U.S. plans to give transportation money based on birth and marriage rates. How would Minnesota fare?

The Trump administration is planning to give priority for federal transportation money to communities with birth and marriage rates higher than the national average.

The order, signed last month by newly appointed Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, claims to “mandate reliance on rigorous economic analysis” for loans and grants that support the nation’s roads, bridges and transit systems.

While there’s little guidance on how Duffy’s order will be enforced, funding decisions could be based partly on demographic data from each state, among other factors.

“It’s very unclear how it will affect Minnesota,” said Margaret Donahoe, executive director of the Minnesota Transportation Alliance.

A review of demographic data by the Minnesota Star Tribune found it could shift federal transportation money away from blue states in favor of red states.

States with the highest fertility rates include Republican-leaning South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota and Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Meanwhile, Democratic-leaning Vermont, Oregon, Rhode Island and New Hampshire have the lowest fertility rates.

And Minnesota? The state’s fertility rate is slightly above the national average, and its marriage rate just below it.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and the Metropolitan Council, both major funders and builders of highway and transit projects, say they haven’t received any detailed rules regarding the new marriage and birthrate policy.

“We have concerns that these new implementation procedures could impact existing road and bridge projects and timelines,” said MnDOT spokesperson Anne Meyer. In a statement, the Met Council said much the same thing.

The order signed by Duffy, a former MTV reality star and Republican congressman from Wisconsin who is a married father of nine, appears to dovetail with the views of Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk, who is leading sweeping federal cost-cutting efforts.

Both Vance and Musk have expressed alarm at declining birth rates in the United States, part of a broader pro-natalist movement that encourages families to have more children, often deriding individuals who make other choices. (Musk has reportedly fathered 13 children with four women.)

The national marriage rate in 2022 was 6.2 per 1,000 total population and the national fertility rate was 56 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 49, according to CDC data.

Minnesota State Demographer Susan Brower said births in Minnesota have been declining for decades — and that’s expected to continue.

“If you think about what your grandparents’ generation looked like, or maybe even your parents’ generation, it’s really easy to tell that it’s been a long-term decline in what is an average family,” Brower said.

“All demographers I know are expecting that it will continue to decline,” she added. “There’s no expectation that it will turn around, and really, very little expectation that it will turn around because of any kind of policy.”

What do fertility and marriage have to do with the complicated issue of transportation funding?

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Transportation said in a statement one of the department’s “main objectives is to fund safe and efficient infrastructure throughout the [United States]. As projects are evaluated, many factors will be considered, including areas with strong population growth.”

However, Duffy’s order “to the extent permitted by law” also prioritizes transportation funding for communities that cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, and prohibits areas from receiving federal money if they have vaccine and mask mandates.

On the marriage and birth rate question, Duffy specifically mentions the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grant program, a hefty source of financing for big transit projects in the Twin Cities, including the Southwest light-rail line and the Blue Line light-rail extension.

Each project, among the most expensive in state history, have price tags hovering around $3 billion, with the federal government picking up about half the cost to construct them.

The budget of the Blue Line extension between Minneapolis and Brooklyn Park is unclear, given the first Trump administration tended to favor highways over transit, biking and pedestrian projects. (Local transit planners are quick to point out that Southwest’s $929 million federal grant was approved during Trump’s first term.)

Met Council spokesperson Terri Dresen said Thursday the regional planning body is aware of the marriage and birth rate “policy directive” and “has concerns that new implementation procedures could potentially impact existing project timelines or external partnerships.”

Once the Met Council receives more guidance “we will thoroughly review them and determine appropriate next steps,” she said.

It’s also unclear how the directive will affect about $857 million MnDOT expects to receive from Federal Aid Highway funds in fiscal 2026

About 30% of these federal funds is shared with cities and counties across the state using a local distribution formula, Meyer said. Most of the rest of MnDOT’s share is distributed to its eight transportation districts statewide for projects that align with the agency’s Capital Highway Investment Plan, which details highway investments for the next 10 years.

“We are monitoring each announcement and working to determine the impact of new federal direction on our projects and work,” Meyer said.

An analysis by the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, found that the winners from Duffy’s policy nationwide would be higher-income areas and those with larger white populations.

“As such, the policy would reinforce many of the nation’s existing demographic inequities and fail to support the U.S. residents most in need of expanded transportation investment,” the report notes.

The Star Tribune analysis of marriage and birth rate data from across Minnesota also found that the new paradigm would shift money away from public transit projects, which are usually built in densely populated communities that also tend to have lower marriage and birthrates.

The winners based on this data? Transportation projects in rural communities and outer-ring suburbs, including Blaine, Lakeville, Lake Elmo and Maple Grove, as well as Dakota and Anoka counties.

The losers? Minneapolis and Hennepin County, which have marriage and birth rates below the national average, and many older inner-ring suburbs such as Richfield, Roseville, Hopkins, Crystal and West St. Paul.

In addition, Duluth and St. Louis County both have marriage and birth rates below the national average. The area is home to the planned $1.8 billion rebuild of the Blatnik Bridge, which received $1 billion from the federal government last year.

College towns such as St. Peter, St. Joseph and Winona also have low marriage and birth rates due to high numbers of students relative to the total population.

It is unclear how the order would apply to communities that have either marriage or birth rates above the national average, but not both. For example, St. Paul has a high birth rate but a low marriage rate.

And Mahnomen County, located within the White Earth Nation Reservation, has both the lowest marriage rate and the highest birth rate of any Minnesota county.

“Much is still unknown about how this directive will show up,” said Lindiwe Rennert, a senior research associate with the Urban Institute. “It’s still a colossal question mark.”

Emma Nelson of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.