President Donald Trump wants women in the U.S. to have more babies—as long as they’re white.
“The White House has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children, an early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda pushed by many of its allies on the right to reverse declining birthrates and push conservative family values,” The New York Times reported earlier this week. That’s quite a dramatic shift in conservative thinking about family planning, which for decades has consisted of claims that “Black and brown mothers are having babies for those sweet, sweet welfare benefits.”
But that is changing now that the idea of population collapse has been gaining steam in right-wing circles. In 2022, multibillionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted“Population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.” Vice President JD Vance talked about it in his first post-election speech, which included the words, “I want more babies in the United States of America.”
To keep the population steady, the fertility rate must hover at 2.1 children per woman. But according to the National Center for Health Statistics, here are the fertility rates per demographic group as of 2022:
Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander: 2.238Hispanic: 1.970Black: 1.639White: 1.568American Indian/Alaska Native: 1.47Asian: 1.353
Related | Why do these people think having a bunch of babies will save the world?
Here’s why declining population is a legitimate problem:
The workforce will shrink, leading to lower productivity, economic stagnation, and a shrinking tax base to fund the services required by an aging population.
Rising health care and pension costs. Cities across this country are already suffering the budgetary problems of supporting the pensions of former municipal workers, and corporate America faces the same issue. And then there’s the need to fund Social Security and Medicare.
Less innovation and entrepreneurship. Those areas are the domain of the young and those less tied to the “It’s always been done that way” type of thinking.
Lower property values and population loss. Many of us living in expensive urban areas wish housing prices would go down, but rural America is already feeling the effects of declining population. Cities would not be immune in the long run, and many are already affected—such as Oakland, California, which had to close schools because of declining enrollment.
Fewer caregivers to take care of older people.
There is one major factor that could offset the challenges of declining birth rates: immigration. Yes, that bogeyman that conservatives hate the most. The problem is that most immigrants aren’t white—and if they were, conservatives probably wouldn’t be sweating right now.
Beyond that, it bears exploring why birth rates are declining among nearly all American demographics. And most of the reasons are a direct response to Republican policies that only care about babies before they are born.
Day care is impossibly expensive. Yet Republicans fiercely oppose universal daycare and are against universal preschool. Working families literally cannot afford to have children.
Health care is too expensive, and adding children to the household only compounds that expense. Republicans, of course, are against any sort of universal health care that would make it easier for families to add to their roster.
Then there’s the ongoing GOP war on abortion. In red states, the fear of miscarriage and being unable to end high-risk pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother is real. Infant mortality in Texas increased by 13% after abortion was banned. The main factor? Fatal birth defects.
The U.S. is one of only six countries without paid maternity leave. Republicans are so hostile to postpartum time off for mothers that House Republicans fought proxy voting for new mothers tooth and nail, even though the proposal originated from a fellow Republican member. Every “no” vote in the Senate for the Family Leave Act was from a Republican—even though it is unpaid. Efforts to expand maternal leave in individual states are fiercely contested by the GOP. How are families supposed to have babies when they can’t even take time off to care for a newborn?
College is too expensive, and Republicans are doing everything they can to keep it that way. Heck, they’re trying to destroy schooling outright, literally working to eliminate the Department of Education.
School lunches for kids? Nope.
Vaccinations to keep kids alive and healthy? Also a problem. Even if kids die.
How about policies that keep the minimum wage low and a Wall Street culture that encourages a growing wage gap between working Americans and the CEO/investor class? One-income households are almost impossible in this day and age, making it harder for families to have more children. Not everyone is like Trump’s “first buddy” Elon Muskwith his limitless money and weird “legion” of babies.
Indeed, a Brookings Institution study estimated that it costs $310,000 to raise a child from birth to age 17. That’s nothing for Musk. But for most Americans, the math is tough.
Liberals aren’t entirely blameless. Housing is too expensive, so it is difficult for young people to buy the bigger homes necessary to have a larger family. This is a result of the NIMBY leftthe “not in my backyard” crowd that opposes building additional affordable housing in high-cost regions.
So what are Trump’s minions proposing to overcome all this?
Not cheaper health care, that’s for sure, as they still grouse about Obamacare while planning to good medicaid. Not better wagesor more flexible time off for new parents. That would be “anti-business.”
One proposal shared with aides would reserve 30 percent of scholarships for the Fulbright program, the prestigious, government-backed international fellowship, for applicants who are married or have children.
Another would give a $5,000 cash “baby bonus” to every American mother after delivery.
A third calls on the government to fund programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles — in part so they can better understand when they are ovulating and able to conceive.
Another proposal floating around in Trumpland: granting a “National Medal of Motherhood” to women with six or more children.
Plummeting population rates are a serious problem—but these are not serious people.
Campaign Action
