Trump aides are said to be considering proposals that would offer financial incentives for women to have children, including a $5,000 “baby bonus.”
The news was reported by The New York Times, who said that Trump aides are “hearing out” the proposal of a bonus, as well as promoting more education about fertility windows and women’s menstrual cycles.
The US newspaper said that the ideas are centred on “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 notes three proposals put forward in “recent weeks,” the first being reserving 30 per cent of scholarships for the Fulbright program, the prestigious, government-backed international fellowship, for applicants who are married or have children.
A second proposal would give a $5,000 cash “baby bonus” to every American mother after delivery, while a third urges the government to fund programmes that educate women on their cycles and fertility, so that they can better understand when they are ovulating for a better chance of conception.
However, the paper notes that administration officials “have not indicated what ideas — if any — they might ultimately embrace.” However, it claims that advocates expressed confidence that fertility issues will “become a prominent piece of the agenda, noting that President Trump has called for a “baby boom” and pointing to the symbolic power of seeing Mr. Vance and other top officials attend public events with their children.”
Birth-boosting measures have had some success, including in Hungary. In 2019, the country introduced tax breaks and loan forgiveness as part of a bundle of measures aimed at encouraging Hungarian women to have more children. Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who has been a steady supporter of Trump, said that the measures were a way of defending Hungary’s future without relying on immigration. The measures – including tax breaks and one-off payments worth $956 along with monthly payments – were introduced in 2019 by the right-wing leader, after it emerged that the country’s population was falling by 32,000 a year.
Such policies have helped to raise the fertility rate in Hungary from 1.23 in 2011 to approximately 1.6 in recent years. While the impact has been described as limited by critics, Hungary has gone from having one of the lowest fertility rates in the EU to among the top three in the EU, after Bulgaria and France.
In March, Mr Orban’s government extended the measures further, expanding its lifelong tax exemption to mothers of two, three or more children. The tax exemption had previously only applied to mothers of four or more children. The Hungarian Conservative reports that the Trump administration’s “draft family policy framework mirrors Hungary’s approach.” The publication reports that behind the reported plan “lies a far more extensive and multi-layered approach, incorporating initiatives inspired by Hungary’s world-renowned and successful family policy model.”
Simone Collins, who along with her husband Malcolm, is known for her views and advocacy related to pronatalism and concerns about the declining birth rate, has described the new Trump administration as “inherently pronatalist.” The activist couple has sent the White House several draft executive offers which they hope will encourage a demographic boost, including one that would bestow a “National Medal of Motherhood” to mothers with six or more children.
“Look at the number of kids that major leaders in the administration have. You didn’t hear about kids in the same way under Biden,” Ms Collins told the NYT.
A key figure in the Trump administration, billionaire Elon Musk, has led his own public awareness campaign to spike the birth rate, tweeting multiple times about the risks posed by demographic collapse. Recently, Mr Musk reiterated his view that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilisation than global warming.”
Musk, who is reportedly a father of 14 by multiple women, with some born through surrogates, brought the issue back to attention on Tuesday, tweeting: “Low birth rates will end civilisation.” It followed the release of a recent report by the U.S. National Centre for Health Statistics, revealing that the number of births in 2023 fell to the lowest level in over 40 years.
In 2023, the total number of births in the United States decreased to 3.596 million, a 2 per cent decline from 2022 (3.667 million) – and the lowest one-year figure since 1979.
The general fertility rate for the United States in the same year was 54.5 births per 1,000 women, representing a decline of 3 percent from 2022. The general fertility rate has generally declined since 2008, by an average 1 percent per year, according to the report.
White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that Mr. Trump “is proudly implementing policies to uplift American families.”
“The President wants America to be a country where all children can safely grow up and achieve the American dream,” she said, adding: “As a mother myself, I am proud to work for a president who is taking significant action to leave a better country for the next generation.”