America's Falling Birth Rate: U.S. Fertility & Family Affordability Report 2026

This report uses six claim classes: observed statistic, survey response, study result, official projection, FinanceFirst calculation and FinanceFirst scenario. They are not interchangeable.

The U.S. general fertility rate fell from 70.9 in 1990 to 53.8 in 2024. CDC reported a final 2024 TFR of 1.5995, down 23% from 2008. The 2025 GFR of 53.1 is provisional. [4] [5] [35]

The decline was not a straight line. Rates rose into 2007, fell sharply around the Great Recession, and mostly continued lower afterward. A peer-reviewed review finds that the recession explains the initial drop better than the sustained decline. [33]

The mean age at first birth rose from 25.4 in 2010 to a record 27.6 in 2024. First-birth rates fell for women ages 15-29 in 2024 and rose for ages 30-44. [5]

CDC''s longer analysis found the share of births to women age 30 or older rose from 30.2% in 1990 to 51.4% in 2023. Births fell 73% among teenagers and 44% among ages 20-24, while increasing 90% among ages 35-39 and 193% among ages 40 and older. [35]

In 2024, Census estimated that 40.2% of women ages 30-34, 23.1% of ages 35-39 and 18.8% of ages 40-44 were childless. At ages 45-50, the share was 14.9%, down from 16.7% in 2014. [36] [42]

Census also warns that a 2012 processing change affects long-run comparisons. The report publishes the age-specific values and the warning together.

Of 3,628,934 final U.S. births in 2024, 1,427,020 were first births and 1,137,499 were second births. Third births totaled 586,733, with progressively fewer at higher orders. [5]

Pew surveyed a specific group in 2024: adults ages 18-49 without children who said they were unlikely to have children. Among that subgroup, 57% cited not wanting children as a major reason, 44% focusing on other things, 38% the state of the world and 36% inability to afford raising a child. Respondents could select more than one reason. The subgroup contained 770 people and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points. [28] [29]

Kearney, Levine and Pardue''s 2022 peer-reviewed review found that no single post-2007 economic, policy or social factor explains the continued broad decline. Kearney and Levine''s 2026 literature review places cohort fertility and childlessness in a wider model of norms, work, parenting, gender roles, consumption and leisure. [33] [37]

An Atlanta Fed 2026 working paper models cohort patterns in parity, stated desire and impaired fecundity. It finds that younger cohorts are less likely to have had a child at observed ages, while a dramatic desire decline appears only for the youngest Gen Z group. The paper is not peer reviewed, the youngest cohorts are incomplete, and its discussion is suggestive rather than causal. [38]

Download the study registry with bounded findings and causal limits.

Housing, child care, health care, leave, transportation and forgone earnings arrive at different times and affect households differently. Median rent plus median child care is not the budget of a median household, because the medians come from different populations and years.

Historical U.S. housing research found opposite channels: higher prices were associated with fewer births among renters or nonowners and a positive wealth channel among homeowners. That finding argues against one national housing-to-fertility coefficient. [25]

Related FinanceFirst work covers housing affordability and mortgage lock-in, the cost-of-living benchmark and the cost of raising a child.

The dashboard contains final 2023 and 2024 state GFRs, 2024 births, 2024 ACS income and rent, the latest nonmissing DOL center-based infant price through 2022, and enacted state paid-family-and-medical-leave status. It deliberately has no composite score. [6] [7] [9] [10] [32]

DOL state prices end in 2022 and some state observations are older. FinanceFirst preserves those observed values and adds a separately labeled national CPI context translation through July 2026 using BLS series CUUR0000SEEB03. From the 2022 annual index to July 2026, the national day-care and preschool index rose about 20.7%. [7] [39]

1. Build a first-year cash-flow plan that separates one-time purchases from monthly care, housing and insurance.
2. Price actual local care slots and waitlists. A state median is context, not a quote.
3. Check employer leave, FMLA eligibility, state PFML, insurance deductibles and tax-credit eligibility separately.
4. Stress-test reduced hours or an unpaid-leave period, even when the preferred plan is a quick return to work.
5. Keep emergency savings and retirement contributions visible. A new child changes both liquidity and the long horizon.

Useful tools include the budget calculator, emergency-fund calculator and retirement-savings calculator.

The calculator separates first-year cash cost, mature annual cash cost, one-cohort nominal commitment and present value. Defaults are illustrative and not an enacted program, forecast or legislative score.

Using 3,606,400 provisional 2025 births, a universal one-time payment would cost $9.016 billion at $2,500 per birth, $18.032 billion at $5,000, $36.064 billion at $10,000 and $72.128 billion at $20,000. These are gross multiplications, not net budget estimates. [4]

Quasi-experimental studies find selected fertility-timing or birth-order responses to cash in Quebec and Spain, and a second-birth response to leave duration in Austria. A U.S. family-cap study found no measurable aggregate reduction. California leave and Quebec child care studies provide useful labor-market evidence without proving completed-fertility effects. [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [26]

Download the endpoint-specific evidence scorecard.

OECD evidence shows that cash, leave, early-childhood care and housing policies operate as systems. Cash-alone fertility effects are often modest or temporary, while care and leave can reduce work-family conflict. Countries with extensive support can remain far below replacement fertility. [30]

Quebec, Spain, Austria, Poland, South Korea and Hungary provide different lessons because benefit design, labor markets, housing, norms and baseline institutions differ. Simple before-and-after national TFR comparisons are not treated as causal.

Singapore''s resident TFR fell from 0.97 in 2024 to 0.87 in 2025. It recorded 30,004 live births in 2025, including 27,529 resident births. The new family package was announced in August 2026, so no demographic effect is yet observable. [3] [41]

The package is worth up to S$62,000 from birth through age 17: S$10,000 Baby Gift, S$32,000 in annual Child Credits, a S$5,000 CDA grant, up to S$5,000 in matching deposits and a S$10,000 education-account top-up. Existing and approximate support brings the official broader description to almost S$70,000. It is not cash at birth. [1] [2]

CBO projects the population grows from 349 million in 2026 to 364 million in 2056, then reaches zero growth. It projects deaths exceed births beginning in 2030, after which net immigration accounts for all population growth. The number of people ages 25-64 per person age 65 or older falls from 2.7 to 2.2. [12]

CBO projects the TFR at 1.58 in 2026 and 1.53 from 2036 onward. Those are assumptions in a projection, not targets or certainties. Population, total GDP and GDP per person are different outcomes. Productivity, participation, wages, capital and distribution also matter.

The 2026 Trustees test ultimate TFR assumptions of 1.40, 1.75 and 2.10. The 75-year actuarial balance improves from -5.23% to -4.42% to -3.67% of taxable payroll, yet the combined reserve-depletion year remains 2034 in all three cases. Each 0.1 increase in ultimate TFR improves the long-range balance by about 0.22% of taxable payroll. [31]

The Trustees'' average annual net-immigration assumptions of 750,000, 1,176,000 and 1,621,000 produce 75-year balances of -4.86%, -4.42% and -4.00% of taxable payroll, while combined depletion remains 2034. Immigration can add workers sooner than newborns, depending on age, employment and earnings. [31]

The 2026 Medicare Trustees project Hospital Insurance reserve depletion in the second quarter of 2033, with 89% of scheduled HI costs payable in the depletion year and 93% in 2100. The HI actuarial balance is -0.56% of taxable payroll. Part B and Part D are financed differently through annually reset premiums and general revenues. [40]

Fertility is only one demographic input. Health-cost growth, wages, provider payments, labor participation, immigration and future policy choices all affect the result. CBO projects combined Social Security and Medicare outlays rise from 8.7% of GDP in 2027 to 10.1% in 2036. [34]

• How much of the national decline reflects births delayed versus permanently forgone.
• How preferences, partnership, health, direct cost and opportunity cost interact for the same person.
• Which policy package would change completed U.S. fertility, by how much and for whom.
• How quickly child care or housing supply would respond to a national subsidy.
• What Singapore''s 2026 package will do; it is too new for outcome evaluation.
• Whether a single state''s one-year GFR change reflects behavior, composition, migration or reporting variation.

Uncertainty is not a reason to ignore household hardship. It is a reason to match each claim to the outcome actually measured.

Every downloadable asset uses the canonical report name and version 2.0. The package includes machine-readable national trends, state data, policy scenarios, study limits, fiscal sensitivities, charts, a workbook, checksums and methodology.

• Full report PDF
• Methodology PDF
• Editable research workbook
• Publication JSON
• Data, code, manifests and source ledger package
• Chart pack

Suggested citation: Asim Ahmad. “America''s Falling Birth Rate: U.S. Fertility & Family Affordability Report 2026.” FinanceFirst Research, version 2.0, September 2, 2026.

Questions and correction notices: info@financefirst.co. See the corrections policy.

National fertility series come from CDC; childlessness from Census; childcare prices from DOL; inflation context from BLS; income and rent from ACS; policy evidence from primary government, peer-reviewed studies and identified working papers; projections from CBO, SSA and CMS.

The state dashboard does not impute missing observed prices or create a composite rank. National CPI translations are separately labeled context. Policy costs are gross arithmetic. Spot exchange rates are not purchasing-power parity. Projections remain attributed. Working papers remain labeled. No external endorsement or approval is claimed.

Download the full methodology and data dictionary or review the claim-to-source audit.