Heritage Foundation Pushes Family Policy Reset in Washington
The Heritage Foundation has released a wide ranging policy proposal aimed at reversing declining marriage and birth rates in the United States, framing the issue as a long term social and civilizational challenge rather than a narrow economic concern. The report was presented in Washington by Kevin Roberts, who argued that family stability should be treated as a national priority. According to Roberts, the initiative is designed to elevate the policy debate in Congress by grounding it in social science rather than partisan ideology. He described the current demographic trends as unsustainable, warning that without intervention the country faces a future marked by fewer marriages, fewer children, and weakened social cohesion. The report positions family life as a public good deserving structural support, not merely private encouragement, and calls for a reorientation of welfare, tax, and labor policies to remove disincentives to marriage and childrearing.
Titled Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years, the report outlines several concrete proposals intended to encourage marriage and support parents. Among them is the elimination of marriage penalties within federal welfare programs and the introduction of work requirements designed to reinforce household stability. The plan also proposes financial incentives such as a $2,500 trust fund for couples who marry before age thirty, along with extending the existing adoption tax credit to married parents for each newborn child. Additional measures include a tax credit for families who care for young children at home rather than relying on paid external childcare. Heritage officials describe these ideas as a starting point for legislative discussion rather than a fixed blueprint, emphasizing flexibility and long term impact over short term political gains.
Roberts said discussions with lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been largely positive, particularly among Republicans, and expressed confidence that the current administration under Donald Trump would be receptive to the proposals. He acknowledged limited engagement so far from Democratic lawmakers, attributing the hesitation to longstanding concerns about welfare reform. Still, he argued that the data underpinning the report could attract broader interest, especially among policymakers concerned about social fragmentation and economic pressure on families. The report highlights that approximately forty percent of births in the United States occur outside marriage and that a quarter of American children live in single parent households. It also warns that declining fertility could soon result in deaths outpacing births, reshaping the country’s demographic and social landscape.
The report calls on the federal government to evaluate all policies through their impact on marriage and family life, including executive actions that would require agencies to justify how their programs support household stability. It also encourages competition among states to develop the most effective family friendly incentives. While the proposal arrives amid recent controversy surrounding Heritage leadership, its authors argue that the substance of the plan should be judged independently of internal disputes. By focusing on marriage, work, and childrearing as interconnected pillars of social health, the initiative seeks to reframe family policy as central to national renewal rather than a secondary cultural issue.
