The cost of family life has reached a critical point in the United States, with a staggering 71% of Americans now saying that the cost of raising children is unaffordable for most people, according to the embargoed 2025 American Family Survey (AFS). This figure marks a significant 13 percentage-point jump in concern over just the last year and a 20 percentage-point increase since 2015.
The findings, released today by Principal Investigators Christopher F. Karpowitz and Jeremy C. Pope, reveal that economic anxieties—not “culture war” issues—are the defining challenge for American families across the political and income spectrum.
Economic concerns aren’t just an abstract worry; they’re actively influencing family planning decisions. The perceived high cost of raising children is cited as the single most important reason why Americans limit the number of children they have or plan to have, outpacing:
- Lack of personal desire (22%)
- Lack of a supportive partner (19%)
Overall, 43% of Americans cite “insufficient money” as a factor limiting their family size. This concern cuts across income brackets: 47% of low-income, 43% of middle-income, and 42% of high-income Americans agree. The financial pressure is particularly acute for younger generations, with 50% of 18-29 year olds citing insufficient money as a limiting factor, compared to just 31% of those 65 and older.
Key Economic Concerns:
- Nearly half of all Americans (49%) rank the costs associated with raising a family as one of the top three problems facing U.S. families today.
- When including other related worries like the lack of good jobs or wages (22%) and high work demands and stress on parents (25%), a full 73% of Americans select at least one economic factor as a top concern.
- This places economic concerns significantly ahead of family issues (62%) and cultural issues (57%).
While the national conversation often focuses on technology’s negative impacts, the AFS finds the public relatively ambivalent about its effects on their own family life.
- Smartphones are viewed as a net positive (37% positive vs. 28% negative), likely due to benefits like communication and connection.
- Social media is seen as a net negative (34% negative vs. 15% positive), though half of Americans are neutral.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most ambiguous, with minimal net positive or negative sentiment (22% positive vs. 21% negative), and 37% feeling neutral.
However, when focusing on young people, the negative views solidify, leading to strong support for government guardrails:
| Policy | Total Support |
| Require pornographic websites to verify a user’s age | 77% |
| Require social media companies to disclose how they rank content to minors | 81% |
| Require parental consent before a child downloads a social media app | 79% |
| Hold social media companies responsible for harm caused by recommended content | 75% |
Furthermore, Americans show near-unanimity regarding school policies, with 90% agreeing that smartphones should be excluded from classrooms during instruction time.
Marriage’s Perceived Value Declines Across Partisan Lines
The survey reveals a quiet, long-term shift towards indifference to the institution of marriage.
- For the first time in the survey’s history, more Americans now agree that a personal sense of commitment is more important than being legally married (54% agreement).
- Fewer than half of Americans (45%) now agree that society is better off when more people are married—a decrease of nearly 10 percentage points since 2018.
This decline in perceived value is not limited to one political group. Since 2018:
- The share of Democrats who strongly agree that society is better off with more married people fell from 25% to 11%.
- The share of Republicans who strongly agree dropped even more sharply, from 67% to 46%.
Low Fertility and Immigration: Partisan Divides Deepen
Only a quarter of Americans (26%) believe the country is having too few babies, despite the U.S. fertility rate hitting a record low of 1.6 births per woman. A third (34%) admit they don’t know the answer.
On immigration, the survey highlights a deepening partisan chasm, especially around family separation:
- When asked whether they favor deporting undocumented immigrants even if it separates parents from natural-born citizen children, the partisan divide in opposition is stark: 79% of Democrats oppose it, compared to just 13% of Republicans.
- This 66-point gap is the largest recorded in the survey’s history on this question, signaling extreme polarization on an issue with profound implications for family stability.
The 2025 American Family Survey underscores that for U.S. families, bread-and-butter economic issues dominate concerns, reshaping personal choices and political demands, even as core social institutions like marriage continue to lose their perceived societal utility.
READ: Keystone XL Pipeline Opponent Forced To Suspend Operations Amid Financial Crisis
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