Why U.S. Birth Rates Are Dropping

The U.S. fertility rate dropped to another record low in 2025, according to provisional CDC data, marking a 23% drop since 2007. Jill Filipovic, attorney and author of several books, including OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind (Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2020),  and Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center and a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explain what's behind the decline, the current Republican and far-right conservative policy plans to try and reverse those trends and what actually works to incentivize a growing population.

Photo: A doctor uses a hand-held Doppler probe on a pregnant woman to measure the heartbeat of the fetus on Dec. 17, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. (Credit: Rogelio V. Solis/AP)