One ofDonald Trump’s priorities for his second term is getting Americans to have more babies – and the White House has a new proposal to encourage them to do so: a $5,000 “baby bonus”.
The plan to give cash payments to mothers after delivery shows the growing influence of the“pronatalist” movementin the US, which, citing falling US birthrates, calls for “traditional” family values and for women – particularly white women – to have more children.
But experts say $5,000 checks won’t lead to a baby boom. Between unaffordable health care, soaring housing costs, inaccessible childcare and a lack of federal parental leave mandates, Americans face a swath of expensive hurdles thatdisincentivize themfrom having large families – or families at all – and that will require a much larger government investment to overcome.
It is true that the US is seeing decliningbirthrates– and has been for some time. While fertility rates bounced around what demographers call “replacement level” – the rate at which the population replenishes aging people with new ones – in the decades that followed the post-world war two baby boom, they have been on a steady downward trend since the 2010 Great Recession, so that now, US fertility rates sit at around 1.6 births per woman.
But these numbers are far from alarming, according to demographers and policy analysts. US birthrates are still in line with those in other developing countries, where societies and economies are continuing to thrive, and concerns about the sustainability of programs such as social security can be fixed through other remedies, like raising the tax limit.
In the US, the modest decline in fertility can be attributed to a drop in teen pregnancy rates, as well as more families with two working parents and delaying having children. But these elements alone do not explain the trends we’re seeing, says Paula Lantz, a social demographer and professor of health policy at the University of Michigan. While the number of people who don’t have any children isn’t changing, demographers are seeing the percentage of families who have two kids drop, and the percentage of those who have just one increase. “There is something else going on,” she said.
That “something else”, Lantz and her colleagues say, is how challenging it is to raise a family in the US from a financial perspective. For many Americans, having a larger family means sacrificing quality of life.
Between the costs of healthcare, including the thousands on average that Americans pay just to give birth in a hospital, childcare, housing and basics such as formula and diapers,having a babyin the US is ahuge expense– one that experts say a single $5,000 payment would barely make a dent in.
“I had a baby a few months ago, and a one-time payment of $5,000 wouldn’t do much if I didn’t also have paid leave that let me keep my job, good health insurance, family support, incredible childcare and the kind of job that allows me to both provide for my family and be there for pickup,” said Lily Roberts, the managing director for inclusive growth at the Center for American Progress. “Every mom in America deserves that, and every dad does too.”
Stephanie Schmidt, the director of childcare and early education at the Center for Law and Social Policy, emphasized that the average cost of infant care in the US is $14,000 per year, with that number ticking up to closer to $25,000 per year in high-cost-of-living areas. “$5,000 gets you almost nowhere when you’re thinking about utilizing it to pay for the expenses of having a young child,” she said.
Schmidt also noted that when other countries have tried similar approaches, they made little to no difference in how many children people choose to have.
In Australia, where a $3,000 baby bonus wasput in place in 2004to reverse declining fertility rates, there was a brief spike in birthrates immediately after a bonus was offered, but those rates dropped again in subsequent years. Experts say this is because families simply move up their timelines, having the same number of kids they already intended to have, only earlier.
“They want to make sure they get [the benefit] before that policy is changed by the next government,” said Ron Lee, the director of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging at the University of California, Berkeley.
Plus, most of the other countries that have tried baby bonuses also have robust social and healthcare systems, so the cash payments went further than they would in the US. “It’s not working in those contexts, so it’s certainly not going to work in ours,” said Lantz.
To change minds and behaviors, there need to be much more substantial policy changes, experts say, that address the housing crisis, offer childcare subsidies, make healthcare accessible and affordable and guarantee paid family leave.
“[This] would have such a more significant impact for families because it’s not a one-time investment,” said Schmidt.
Deliberate efforts to address theclimate crisiscould also encourage more people to have children as younger people are delaying or forgoing starting families because of climate anxieties, says Lee, pointing to surveys that suggest this trend. Evidence also shows that people have fewer children during times of political uncertainty and instability – a dynamic experts say this administration is only intensifying.
“If the problem they’re trying to solve is addressing a low birthrate, then create the conditions to make birth possible and make raising a family possible,” said Mary Ignatius, the executive director of advocacy group Parent Voices California.
That isn’t to say that $5,000 wouldn’t be well-received, says Roberts. It might help pay for a month or two of childcare; help families buy a new crib, stroller and other gear, all of which are poised to become more expensive with rising tariffs; or offset hospital costs.
For lower-income families especially, research shows that receiving no-strings cash bonuses can help them reach a point of financial stability, especially when kids are younger.
But experts emphasize that other actions taken by the administrationto dismantle programsthat already support American families and children belie any honorable intentions. To date, the Trump administration has proposedeliminatingHead Start, a program that supports families with very low incomes in accessing childcare, as well as cutting funds to Medicaid, which provides health care coverage for low-income Americans. (The Biden administration also let the child tax credit – which expanded eligibility for pay outs of up to $3,600 for American families – expire, even though it’s beencredited withlifting millions of children out of poverty.)
“Those are the things that women need to be able to make the choices of how they want to be a parent,” said Ignatius. “Eliminating the programs at Medicaid, Head Start, TANF (temporary assistance for needy families), food stamps – that equates to much more than $5,000 in support for low-income families.”
Thedismantlingof thefederal workforcein the Department of Education, the justice department, which oversees juvenile justice initiatives, and the Department of Health and Human Services, where staff responsible for distributing funds for state welfare and foster care programs were gutted, will also have a negative impact on American families. “Even the little things that improve a family’s life, like children’s museum grants and public libraries, are reeling from cuts”, said Roberts. “All American families are going to feel the impact of this administration, and creepyplans to give moms a medalabsolutely won’t make up for what they’re taking away.”
For Schmidt, the White House’s actions speak to a fundamental disconnect between statements that encourage Americans to have children and actions that make doing so increasingly out of reach. “There is such an emphasis in this administration on birth, and such a lack of support for people once they’re here,” she said.