Overview · Brief 1 of 3

What This Plan Means for Your Rights and Your Money

The Heritage Foundation released a plan called "Saving America by Saving the Family." It would change how the government treats different kinds of families. Here's what it says — and what it would mean for real people.
Source: Heritage Foundation, "Saving America by Saving the Family," January 2026 · Analysis by Social Intelligence Initiative
Read the original report here

The Big Picture

This plan says the best way to fix America's problems is to get more people married and having children. To do that, it would give tax breaks and new benefits to married couples — but take away help from single parents and families that don't fit the plan's definition of a "natural" family. It would also change how the government enforces civil rights.

How This Plan Could Change Who Gets Equal Treatment

Same-Sex Couples Would Lose Benefits

Major Change

The plan says the government should treat married straight couples better than same-sex couples. New benefits like savings accounts for babies and extra tax credits would only go to what the plan calls "natural marriages" — one man and one woman.

What this means in real life

A same-sex married couple with two kids would not qualify for tens of thousands of dollars in new benefits that a straight married couple with two kids would get — even if both families earn the same income and raise their children the same way.

700K+
Same-sex married couples affected

Black and Hispanic Families Would Be Hit Hardest

Major Change

Many of the new benefits only go to married couples. But in the U.S., about 70% of Black children and 53% of Hispanic children are born to unmarried parents. That means these communities would be shut out of the biggest new benefits — and would also face cuts to existing help.

The plan also wants to get rid of a legal rule called "disparate impact" that has been one of the main tools for fighting racial discrimination in hiring since 1971.

What this means in real life

If a company's hiring test screens out Black applicants at a much higher rate, they can be held accountable under current law. This plan would remove that protection. At the same time, communities with the lowest marriage rates — often communities of color — would get less federal money for roads, bridges, and transit.

Transgender People Would Lose Legal Protections

Major Change

The plan says the government should stop recognizing "gender identity" and only use biological sex in law. That means transgender people could lose workplace protections, healthcare coverage, and the ability to change their legal documents.

1.6M
Trans adults losing protections

Women Would Face Pressure to Leave the Workforce

Structural Change

The plan creates financial rewards for families where only one parent works — which historically means the mother stays home. It calls the feminist movement destructive for encouraging women to "seek independence whatever the cost to their families." It also wants to change alimony laws to cut off payments faster after divorce.

What this means in real life

A woman who left her career to raise children and then got divorced could lose alimony support more quickly. Meanwhile, new tax credits reward one-earner married households — creating financial pressure for one parent (usually the mother) to stop working.

Who Gets More — and Who Gets Less

Married Couples Would Get Major New Benefits

New Programs

The plan creates several new programs that only married couples can use:

$2,500
Savings account at birth (NEST)
$17,670
Per-child tax credit over 4 years
$2,000
Per-child home childcare credit
What this means in real life

A married couple with three kids could receive over $60,000 in new benefits over four years. An unmarried couple raising the same number of kids, with the same income, doing the same quality of parenting? They get nothing.

Single Parents Would Lose Help

Benefit Cuts

To pay for the new married-couple programs, the plan would cut benefits for single parents. It says a single mom making $20,000 a year who gets about $46,500 in combined help (food stamps, housing, healthcare, childcare) is getting "too much." It wants to put a cap on how much total help any family can get.

What this means in real life

That $46,500 isn't extra spending money — it's what keeps her family fed, housed, and healthy. If you cap it, something has to go. Maybe it's the housing voucher. Maybe it's childcare. Either way, her kids feel it.

Your Neighborhood Could Lose Federal Funding

Already Happening

The Department of Transportation is already sending more money to communities with higher marriage and birth rates. That means cities — which tend to have lower marriage rates — would get less money for roads, bridges, buses, and transit. Rural and suburban areas with more married families would get more.

What this means in real life

If you live in a city with a lot of single-parent families, your bus routes, road repairs, and infrastructure projects could get less federal funding — not because of how much tax you pay, but because of your neighborhood's marriage rate.

How Different Groups Would Be Impacted

Single Parents

Benefits capped, work rules tightened, excluded from new programs

Hurts the most

LGBTQ+ Families

Excluded from "natural marriage" benefits, legal protections removed

Hurts the most

Black & Hispanic Communities

Higher nonmarital birth rates mean less access to new benefits; infrastructure funding shifts away

Significant harm

Working Women

Tax incentives push toward leaving jobs; alimony protections weakened

Significant harm

City Residents

Federal transportation money shifts to suburbs and rural areas

Moderate harm

Married Couples in Suburbs

New tax credits, savings accounts, infrastructure investment, childcare credits

Benefits most

How It All Connects

New benefits only go to married couples
Single-parent benefits get cut to pay for it
People who can't afford to marry fall further behind
Federal money goes to places with more married people
City neighborhoods lose investment and jobs
The people who need the most help get the least