Both candidates have proposed policies that could be considered pronatal, but their ideas on this front still have a number of shortcomings.
In 2016, I read Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource 2 and had my thinking on population growth changed forever.
Generally among those born in the late 20th century and early 21st century, there is a general skepticism about population size. The late 20th century was dominated by propaganda about overpopulation and its “catastrophic consequences.” Experts such as Paul Ehrlich loudly declared that overpopulation would usher in an age of mass starvation. This never occurred.
Despite this, the overpopulation narrative still dominates the intellectual landscape. A United Nations report found that concern about overpopulation is still the plurality view in the US. When asked about world population, 49 percent of Americans said the world was overpopulated, only 6 percent believed the world population was too low, and 27 percent believed it was about right. The remaining percentage of people said they did not know.
Despite this sticky popular sentiment, it seems like politicians and thought leaders are turning the corner. Elon Musk has been notably vocal about his concerns surrounding underpopulation. Interestingly, both major party candidates have also proposed policies which could be construed as pronatal.
The idea that the world is underpopulated is one that would have been scoffed at even a few years ago when Simon’s book solidified my thinking on the topic. Simon’s work shows that a large human population is an engine for economic growth if people have economic freedom. If we accept this, the looming population collapse seems like fertile ground for worry.
These worries have made their way onto the political stage. Both candidates have proposed policies that are explicitly pronatal in effect. However, both of the candidates’ proposals are also somewhat disappointing for various reasons.
Trump’s Proposal
Donald Trump recently said on stage, “We want more babies.” In rhetoric, this is one of the clearest pronatal statements of any politician in recent history. However, in practice, his policy supporting this statement is not sound.
Trump’s policy to get more babies is to require insurance companies to cover all the costs of IVF treatment. This policy is controversial for several reasons. First, IVF is unpopular with Trump’s own supporters, as many large religious groups (such as Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists) view the practice as immoral. This may be why Trump hasn’t mentioned the policy idea again.
Second, the policy may not even bring about Trump’s desired end of more babies. IVF treatment is expensive, and forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for it universally is going to mean that insurance companies will need to charge all customers a higher premium if they are to remain profitable.
If premiums go up, many families may decide to switch into policies which are cheaper but have higher deductibles. Since having children in a hospital is relatively expensive (for the average person, it runs in the thousands of dollars), a higher deductible to pay will cause people on the margin to decide to have fewer children.
This is only the beginning of the issues created by mandating that private companies provide coverage for a particular treatment.
Harris’s Proposal
The Harris campaign has been less explicit about supporting pronatal policy of any form. On net, it’s not even clear that a Harris administration would want “more babies.” However, despite this lack of rhetoric, her campaign has proposed at least one measure which is technically pronatal.
Recently, Harris announced plans to increase the child tax credit for newborns to $3,000. This is around a $1,000 increase (depending on personal circumstances) to the existing child tax credit. Note that this increase is only for newborns, and does not continue past the first year of life.
While this policy may seem good on paper, it’s relatively unhelpful to the issue. First of all, $1,000, though not inconsequential, is relatively small compared to the bigger numbers needed for successful pronatal policy according to some empirical research.
Second, and more importantly, a hypothetical Harris administration has announced no plans to cut government spending. So long as spending continues to increase, all tax cuts will need to result in future tax revenue increases to make up for the growing deficit. When you account for these future increases, the impact of a $1,000 benefit today is softened significantly.
Overall, I’m happy that leaders are beginning to see the threat of a population collapse, but the policies announced so far are simply not up to the task of changing things in any serious way.
