Like a lot of young couples, my husband and I started with a lot of hope, but not much money. No matter how emaciated our pocketbook looked in 1998, we believed it wouldn’t always be so thin. But the story of our survival has a lesson for today, as young couples trying to raise families need the kind of help I desperately sought when my children were young.
America does need to “Make Birth Great Again,” but it’s going to take some help.
After four children in about six years, we had unexpected expenses like stays in the neonatal intensive care unit, procedures for a congenital condition, medicine for asthma, extra costs for having C-section surgeries, and so on. With each child, we tightened our budget. I became an expert at applying for any government programs to help make ends meet.
But a no man’s land exists between absolute need and enough money to pay all bills on time. We didn't quite qualify for much —except the Child Tax Credit. My family grew in the golden age of the Child Tax Credit established in 1997, a program that kept us afloat.
The Child Tax Credit helped us tremendously when our children were little, when I bounced around from part time to work-from-home jobs so that I could save on child-care costs. This tax break became even more essential to us after 2008, when the housing bubble burst, and the nation fell into recession.
Right now, many American families face financial uncertainty, much like I did in the early 2000s. President Trump himself has said that Americans could feel “some pain” from the current trade war, although he considers the present economic rumblings a “medicine” needed to fix the U.S. economy—a kind of storm before the calm.
That may well be the case. I certainly hope so. But either way, what it means in the short-term is that some Americans’ budgets are severely stretched. And this means American families need the Child Tax Credit more than ever.
If Congress doesn’t act soon, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Job Act that expanded the child credit from $1,000 per child to $2,000 will expire, cutting the support many need.
No one with even a modicum of economic awareness thinks the average family is sailing on smoother financial waters now than they were in 2017. In 2021 and 2022 alone, for example, inflation rates soared to 7% and 6.5%, respectively. The tax credits should be expanded, not restricted.
Consider that necessities such as diapers can cost $900 per year, with formula ringing up at $1,800 per year. Those two items alone swallow up the current $2,000 tax credit, and then some. The credit doesn’t even begin to touch medical appointments, clothing, childcare, education, and the like.
Helping families face today’s financial difficulties will overcome tomorrow’s crisis. In a strange new world in which this resource, the very heart of human society, becomes scarcer, many experts warn of a looming population collapse.
J.H. Cullum Clark, writing for the George W. Bush Institute, outlines the potential economic impact of this trend: “the U.S. economy . . . will almost surely face vast labor shortages, leading to much greater reliance on AI and robots. A shrinking population of young adults might also mean less innovation and risk taking. The United States will find itself with too many schools and colleges and too little infrastructure to support its senior citizens. Absent sweeping course corrections, demographic change will drive the national debt exponentially upward, generate higher inflation, and upend America’s geopolitical position.”
You don’t have to be pro-life to realize what a disaster population collapse is.
One reason Americans are choosing to have fewer kids has to do with financial constraints. According to a 2024 Pew poll, 36% of adults under the age of 50 who are unlikely to have children say it’s because they can’t afford it.
President Trump acknowledges the looming population collapse and its implications. In fact, he’s floated the idea of a $5,000 incentive for having a baby—to which I say, “Bravo!” But it’s not enough. Families need the steady, ongoing support provided by the Child Tax Credit.
Voters support helping young families. A 2024 poll of voters conducted by KAConsulting LLC on behalf of Students for Life of America (SFLA) and Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement (IPA) with Clapham Group found that seven in ten respondents supported an expanded Child Tax Credit.
Some legislators have stepped up to help, but so far without success. H.R. 7024 Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 would have expanded the credit, but it died in the Senate. A new piece of legislation, the Family First Act, if enacted, would increase the credit to $4,200 for kids under six and $3,000 for older children. It would also add a $2,800 credit for pregnant women beginning at 20 weeks.
I survived the housing crisis of 2008, and today’s young families can survive the tariff and economic strains of 2025 – as long as initiatives to extend and expand the Child Tax Credit are saved from Congress's cutting floor.
Tina Whittington, Executive Vice President of Students for Life of America/Students for Life Action, oversees an operation that includes more than 1,500 groups in all 50 states.