The Trump Birth Rate Proposals Are a Joke

It’s stressful to be a mom in the US—from inflation, to the erosion of our reproductive rights, and parental burnout. So it’s not shocking the Donald Trump birth rate proposals have a lot of women up in arms.

In case you missed it, The New York Times released an article on Monday detailing the administration’s apparent ideas to encourage American women to have more babies. According to the newspaper, the proposals being batted around include three main ideas.

The one that’s getting the most attention online is the idea of a “baby bonus” of $5,000, which would be given to every mother after she delivers. That amount would cover only a few weeks of daycare, diapers, and formula for most, but let’s move on. Another idea is to give 30% of the government-backed, prestigious Fulbright scholarships to applicants who are married or have kids. And the last, and probably the oddest, proposal is to offer government-funded “programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles” so they can better understand when they could potentially conceive.

It’s important to provide context for the state of American motherhood as it stands, which compared with the rest of the developed world, is pretty bleak. The US is one of only six countries in the world with no federally mandated paid leave, and one in four women return to work just two weeks after giving birth. The US has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, and it is increasing: It jumped by 27% from 2018 to 2022. In 2022, women lost the national right to abortion, and now women in half the states in our country are living under laws deemed “restrictive.” The US Department of Labor has—in the past—called childcare costs in our country “almost prohibitive,” with many spending more on it than rent. And we are facing unprecedented burnout and stress to the point that the surgeon general called it a “public health crisis” last year.

With these facts, it’s not exactly surprising that our country’s birth rate has been dropping since 2007. Simply put, many families cannot afford to have kids, cannot afford multiple kids, or have delayed having kids because of economic hardship.

“Motherhood in America is in crisis,” Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO of the advocacy group MomsRising, tells Glamour.

She added that the Trump administration’s reported aim to slash key government programs like SNAP and Head Start that do help working families isn’t helping matters. For example, over 40% of all births in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid, says Christy Turlington Burns, the founder and president of Every Mother Counts.

“Yet the budget resolution that has passed the House and Senate will likely cut Medicaid, which will have a devastating impact on mothers,” she tells Glamour.

It’s this failure to provide robust services that is actually causing this decline, says Erin Erenberg, the CEO and cofounder of Chamber of Mothers.

“Most women we hear from aren’t opting out of motherhood—rather, they simply can’t afford it,” she tells Glamour. “That’s not a cultural crisis. That’s a policy failure. Parenthood doesn’t need to be incentivized—it needs to be supported every step of the way.”

It’s also important to examine the Trump birth rate proposals in context. As The New York Times reports, the birth rate push within the administration seems to be a result of a contingent of “pro-natalists,” who want to not only encourage women to have more kids but also to push the idea of a “traditional” family structure that does not include, notably, single mothers or LGBTQ+ families. In fact, Project 2025, the far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term which is aimed at restoring Christian values, is focused not just on increasing the birth rate, but on rescuing the heterosexual, nuclear family from what it sees as its decline.

“Our ultimate goal is not just more babies but more families formed,” Emma Waters of the Heritage Foundation, which wrote Project 2025, told The New York Times.

So, arguably, those who are pushing these Trump birth rate policies aren’t interested in helping ease the burden on parents in the US through solving their pain points. They seem to be more interested in returning women to a time when their sole purpose was mothering, in order to restore their vision of what a family should be. Another policy reportedly being considered would be to award a “National Medal of Motherhood” to moms with more than six children—a number that for most women would make working outside the home prohibitively expensive.

But even if the intention behind this birth rate push is troubling, it’s worth examining if the proposed policies would actually ease the burden on American moms. South Korea, which has a birth rate far lower than the US, has implemented so-called baby bonuses to encourage moms to have babies, with the country reportedly considering up to $99,000 per child. And these policies in the country and others have seen some success, says Dr. Jane Waldfogel, a professor of social work at Columbia University and the author of Child Benefits.

“My review of the evidence indicates that the policies that have been most successful at influencing fertility have been those that provide a large benefit for families with newborns or young children,” she tells Glamour. “The evidence also shows that these policies have other important benefits. Families with young children are at the greatest risk of economic insecurity and poverty and face high costs to cover parents’ time away from work or childcare. The research also shows that young children are the most vulnerable to the effects of financial insecurity and poverty. So providing higher benefits for families with newborns or young children—through enhanced child tax credits or baby bonuses—is a win-win.”

However, much of the online discourse surrounding the proposed Trump “baby bonus” has been focused on the amount, $5,000, which most deem woefully inadequate to make any meaningful difference.

“A one-time bonus isn’t the solution to the very real crisis that moms and families are facing right now,” says Rowe-Finkbeiner.

What’s most frustrating to her and other advocates in the space is the idea that it’s unknown or puzzling why women are hesitating to have children, or struggling once they do. What we need, says Erenberg, is commonsense solutions like a federal paid leave program; affordable, accessible, quality childcare; and meaningful investments in maternal health.

“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” she says. “We already know what works. Mothers have been shouting it from the rooftops for decades. Ignoring these solutions, rooted in lived experience and backed by data, in favor of unproven ideas is a disgrace to American families.”

The idea that women need to be properly taught how to conceive a child through a government program is a particularly insulting proposal, says Reshma Saujani, the founder and CEO of Moms First.

“Women aren’t having fewer kids because we’re confused about ovulation or waiting on a medal for motherhood—we’re drowning because of the crushing cost of raising a child in America,” she tells Glamour.

Saujani also cited paid leave and affordable childcare as commonsense solutions to actually encourage women to have more kids. The advocates say that these rather simple solutions could actually make a difference for families, and make motherhood easier for all.

“We believe that the journey to motherhood can and should be a joyful and transformative experience and urge the administration to examine what it can do to make this a reality for women across this country,” says Turlington Burns.

That’s what’s so maddening about all of this—none of this is hard. If the Trump administration actually wants families to thrive, we have the blueprint.

“Most other industrialized nations have already passed those policies, and we can too,” says Rowe-Finkbeiner. “But instead of advancing these key policies that are proven to lift families and the economy, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are trying to roll back gains we’ve already made. It’s insulting, ridiculous, and incredibly damaging.”