If trends continue, the United States will follow Japan (whose population is now shrinking at 250,000 people a year), Germany (which will lose 25% of its population during the next 50 years), and Russia (in which over 1000 villages are abandoned each year). What should have been the number one issue of the 2012 elections wasn’t even mentioned by either candidate. The funding (or lack thereof) of our generously bloated welfare state has to come from somewhere.
Our federal budget deficits are not only a symptom of a political class that refuses to say no — they are also a reflection of our inverted demographic status. Two of our largest entitlement programs (Social Security and Medicare) depend solely on large cadres of younger workers earning sufficient incomes to keep everything going. The deficits we shall face in coming years will tower above what we’re running now. There will be too many elderly retirees and too few younger workers.
not just that
but the government subsidizes the killing of numerous babies too
Japan will be fine because they didn’t destroy their culture.
God help the rest of us...
well the government giving everybody Free Birth Control is certainly gonna solve it /sarc
Absolute nonsense. We are going to add 130 million more people in the next 40 years. Since 2000, our population has increased by 32 million or about the current population of Canada. The idea that we are going to lose population is absurd. Our current fertility rate is 2.06 and when you add in annual immigration, we will be fueling a population increase. It will not be in the too distant future that we will be approaching half a billion people in the US.
The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 46 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest level in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born.
Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 313 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by 130 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the world’s third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any major developed country in the world, i.e., 0.9% (2012 estimate), principally due to immigration.
Around 1900, it looked like the falling birthrate among American Indian tribes, might indicate their eventual extinction; but they rallied back up.
Whatever is coming, Conservatives need to get both their priorities & tactics in much clearer focus. (See Whither American Conservatism.
William Flax
The entire world population is eventually going to top out and start declining, but that may take close to a 100 years or so.
In the meantime we are doing much better than most advanced countries in the population increase area because of our comparatively liberal immigration policy, along with our de facto support of illegal immigration.
There are a lot of reasons why people not born here might want to settle here: lots of coastal property, varied climates and topographies, decent economy, generally free, etc. So if and when we need to entice young people to move here to support the old folks, we will be able to do so.
It would be nice if the people we enticed here were people who could support themselves and represented a true slice of humanity and not a rather narrow slice of those who happen to be living next door.