In the News

By Alexandra Marquez, Gabe Gutierrez and Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner

President Donald Trump's administration has been exploring ways to increase the country’s birth rate, with the president himself saying he wouldn't mind being known as the "fertilization president."

But congressional Democrats and activists say Republicans have long overlooked the growing cost of having and raising children and ignore policy solutions that are readily available.

“If you want to encourage families to have children and be serious about it, then you would work to lower costs, build economic security for families,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, an 18-term Democrat from Connecticut and a leading proponent of a federal paid family leave program, told NBC News.

The fertility rate in the United States has declined overall since 2007, hitting a historic low in 2023 before plateauing the following year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But birth rates are declining globally, not just in the U.S.

The New York Times reported in April that some of the policy pitches being made to the Trump administration to encourage women to have more babies include giving mothers $5,000 in cash after they give birth and government-funded classes on menstrual cycles. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a memo this year ordering the department to prioritize funding for communities that have higher birth and marriage rates. 

A senior White House official confirmed to NBC News that the administration is encouraging people to have babies, saying, “That’s what we talked about during the campaign.”

Asked at a White House event about the proposed "baby bonus," Trump told reporters that it “sounds like a good idea to me."

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a co-chair of the bipartisan House Paid Family Leave Working Group, said the effort “would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.”

Instead of a one-time payment, expanding the Child Tax Credit — which provides long-term tax breaks for some parents — would be a more reliable way to help families, said Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., leader of the congressional Dads Caucus.

“Most costs are not one-time costs. When it comes to a kid, they’re ongoing every single month,” Gomez said. “The Child Tax Credit, if it was advanceable — that means, if it was paid monthly — it would have a huge impact on families.”

Gomez pointed to Census data and a Care.com report that showed that the median housing cost as a percentage of income was 31% for renters and 21% for homeowners in 2024. Meanwhile, parents on average spent 29% of their savings on child care costs the same year.

But the $2,000 annual Child Tax Credit approved under Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is set to expire at the end of the year, with the credit dropping to $1,000 for each qualifying child.

A group of Senate Democrats introduced a proposal last month to expand the credit to $6,360 annually for newborns, with the credit gradually lowering to $3,600 for children ages 6 through 17.

With Republicans controlling Congress, the bill faces strong headwinds. Some Senate Republicans, though, have signaled a willingness to raise the child tax credit in other ways as they consolidate plans to pass a major tax bill this session.

“I don’t know if they have a real appetite to do it,” Gomez said of the Trump administration. “Because the solutions are there. Like, people have been discussing them for a long time. They’re not new. And if they were serious about it, they would look at those solutions.”

Erin Erenberg, the CEO and a co-founder of Chamber of Mothers, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that advocates for maternal and parental rights in the U.S., said her organization is hearing that women cannot afford to have children today.

"That’s not a cultural crisis. That’s a policy failure," she said. "Parenthood doesn’t need to be incentivized — it needs to be supported every step of the way."

Erenberg went on to list the three policy proposals her group believes would “invite motherhood:” a federal paid leave program, investments in maternal health and access to affordable child care.

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