Abortion Bans, Restrictions Could Cost U.S. Economy $140 Billion: New Report

State abortion restrictions and bans have done substantial damage to the U.S. economy since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. 

A new report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a national think tank focused on economic equity and eliminating barriers for women, estimates that the 16 states with the most restrictive abortion policies are responsible for more than $68 billion in annual lost earnings. In places like Alabama, Louisiana, and West Virginia, abortion bans have pushed women out of the workforce, diminished their earnings, and limited job growth, the report found.  

Removing reproductive health-care barriers could result in an estimated 325,000 more women aged 15-44 participating in the workforce each year, the report shows. That could boost the national gross domestic product of the entire country by 0.5 percent. 

“Abortion bans are a drag on the economy by impacting women’s choices about their careers,” Melissa Holly Mahoney, the report’s co-author told Rewire News Group. “When women are unable to make choices about when, or if, to start a family, they are less willing to change jobs, to take time out from employment for education or skills-training, which could then lead to higher-paying jobs.”

Without family planning options, Mahoney said, other women can end up “leaving the labor force altogether.” 

The report was published on June 16, 2026, and Rewire News Group obtained early access to the data. When considering the impacts of all state-level abortion restrictions nationwide—and not just the 16 most restrictive laws—combined with federal policy changes, it calculates that the financial cost to the U.S. economy could climb to an annual average of $140 billion. 

“Either I pay our bills, buy diapers or formula”

The health harms of abortion bans imposed since 2022 have been well documented. 

Women who live under abortion bans are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or postpartum as people with full access to reproductive health care. Infants are also more likely to die in states with abortion bans.

Now, economic research is increasingly demonstrating how far beyond health-care these bans are taking their toll. 

Kayla, 26, who lives in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, was going to college to study criminal justice with the hope of becoming a probation officer. That dream was derailed when she became pregnant with her second child after the fall of Roe. 

“I am the only economic support in my house,” Kayla said. “I knew if I continued with my pregnancy, I would not be able to finish my degree and work full-time.” 

She was two years away from graduation.

But Texas has a near-total abortion ban. And Kayla—who is using her first name only to protect her privacy—couldn’t afford both child care and the cost of traveling to another state for an abortion. 

(Read: Abortion Doula Provides Cooking, Clinics, and Child Care to Pregnant Patients)

“I had to continue with my forced pregnancy and I lost everything,” Kayla said. “I lost my job”—she had been working as a cashier—“and I lost my career. Now I have two kids and I can only work part-time because I can’t afford day-care.” 

Minimum wage in Texas is only $7.25 an hour.

“So either I pay our bills, [or] buy diapers or formula,” she said. “How do I decide whether to eat or pay my bills?”

The financial hardship of a forced pregnancy can have prolonged consequences. 

Pregnant people who, like Kayla, are denied an abortion, are more likely to struggle with day-to-day living expenses like food, housing, and transportation, leading to increased debt and lower credit scores. The Turnaway Study, which looked at the long-term impact of unwanted pregnancy, found that being denied an abortion can lead to household poverty that lasts for at least four years. 

“When people become pregnant without financial stability or they are just barely making it, and then they have another pregnancy, that then takes them further into financial instability,” Dr. DeShawn Taylor, the founder and CEO of Desert Star Institute for Family Planning in Phoenix, Arizona, told Rewire News Group. 

This kind of hardship is not evenly distributed. Women of color are more financially impacted by abortion restrictions than white women, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research report. 

(Read: The Future of the Abortion Fight is Black Women)

The labor force losses were also skewed against women of color. Black and Latina women ages 15-44 saw an estimated .8 percent decrease, compared to .7 percent among white women. Black women in that age bracket saw a larger percentage of earnings growth losses: 9.9 percent compared to 8.7 percent for white women. 

“The bans deepen existing inequality,” said Taylor. “People with money, transportation, flexible jobs, child care, documentation, [have] the ability to travel to get their wanted abortion. The people without all those resources are the ones more likely to be forced to continue pregnancies.” 

Bans imposed in “the most cruel way” 

The Chicago Abortion Fund, in Illinois, is the nation’s largest abortion fund, serving patients from  44 states since June 2022. Abortion funds raise money and resources to help people access abortion care. But many report they can’t keep up with surging need. 

“We’ve seen a really significant increase in the amounts people need for their wraparound support and even to pay for their abortion,” said Megan Jeyifo, the fund’s executive director. “The decision-making people are having to do around whether to start a family—there’s so much more at stake when you don’t have SNAP,” or food stamps, “when your rent is going up…when food costs are going up.”  

Direct-to-patient telehealth abortion care, which involves a provider prescribing abortion medication that is filled by a mail-order pharmacy, has been especially helpful for pregnant people who are younger, live in rural areas, or are facing food insecurity, according to a 2023 study published in the journal JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. 

But even telehealth is not necessarily accessible everywhere. 

“People living in states with abortion bans have to consider many factors,” when making reproductive health choices, said Ushma Upadhyay, a professor at the University of California San Francisco who co-authored that study as well as a 2026 report on telehealth abortion—“including the risk of criminalization.” 

In 2025, a Kentucky woman was arrested for allegedly ordering abortion medication online.

Abortion bans have been imposed in “the most cruel way,” said Diana Greene Foster, a professor at UCSF who led the Turnaway Study. It’s “as if we don’t care at all about parenthood or babies. We just care about making pregnancy a punishment.” 

Forced pregnancies, family-unfriendly policies

States with abortion bans have not provided government assistance programs to help families after a new baby is born. 

“It’s not that poor people shouldn’t have kids,” said Foster. “We should support people. … We should be so much more generous toward families than we are.” 

Abortion bans simply haven’t “been partnered with an embrace of the difficulties of motherhood and parenthood, and health insurance and childcare,” she added. 

For example, the ten states that refused to adopt Medicaid expansion since 2014 to cover more residents using federal dollars—leaving an estimated 1.4 million people who can’t afford health insurance—have now imposed abortion bans and restrictions. 

Republican politicians frequently declare their values and party to be pro-family. But many federal policies passed under the Trump administration have hurt households with children. 

Last year’s “big, beautiful bill” made huge cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and added new restrictions on who qualifies for the program. This has added to the strain on low-income individuals and families, including parents who are struggling financially and cannot afford another mouth to feed. 

Abortion bans are also exacerbating maternity care deserts. 

States with abortion bans are struggling to attract practitioners, with some “retiring early or relocating,” Mahoney said. There is also evidence that medical residents are never “going to those states in the first place.” 

Mahoney expects the medical exodus to have a “huge impact” on health care in states with the most restrictive policies, including Texas, Idaho, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Abortion bans “are not only harming women, they are draining the U.S. economy,” Mahoney said. “And that hurts all of us.”

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