost the economy a million jobs, and monthly job growth was cut in half during the three-month struggle. Earlier this year, economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson wrote that “employment is likely still below where it would otherwise have been” had we had a clean debt limit increase.

The real economic damage, though, could come from the GOP’s insistence on spending cuts. A new report from the International Monetary Fund found that spending cuts during downturns and slow recoveries will hurt economic growth, costing the U.S. $1.80 in activity for every dollar in spending cuts.

As Congress brings the United States closer to the brink of the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the package of automatic spending cuts and tax increases that will take effect at the end of the year, yet another report has found that the spending cuts pose a major threat to economic growth, while small revenue increases won’t.

The study, from the International Monetary Fund, found that the negative impact of spending cuts during economic downturns in the United States are “statistically significant and sizeable,” while the impact of new revenues is “very small and not significantly significant.”

For each dollar of spending cuts during an economic downturn, the IMF found, the United States could lose as much as $1.80 in economic activity. A one percent rise in revenues, meanwhile, would shave just 0.1 percent of growth from the nation’s gross domestic product (the left side represents the effect of spending cuts; the right, tax increases):

President Obama proposed a plan last week that would raise $1.6 trillion in new revenues through the expiration of the high-income Bush tax cuts and other tax increases on wealthy earners. Two other nonpartisan reports, one each from the Congressional Budget Office and Congressional Research Service, have found that the economic impact of tax increases on the wealthy would be negligible. Obama’s plan also includes billions of dollars of investment into infrastructure and jobs programs to help spark growth and offset the negative effects of spending cuts.

Despite these findings, Republicans have clung to the idea that tax increases on wealthy earners will derail the economic recovery while spending cuts and deficit reduction will speed it up. The IMF study, in addition to the double-dip recession austerity has caused in Europe, shows that reality is the exact opposite.