Posted on 12/23/2021 6:16:45 AM PST by Red Badger
We are in the midst of an ongoing demographic crisis—not enough people are having enough babies to sustain the necessary population growth—and it looks like it's getting a whole lot worse:
US population growth at lowest rate in pandemic's 1st year U.S. population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation’s founding during the first year of the pandemic
U.S. population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation's founding during the first year of the pandemic as the coronavirus curtailed immigration, delayed pregnancies and killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, according to figures released Tuesday.
The United States grew by only 0.1%, with only an additional 392,665 added to the U.S. population, from July 2020 to July 2021, according to population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Just in case you think that whole "since the nation's founding" rhetoric is no more than a bit of journalistic flourish, it's literally the position of the U.S. government:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Vintage 2021 national and state population estimates and components of change released today, the population of the United States grew in the past year by 392,665, or 0.1%, the lowest rate since the nation's founding.
This is not good for a whole lot of reasons, but the most pressing among them is that, if you don't have enough babies today, you're simply not going to have enough people years from now to prop up the society you've built: Not enough workers, not enough taxpayers, not enough men and women around to keep the engine of civilization running efficiently.
That sounds like a sort of cold nuts-and-bolts calculus. It kind of is. Having babies and raising children is doubtlessly first and foremost a deeply personal matter between a husband and a wife. But it also has profound societal implications beyond that of individual families. Ignoring these is folly.
Right now there's more or less enough people to keep things going. In twenty or thirty years? We may be looking at a significantly different picture.
The population of the US in 1950 was 150 million compared to 334 million today.
I suppose it depends a lot on where you live. But it is often surprising when you talk to young people. Some have a great deal of insight for their years and others do not. I feel sorry for the nanny state type of situation that many find themselves in.
I grew up on acreage with cows, horses and various other farm animals. When I purchased my first used 10 speed bicycle my range increased dramatically. When I was 13 I told my dad that I was going to ride up to Mt. Rainier which was 60 miles away. He told me to have fun. Everything went wrong but I made it. I got lost trying to take a short cut.
On the way back I ran out of food and money to buy more. I was bitten by a junk yard dog. I didn't make it back until around 11:30. Of course there were no cell phones and I had spent my last dime on food. My dad just asked me if I had fun. I was exhausted but told him that I had.
Are you aware of the millions of welfare recipients wandering across our Southern border?
So are we having fewer births? And did people avoid pregnancy for fear of hospitals during the pandemic? Or did lockdowns produce a baby boom? How does immigration play into this?
Birth rate has been going down. (through 2019) 
But I only see the slightest drop in growth rate through Nov 2021. 
Employment to working age population through Nov 2021 
Obviously, circumstances are different where you live. Fast food places are paying close to $20 an hour for unskilled people in our area. Last week we went to the KFC entered the drive through lane behind another car and when they were done we waited for a couple minutes at the ordering speaker. I finally drove up to the window and realized that no one was making food or could be seen inside.
I asked the manager a couple days later what had happened. He said that they have not been able to keep the restaurant open because they do not have people willing to work. He begged me to send anyone we knew who wanted a job to the restaurant and gave me his card as well. But he added that they only were allowed to hire people who had been vaccinated.
We have a government created labor shortage.
I agree with that. COVID policies and programs make it more profitable to stay home and collect government benefits. But our problem is more long term than that. Here are a couple of interesting charts showing the labor participation rates for 25-64 year olds and those over 65 by country. The US has a fairly low rate compared to other countries for the 25-64 year olds, but a much higher 65 and over participation rates. IMO this can be explained by more generous social welfare systems in these other countries.
For 25-64 years old, we have a rate of 77.2% compared to the UK with 82.6% or Canada with 80.9%, or Germany with 84.4% or Japan with 85.6.
For those over 65, the US has 19.4% rate compared to the UK with 10.7%, Canada with 13.8%, Germany 7.4%, and Japan with 25.5%. The Japanese have an older population coupled with being among the countries with the highest life expediencies. Americans have not saved enough to live on SS alone. For 50% of Americans over 62 SS is their lone source of income.
Life expectancy vice expediencies.
How can they say that with 2 million illegals?
In 1960 when we had the same land we have now the US population was 179M and all was well. The decline mostly impairs ponzi schemes like Social Security.
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Exactly! Ponzi schemes, cheap-labor, and more cannon-fodder for a globalist military are what these folks are wringing their hands over.
Births are NOT the issue. Our birthrate has been below replacement level for several decades.
Deaths are the issue.
In 2020 and 2021, the USA had a total of 1.2 million EXCESS deaths - in other words, 1.2 million above the predicted death rate.
800,000 of those excess deaths are related to COVID.
400,000 excess deaths are related to all other causes.
We probably could have prevented a lot of those deaths if we had given sick people Ivermectin instead of drugging them into a coma and hooking them up to ventilators.
No worries, Biden is importing Afghans and illegals to fill the void. And, illegals don’t abort!
Yeah a couple million illegals apparently were not counted.
I think you are correct. In the Age of Narcissism, spending the prime of your life raising children appears to the young adult to be a daunting task, a costly and unrewarding responsibility. So much easier to just buy things for yourself instead of grumpy children.
Which is weird because doesn’t the birth rate climb when people are stuck inside, like in a blizzard? you’d think with the quarantine ...
A propaganda push for more immigration and a corporate push against rising wage demands???
What is hurt most financially by lack of large population growth are the wrong headed “retirement” plans that are not funded by actual private savings and investment but instead depend on a growing population of actively employed workers to pay from their wages what is needed for the benefits of the retirees - like Social Security. Were it not for such pension and retirement schemes and how the political class has made everyone dependent on them, “an always growing population” would not be so important.
Back in the early 2000’s I made that same exact statement.
I said then that the massive influx of illegals was necessary to keep SS and Medicare solvent.
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