Trump won’t touch the one thing that could fix fertility rates

Last March, at a Women’s History Month event, President Donald Trump highlighted his record on women’s health, including support for in vitro fertilization, saying he’ll one day be known as the “fertilization president.” A couple of weeks later, new federal data found that America’s birth rate had hit a record low.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of U.S. births per 1,000 women of childbearing age fell from 53.8 in 2024 to 53.1 in 2025, part of a decades-long decline that’s happening internationally as well. When discussing the new data on FOX News, senior medical analyst Marc Siegel said the “problem is teens and young adults from ages 15 to 19 — the fertility rate is down seven percent, and it’s down 70% over the last two decades, meaning we’re telling people that are young not to have babies.”

MAGA podcaster Katie Miller, echoed these sentiments in a post on X that “hormonal birth control isn’t just poison for women’s minds and bodies — it’s killing population growth.” Miller, who is married to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, also noted how teen birth rates have declined since 2007.

Reducing adolescent pregnancies in a society is generally considered to be a positive trend. In fact, the World Health Organization states that preventing these pregnancies is “foundational” to achieving positive health outcomes across a person’s lifespan. Compared to pregnancies in adulthood, adolescent pregnancies have been associated with higher rates of low birth weight, preterm birth, and early neonatal mortality among infants.

When researchers examine what actually increases birth rates in a way that improves public and societal health, it’s not encouraging teens and young adults to have babies. It’s lowering or eliminating the costs of childcare, one of the most prohibitive barriers to having children, as part of a larger multi-pronged approach to support people who want to have children.

“Evidence suggests that when families have supportive infrastructure around them, they’re more likely to have the children they want to have,” Erin Erenberg, co-founder and CEO of Chamber of Mothers, told Salon. “Childcare is the single largest household expense in most states.”

“Evidence suggests that when families have supportive infrastructure around them, they’re more likely to have the children they want to have.”

According to data collected by the Economic Policy Institute, childcare for one infant costs more than public college tuition in 38 states. In 17 states and Washington D.C., childcare costs more than rent and, according to a recent LendingTree study, the cost of raising a single child in America from birth to the age of 18 has risen to an average of $300,000. The cost of childcare has increased by 24 percent between 2020 and 2024, according to Child Care Aware of America.

Despite Trump claiming to be the “fertilization president,” he has also made clear that making childcare affordable is not a priority for his administration. In fact, in a video that was uploaded to YouTube and later deleted, Trump recently said his administration “can’t take care of daycare” due to the ongoing Iran war.

“We’re a big country,” he said. “We’re fighting wars.”

Abigail Dow, an applied microeconomist and PhD candidate in economics at Boston University, underscored the correlation between childcare costs and people’s decisions to have children in a recent research paper. She found that when childcare costs rise, birth rates decline as well. In this case, stricter state regulations for childcare centers were behind an price increases. But Dow cautioned the message isn’t to forgo childcare center regulations, but perhaps it’s to make high-quality childcare centers more accessible and affordable.

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“Fertility rates do appear to be responding to prices,” Dow told Salon. “I do think this fertility crisis is a really complex one where there are lots of reasons and related and unrelated factors that are affecting people’s decisions to have children.”

When considering whether declining fertility rates are a “crisis” at all, Dow said the concern from an economic perspective is a shrinking workforce and whether future generations will be able to support younger ones. According to a report published earlier this year by the Congressional Budget Office, America’s population is predicted to have roughly 8 million fewer residents by 2055.

“When we think about some of the reasons behind the declining birth rates, like declining teen pregnancies, I think that’s a good thing,” Dow said. “Women probably feel like they have more agency in their lives and they can delay child rearing, or even just not have children, that’s also probably a good thing.”

Notably, a CDC study published in March 2025 found fertility rates rising among women in their 30s and 40s, though the increases are smaller compared to overall declines.

In this case, the cost of childcare might not be the only barrier and driver of lower birth rates. For example, in vitro fertilization can cost between $25,000 to $30,000 for one cycle without medication. Notably, the Trump administration gutted the CDC’s IVF team last year.

“The latest data reflects a clear shift: more people in the U.S. are choosing to have children later in life,” Danielle Melfi, CEO of RESOLVE, The National Infertility Association, told Salon. “But delayed parenthood often comes with increased reliance on fertility care, and today, too many people who want children face significant barriers to accessing it.”

Melfi added that cost and insurance coverage remain major obstacles, and that people usually discontinue it because they can’t afford it.

“If we want to reverse these trends, we need a more comprehensive approach — one that includes accessible fertility treatment, and robust support for what comes after, including postpartum care, childcare and family infrastructure,” Melfi said.

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