Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has signed an undated memo that instructs the Department of Transportation (DOT) to give precedence to “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”
Newsweek contacted the Transportation Department for comment by email outside standard working hours.
Why It Matters
The U.S.’s declining birth rate has sparked political discourse and policy decisions in recent years, with Vice President JD Vance saying in a speech on January 24, “I want more babies in the United States of America.”
Vance, who often combines his call for more births with a strong anti-immigrant and anti-abortion sentiment, also said the country had embraced a “culture of abortion on demand.”
In 2024, the U.S. birth rate fell to an all-time low, and the memo may signal that President Donald Trump‘s administration intends to address the issue.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 30.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
What to Know
The undated memo said: “To the maximum extent permitted by law, DOT-supported or -assisted programs and activities, including without limitation, all DOT grants, loans, contracts, and DOT-supported or -assisted State contracts, shall prioritize projects and goals that … to the extent practicable, relevant, appropriate, and consistent with law, mitigate the unique impacts of DOT programs, policies, and activities on families and family-specific difficulties, such as the accessibility of transportation to families with young children, and give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”
This priority should also be given when administering the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grant program, the memo continued. The grant funds transit capital investments, including heavy rail, commuter rail, light rail, streetcars and bus rapid transit.
The memo added that the order “is intended to improve the internal management of DOT and is not intended to, nor does it, create any rights, benefits, or trust responsibility, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or equity, by a party against the Department, its OAs, its officers, or any person.”
Duffy, who was confirmed as transportation secretary on January 28, has also authorized a series of actions paving the way for Trump’s removal of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the department.
On Wednesday, the department released a news release about the actions, in which Duffy said: “Today’s actions mark an important step in restoring commonsense governance and merit-based policies at USDOT.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are focused on eliminating excessive regulations that have hindered economic growth, increased costs for American families, and prioritized far-left agendas over practical solutions. The American people deserve an efficient, safe, and pro-growth transportation system based on sound decision-making, not political ideologies. These actions will help us deliver on that promise.”
On the first day of his second term, Trump declared war on “woke” culture in the federal government, targeting DEI programs and policies protecting LGBTQI+ rights and the environment.
Which Parts of the Country Could Be Affected?
The directions given to the DOT in the undated memo are likely to benefit families in rural and suburban areas, according to recent data.
The Pew Research Center found that in 2018, 44 percent of people in urban areas of the country were married, compared to 50 percent in suburban areas and 51 percent in rural areas.
The total fertility rate for rural counties in 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, was 1,950 births per 1,000 women, compared with 1,778 in small or medium metropolitan areas and 1,712 in large metro counties.
According to U.S. census data, in 2022, the national marriage rate was 16.7. At the state level, Colorado and Nebraska had the highest marriage rates—at 20.9 and 20.8, respectively. New Mexico had the lowest marriage rate in the nation at 12.1.
The general fertility rate in the U.S. that year was 56.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15-44. South Dakota (66.5), Alaska (64.9), Nebraska (63.6), North Dakota (62) and Texas (61.9) had the highest fertility rates in the country in 2022, according to the CDC.
Vermont (44.3), Oregon (47.3), Rhode Island (47.5), New Hampshire (47.9), Massachusetts (48.7) and Maine (49.7) had the lowest.
What People Are Saying
Vice President JD Vance said at the March for Life event on January 24: “We need a culture that celebrates life at all stages—one that recognizes and truly believes that the benchmark of national success is not our GDP number or our stock market but whether people feel that they can raise thriving and healthy families in our country.”
Jessica Tillipman, an associate dean for government procurement law studies at the George Washington University Law School, told Construction Dive of the memo: “The way that this can be best explained is that the government has extraordinary power with its purse to impact socioeconomic policy. This is to my knowledge the first time I’ve ever seen what I call a collateral preference for marriage and birth rate.”
What Happens Next
It remains unclear what effect the instructions contained in the undated memo, which the DOT has not publicly commented on, may have—whether they will encourage unmarried Americans to tie the knot and have more children or cut crucial resources from communities that may need the support to reach the financial stability many consider necessary to build a family.
