America's Birth Rate Sparks Fears for the Economy

Newsweek ^ | Mar 28, 2025 | Hugh Cameron

[Mount Athos]

The declining U.S. birth rate, and the broader demographic shifts it contributes towards, have become a growing concern for policymakers and economists alike.

Economic and demographic experts told Newsweek that the trend is one that threatens to destabilize not only the U.S. economy—potentially resulting in several percentage points being knocked off America's annual GDP growth—but global markets as well.

"I think it's the single most important issue facing economies across the world, and by some distance," said James Pomeroy, a global economist at HSBC.

As is the case with almost every country on earth, U.S. birth rates have been trending downward for decades.

According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, just under 24 births occurred per 1,000 people in 1960, whereas by 2022, that number had declined to 11.

A shrinking workforce, a depleted consumer base, reduced tax revenue and added strains on Social Security can all be listed among the possible impacts of an unchecked drop in fertility.

Fernández-Villaverde, meanwhile, puts the impact on economic growth at "around 2 percent" per year, and said that the effects are already being felt in states with lower-than-average birth rates.

"No other variable comes close to having as big an impact on potential growth or fiscal positions down the line as birth rates," Pomeroy said.

"With birth rates where they are today, over the course of a generation, the population would drop by 25 percent without any immigration," said James Pomeroy. "That's enough of a drag to weigh on all sorts of economic activity."

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Funny how this story comes out when Trump is deporting criminal foreign invaders. “The population is declining! The sky is falling!”

[9YearLurker]

Our birth rate is fine—as long as we expel all illegal immigrants.

As it is, we spend half the time fretting about what we’ll do with so many people once AI and robots take everyone’s jobs.

[nathanbedford]

Mine is a minority view that holds that population mass can be a liability as well as a necessary condition precedent for a viable economy.

We are entering an age of robots armed with artificial intelligence when a few machines can think like an Army and overnight implement their solution to problems that baffle humans with machines.

. The potential to create wealth is beyond our capacity to place dimensions on it with what we know now. It may be that the problem will not be producing enough widgets but distributing the wealth generated from the production of goods and services done by a brave new world of intelligent machines.

We should be worrying about educating our people, protecting capitalism in this world of goods and services produced by machines without people, and preventing the distortion of democracy by a revolution, the dimensions of which we cannot foresee.

[Fai Mao]

I agree with you

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Lol…they sure tiptoe around “illegal invaders are good for us,” don’t they?

[escapefromboston]

People don’t want to have kids when they think a country has no real future. The government spent a lot of money on gay propaganda maybe it can spend some on pro-baby propaganda but even that will take years to convince people to have large families.

[Psalm 73]

"...U.S. birth rates have been trending downward for decades."

As we continue to kill our babies. And cannot figure out a way to stop the demographic slide.

All that education, and not a lick of sense.

[daniel1212]

For the Left - and for the fornicating "Right," contraception is considered essential, and for the Left access to it is considered a fundamental right, which the governments of the world must supply. Which is fundamental necessity for their perversion of the Divine order, in which as God the Father is the head of the Son, who is the head of the church, so is the man the head of the women (1 Co. 11:1-3) - which in marriage he is to love as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it - Acts 20:28); Ephesians 5:25. And which union is designed to produce offspring, and with the marital union providing the secure stable environment for raising them, and forming their character in a Godly culture. Thus, of-course, the devil seeks to pervert it.

Which denial of what God ordained is consistent with the perversion called homosexuality, For God created man and women distinctively different yet uniquely compatible and complementary, and only joined them together in marriage - as the Lord Jesus Himself specified (Mt. 19:4–6)

And Scripture only condemns homosexual relations wherever they are manifestly dealt with, by design and decree, precept and in principle. Which perversion the Left promotes, regards of the profound negative (in health, money and souls). See CDC stats here which Google actually will not list as a result even if you search the title: Negative Physical, Psychological, Financial and Spiritual effects of fornication .

Yet there is still room at the cross for all who will come to God in repentance and faith, and trust in the Divine Son of God sent by the Father, the risen Lord Jesus, to save them on His account, by His sinless shed blood, and thus be baptized and live for Him. Acts 10:36-47

Meanwhile, under the lead of the West:

Globally approximately 45% of those who are married and able to have children use contraception.^[1] As of 2007, IUDs were used by about 17% of women of child bearing age in developing countries and 9% in developed countries or more than 180 million women worldwide.^[2] Avoiding sex when fertile is used by about 3.6% of women of childbearing age, with usage as high as 20% in areas of South America.^[3] As of 2005, 12% of couples are using a male form of contraception (either condoms or a vasectomy) with rates of up to 30% in the developed world.^[4]

As of 2012, 57% of women of child bearing age wanted to avoid pregnancy (867 of 1520 million).^[5] About 222 million women however were not able to access birth control, 53 million of whom were in sub-Saharan Africa and 97 million of whom were in Asia.^[5] Many countries limit access to birth control due to religious and political reasons.^[6]

United Kingdom

[edit]

Contraception has been available for free under the National Health Service since 1974, and 74% of reproductive age women use some form of contraception.^[18] The levonorgestrel intrauterine system has been massively popular.^[18] Sterilization is popular in older age groups, among those 45-49, 29% of men and 21% of women have been sterilized.^[18]

United States

[edit]

Main article: Birth control in the United States

As of 2008, in the United States, 99% of sexually active women have used birth control at some point in time.^[19] In 2015-2017, 64.9% of women aged 15-49 used a form of birth control. The most common forms of birth control were female sterilization (18.6%), oral contraceptive pills (12.6%), long-acting reversible contraceptives (10.3%), and male condoms (8.7%).^[20] Despite the availability of highly effective contraceptives, in 2011, 45% of pregnancies were unintended.^[21] In 2002, contraceptive use saved about $19 billion in direct medical costs.^[22]

[redfreedom]

Newsweak is worried about a declining birth rate? That can be easily fixed by stopping all abortions.

And I do not believe more people is better in any culture or environment. I live in one of the least populated states and all is just fine.

The notion that we have to have millions of people crammed into small spaces is quite offensive to my sense of peace of mind. Translated: I’d go nuts living in a place like NYC where people are literally stacked upon one another just to live.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Yes Ai scares the crap out of me, not out of fear that it will kill mankind but that it’s going to wipe out humanitym art and expression.
Right now Ai can write books, write and record original songs, it can create paintings, photos, videos, movies, poetry and it’s just getting started. So what happens? Will humanity be thrown on the dung heap of history as obsolete?

[DIRTYSECRET]

We are going to have to live with a declining birth rate where the average age is going to be 50. I’m looking forward to 100% driverless cars where we can be productive while driving(wi-fi) and convert our garages into something else as there will be no need to own one(uber).

We need to insure there are no scum arriving at our shores. Get tough.

Internal exile. Use AI to disable the right arm of the right-handed so a crook can’t strike another person. No need for jails. They can wipe their ass or jerk off with their left hand-gotta be room for tough consequences.

[daniel1212]

Mine is a minority view that holds that population mass can be a liability as well as a necessary condition precedent for a viable economy.

To the contrary, contraception is part of the degradation of the character of the nation. Almost all abortions are for "convenience, meaning it interferes with the women' education and advancement in marriage, and or they want to avoid the cost and sacrificial burden of raising children as parents did in the past. And thus what offspring some have (esp. with a 1.6 fertility rate*) are typically spoiled, with a character that has not experience lack, and learning to share, and delayed gratification, and conflict resolution with peers. What you see in college protests and meltdowns is a result of this.

Which contributes to , 77% of American youth being unfit for military service, which lowers its standards for them.

Thus quantity and quality of character are related.

*

The general fertility rate in the United States decreased by 3% from 2022, reaching a historic low. - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240525.htm

The fertility rate in the United States experienced a significant decline from 1950 to 2024, dropping from 3.1 births per woman to 1.6 births per woman—a decrease of 1.5 births or 47% - https://nchstats.com/us-birth-rate-over-century/

The number of only-child families is steadily rising, with the U.S. set to see a huge increase by 2050.... in the past 40 years, the number of American women having just one child has doubled. - https://amyandrose.com/blogs/parenting/only-child-statistics/

[Candor7]

We need to invest in a FReeper Sperm Bank for all those motherly, barren women who want to increase the population but have nothing but lefty weenie options a la Tampon Tim, who are causing a population decline in America.(sarc.)

We will donate the ingrediacnts and then charge $1000 per subscriber to then subsidize Free Republics monthly fundraiser.

[Iron Munro]

America did quite well in the early 1940s and during WWII with a polulation of less than 140 million.

Of course then we grew and manufactured almost every thing we needed ourselves and we didn't have 50 million illegal aliens running amok and living on taxpayer paid freebies.

And we didn't have WOKE, DEI insanity or Jihadis and communists running our top universities, clogging up congress and running our cities.

M26 PERSHING TANK FACTORY - 1940s

[mewzilla]

Deep State’s war on the nuclear family continues apace.

[mewzilla]

And not just in the US...

[Lazamataz]

We need to invest in a FReeper Sperm Bank for all those motherly, barren women who want to increase the population but have nothing but lefty weenie options a la Tampon Tim, who are causing a population decline in America.

Sperm banks are boring. Either I get to hit it, or I get to quit it!

[Iron Munro]

Change the Feral Gov. income tax system:

1. Increase the deduction for dependent children in a two parent family to a more realistic figure and watch the birth rate surge.

2. Reverse the tax policies that favors (and rewards) single ghetto mother ‘families’ over traditional two parent families.

[unread]

"The declining U.S. birth rate."

I thought the dumbocratic plan was to have the muslims, ax murders and rapist make up the shortage. (spit)