The Trump administration wants to see more babies born in the United States, and the White House is floating different ideas on how to make it happen. According to The New York Times, one idea is to give $5,000 cash to every American woman after they deliver a baby.
Another proposal would set aside 30% of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have children. The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the government.
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A third idea is to provide menstrual classes for women to teach them how to better understand their cycles if they want to become pregnant.
Trump supports ‘baby bonus,’ expanded IVF access
When the New York Post asked about the $5,000 “baby bonus” in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump appeared to be on board.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” he said.
In February, he signed an executive order expanding access to in vitro fertilization while calling himself the “father of IVF.”
However, $5,000 wouldn’t cover the hospital bill for labor and delivery, especially for the uninsured. The current cost to give birth in the U.S.— according to the National Partnership for Women & Families — is estimated to be $32,000 on average before any potential insurance compensation.
A response to falling birth rates
The ideas come as the birth rate has been declining over the decades.
In 1950, there were 24.1 live births per 1,000 women. That dropped to 11.4 live births by the year 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency says 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2024.
According to the Institute for Family Studies, more countries have adopted pronatalist policies since 2015.
Currently, 55 other countries have pronatalist policies in place encouraging childrearing.
Whether such policies would work for American families is undetermined.
The Institute for Family Studies said they help to increase births in the short term, but rates usually decline again.
Hungary and Poland implemented pronatalist policies in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Both saw an uptick in births, with Poland’s rates rising by more than 10% in 2017. By 2019, the rate in Poland fell to about 6%.
At its peak after implementing the new policies, Hungary saw just over a 2% rise in childbirths in 2017. The numbers declined again later that same year.
