Births in the United States held near record low numbers in 2024, up just 1%, a statistic that could fuel President Donald Trump’s recent drive to pursue policies to encourage childrearing.

Only 3.62 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2024, according to a report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is up slightly from the fewer than 3.6 million in 2023, but the number of births had been on a steady decline by an average of 2% per year from 2015 to 2020.