Government Policy and Birth Rates: Marginal Incentives Can Help

Matthew Hennessey, a Wall Street Journal opinion editor who is always worth reading, maintains that while the fall in birth rates is “a big problem in need of an urgent solution,” social conservatives are putting too much hope in “what they call ‘family-friendly’ provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act currently working its way through the Senate.” His cautions are well taken. But I think he’s too pessimistic about their potential impact, in part because he’s thinking about it the wrong way.

He makes four arguments. (1) Other countries’ pro-family policies have failed to raise birth rates appreciably. (2) “Nobody ever had a baby for the tax break.” (3) Culture matters more than government policy: “The solution to this vexing problem is in families and churches, not Congress.” (4) “The best thing the government can do to support families is to give them the gift of a growing economy.”

Matthew Hennessey, a Wall Street Journal opinion editor who is always worth reading, maintains that while the fall in birth rates is “a big problem in need of an urgent solution,” social conservatives are putting too much hope in “what they call ‘family-friendly’ provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act currently working its way through the Senate.” His cautions are well taken. But I think he’s too pessimistic about their potential impact, in part because he’s thinking about it the wrong way.

He makes four arguments. (1) Other countries’ pro-family policies have failed to raise birth rates appreciably. (2) “Nobody ever had a baby for the tax break.” (3) Culture matters more than government policy: “The solution to this vexing problem is in families and churches, not Congress.” (4) “The best thing the government can do to support families is to give them the gift of a growing economy.”