The U.S. fertility rate reached a record low in 2025, continuing a troubling trend as annual deaths are projected to exceed annual births in America within the next decade.
Total births per 1,000 American women aged 15-44 dropped to 53.1 last year, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year also marked the first time in U.S. history that women in their late 30s had higher birth rates than women in their 20s, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Recent projections from the Congressional Budget Office warn that, beginning in 2033, there will be more deaths reported in the United States than births. After 2032, U.S. population growth will be entirely dependent on net immigration, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s projections. The United States recorded just 514,000 more births than deaths in 2025.
Striking CBO projection: by 2033, deaths will outpace births as a consequence of falling fertility. pic.twitter.com/FJ7lBJOvsB
— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) April 9, 2026
The U.S. fertility rate now stands at 1.57 births per woman, below the replacement level of 2.1 and among the lowest in the world. Data from 2023 showed that only eight countries, including Russia and China, had lower fertility rates than the United States. South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate at 0.80 births per woman in 2025, which was a slight increase from 0.75 in 2024 and 0.72 in 2023. The United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, and Spain also have lower fertility rates than the United States.
A big part of the declining U.S. fertility rate is the continued sharp decrease in births among young women and teenage girls. Since 2010, the birth rate among women between the ages of 20 and 24 dropped from nearly 100 births per 1,000 women to just over 50 births. For girls between 15 and 19, the birth rate has plummeted 72% since 2007.
“People are waiting longer to enter parenthood and probably want to make sure that things are set in their lives before they do so. There might be a lot of uncertainty, and that might not be good for a society in general,” Wendy Manning, co-director of Bowling Green State University’s National Center for Family & Marriage Research, told the Journal.
The Trump administration has expressed concern about America’s declining birth rate and has enacted policies to encourage more Americans to have babies. President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” passed by Congress last year, sets up $1,000 Trump accounts for babies born between 2025 and 2028 and increases the child tax credit.
President Trump also signed an executive order in February 2025, seeking ways to lower costs for in vitro fertilization.
“My Administration recognizes the importance of family formation, and as a Nation, our public policy must make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children,” Trump’s order stated.
Vice President JD Vance has also been outspoken in his desire to see more babies born in the United States. Speaking at the March for Life in January 2025, Vance told pro-life demonstrators, “Our society has failed to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another is a core part of living in a society to begin with, so let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America.”
“And I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them,” Vance added. “And it is the task of our government to make it easier [for] young moms and dads to afford to have kids, to bring them into the world, and to welcome them as the blessings we know they are.”