Women could be paid $5,000 to have babies under Trump

Connor Stringer

Women could be paid “baby bonuses” of $5,000 as part of plans by the Trump administration to drive up birth rates.

Donald Trump’s aides are mulling a series of incentives to encourage women to have more children and push conservative family values, according to the New York Times.

Proposals include a “National Medal of Motherhood” to mothers with six or more children, and giving every American mother $5,000 after delivery.

Also discussed was funding for programs to educate women on their menstrual cycles so they can better understand when they are ovulating.

The behind-closed-doors discussions come amid a vocal push from key figures in the White House, including JD Vance, the vice-president, and Elon Musk, after the birth rate hit a historic low, with 1.62 births per woman in 2023.

‘Civilisational crisis’

Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, who has pitched several policy ideas to Mr Trump and his team said the administration was “soliciting input”.

“I think they’re still having a conversation about what they want to do,” she told The Times. The plans are not expected to be made part of Mr Trump’s policies any time soon.

Mr Trump told reporters that the baby plan “sounds like a good idea to me”.

Mr Vance has advocated boosting child tax credit to $5,000, to help with the cost of raising children, and warned of a “civilisational crisis” in the US if birthrates continue to fall.

“We should worry that in America, family formation, our birth rates, a ton of indicators of family health have collapsed,” Mr Vance said in 2021.

“The fact that we’re not having enough babies, the fact that we’re not having enough children, is a crisis in this country,” he added.

Most recently, he told thousands of anti-abortion campaigners at their march for life that he “wants more babies”, which was met with rapturous applause.