It's the Brian Larry Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We turn now to the U.S.

birth rate. Provisional Centers for Disease Control data released back in April show that U.S.

fertility rates hit another record low in 2025, marking a 23% decline since 2007. The data show that

one of the biggest contributors driving down the birth rate is that the teenage birth rates fell

significantly down seven points

in 2025, for example, and births for women in their 40s increased. But it's still a huge decline

overall that concerns policymakers from both sides of the aisle. Low birth rates impact economic growth

overall with smaller labor markets in the future,

and a smaller taxpayer base to fund programs like Social Security, the worker-to-retiree ratio.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are putting forward solutions, and they are vastly different.

The Right Wing Heritage Foundation put forward a plan earlier this year that seems to put

the onus on women to forego careers and get married and have kids earlier. Progressives, like

New York City mayors around Mamdani, are more focused on affordability, providing things like

free universal child care. To explain what's going on with the

data and which approaches, if any, might be effective, we're joined by two guests. Jill

Filippovich is an attorney, columnist at Slate, and has a substack called ThruLine, and Karen

Gozo is the director of the Carolina Population Center and a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She's one of the leading family demographers in this country.

Jill, welcome back to WNYC and Karen, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Happy to be here.

Karen, as a demographer, can you flesh this out for us a little bit?

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