Special Edition: Baby Bonus or Bust? ‘Trump Accounts’ & Cost of Kids
The NewsWorthy
Erica Mandy
3.9 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
U.S. birth and fertility rates have been falling for nearly two decades, and now, the government is rolling out new ideas to try to turn that around. In this episode, we explore what’s behind the decline, how much public policy really shapes family decisions, and how the U.S. stacks up to other countries when it comes to child care, paid leave, and family support.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today is Saturday, July 19th. Americans are having fewer kids. So what's driving that change? Is it really a crisis, as some people say? And what, if anything, should be done about it? Take, for example, the so-called Trump accounts. They're part of the one big beautiful bill just signed into law, and they provide $1,000 in a child savings account for every newborn. But will that really help spark a baby boom as the Trump administration is hoping? |
| 0:24.9 | What about other policies here in the U.S. and around the world? |
| 0:28.4 | Today, I'm joined by Dr. Jane Waldfogel, a leading scholar in family and social policy. |
| 0:33.2 | She's a professor at Columbia University School of Social Work and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. |
| 0:38.7 | She spent decades studying how public policies impact children and families, and her latest book is called Child Benefits, a Smart Investment for America's Future. |
| 0:47.1 | Today, she explains how serious America's falling birth rate really is, how certain policies may or may not shape family decisions, and where the U.S. |
| 0:55.4 | stands compared to other countries. |
| 0:58.6 | Welcome, welcome to The Newsworthy Special Edition Saturday, when we sit down with a different |
| 1:03.0 | expert or celebrity every Saturday to talk about something in the news. |
| 1:06.3 | Don't forget to tune in every Monday through Friday for our regular episodes when we provide |
| 1:10.2 | all the day's news |
| 1:11.0 | in just 10 minutes. It's fast, fair, fun, and on the go. I'm Erica Mandy. It's time for today's |
| 1:16.7 | special edition Saturday. You ready? Let's do this. Jane Wald Fogle, thank you so much for joining |
| 1:25.7 | us here on The Newsworthy. My pleasure. |
| 1:28.1 | So first, I just want to talk about birth rates. |
| 1:30.0 | They've been declining in the U.S. for the most part since 2007. |
| 1:33.8 | My understanding is that the average American woman will have 1.6 kids over her lifetime right now, which, according to the data I've seen, is below the two or so kids per woman it would take to maintain the population |
| 1:45.1 | through births alone. So there's debate about the potential impact of this. I'm curious what |
| 1:50.2 | you think. Is this a potential crisis? What does the data show? What do you know about this? |
| 1:54.9 | It is true. There's been a decline in fertility in the United States, and the figure you just presented |
| 2:00.0 | is accurate. Just to put that in |
| 2:02.2 | context, our fertility rate is still higher than our peer countries, the rich countries that are |
... |
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