The US Population Could Shrink in 2025, For the First Time Ever (derekthompson.org)
- Reference: 0178976030
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/02/1242252/the-us-population-could-shrink-in-2025-for-the-first-time-ever
- Source link: https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-us-population-could-shrink-in
> The United States is on the precipice of a historic, if dubious, achievement. If current trends hold, 2025 [1]could be the first year on record in which the US population actually shrinks .
>
> The math is straightforward. Population growth has two sources: natural increase (births minus deaths) and net immigration (arrivals minus departures). Last year, births outnumbered deaths by 519,000 people. That means any decline in net immigration in excess of half a million could push the U.S. into population decline. A recent analysis of Census data by the Pew Research Center found that between January and June, the US foreign-born population fell for the first time in decades by more than one million. While some economists have questioned the report, a separate analysis by the American Enterprise Institute predicted that net migration in 2025 could be as low as negative 525,000. In either case, annual population growth this year could easily turn negative.
[1] https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-us-population-could-shrink-in
Personally, I think (Score:3, Informative)
a decline is a good thing. The planet is overpopulated. Better to shrink through lower birthrates than making up excuses for wars.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds good in theory - except that when the population pyramid (ie, more young people than old) collapses, it leads to major unrest in society as no one is there to support the elderly who can't work.
Unless we can backfill the economy with robotics, we are all screwed.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly.
No jobs after AI takes most of them.
An authoritarian government takes over, and doesn't give a damn about its citizenry.
Guns required to be turned in with severe penalties for those who refuse to comply.
A Great American Airgap walling the Internet from the rest of the world. Radio and TV jamming of foreign broadcasts. No Starlink service over the United States.
Forced weekly church attendance required.
Elimination of social safety nets. No more Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps or Unemp
Re: Personally, I think (Score:2)
Keeping the elderly healthy and at work changes the population shrink problem dramatically. And the longer you work the more likely you'll die on the job instead of in a nursing home.
Re: (Score:2)
Several countries in Europe are taking this tack; a gradual rise in the retirement age before you qualify for the state pension. You could have a private pension and retire earlier on that, but many people are too cash-strapped to make any meaningful payments into a private scheme, and especially so when they are young enough for the plan to hopefully accrue a good deal of compounded investment returns.
In theory, it should help maintain the size of the labour pool, ensure older - and typically higher ea
Re: (Score:2)
Our entire society (globally not just in the US) is built around population growth, without it, lots of our institutions will collapse.
Re: (Score:2)
I am going to agree with you on some level. Yes, economy bad, but then again, we built a terrible economy with the idea that the population wouldn't stop growing. Unless we get additional places to move to, off of Earth, that isn't going to happen.
This isn't really a big problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
We've needed to reduce population for a while. The problem , such as it is, is that we have predicated our economy on the idea of forever growth always. And when the population decreases, or even slows its increase, it's nearly impossible to continue growing the economy. Forever growth isn't really an overall positive either, but we've insisted that it is because people like to see those numbers going up. And the only way to continue to make that happen as the actual economy shrinks to fit population decline is through massive inflation. Decrease the value of the dollar so that it takes many more dollars to do the same amount of economic moving and shaking.
Or we could start to analyze ourselves and accept that forever growth is akin to cancer, and maybe we shouldn't be focused on turning our economy into cancer. Maybe we should focus on making the economy serve the people, instead of the other way around?
Re: (Score:2)
Everything we do is built around the fact that we planned to have more people tomorrow than we do today, when the opposite is true, now what?
Fudge your metrics for shock headlines (Score:1)
Check footnote one, author "thinks" that the population should have been counted differently in 1917 because it did fall that year. Pick a metric and stick with it otherwise your words fall upon the ground in pieces like simple feces.
Citizens and population (Score:2)
Another way of saying this is that the number of US citizens is increasing, while the total number of people in the country may decrease.
It is inevitable (Score:2)
It is possible to list a myriad of reasons for the population decline, and therein lies the answer, too. The more freedom people have, the fewer people choose to have children. There is no magic bullet to fix it without dismantling a free society. Reduced population growth is a feature of a more advanced human civilisation.
The decline of the world population is inevitable, and it would be wise to prepare for that while providing support structures for children too.
Countries will end up competing for immigra
Re: (Score:2)
> There is no magic bullet to fix it without dismantling a free society.
And dismantling our free society is exactly what conservatives are advocating to reverse the low birth rates in the USA, as documented in the Project 2025 gameplan.
What is to be seen is if reversing modern family planning options and cultural norms will be negated by the inevitable brain drain that comes from living in a fascist police state.
Stacking the deck, not in our favor. (Score:2)
Microplastics and forever chemicals. I'm sure with the collapse of any kind of regulation over industry there will be more reasons.
Without Reading the Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Creating an environment where raising children or providing care for children becomes too expensive coupled with discouraging immigration to this country is a recipe for population decline.
I live in the Midwest where we have OB/GYN deserts. We have healthcare deserts on top of that. Our life expectancy is decreasing. Maternal mortality and infant mortality is rising due to abortion restrictions.
What do people think is going to happen?
Re: Without Reading the Article (Score:1)
It's all according to plan [1]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E5U7R73_9xQ
Re: (Score:2)
Ingesting and spreading information in selective 30 second clips should be a banable offense. Don't do that.
Do you really think she suggested reducing the population or was it a "think about it" statement? If she did then you should be able to find corroborating clips.
It's not that bad in most of the US (Score:2, Insightful)
> Creating an environment where raising children or providing care for children becomes too expensive
Aside from daycare, frankly, we Millennials and Gen Z tend to grossly overstate how expensive raising children has to be. The biggest example is college expenses. Our debt might be a problem, but why the Hell is the average person from our generation not rebelling against this expectation? Across the board, colleges are literally so dumbed down that even "good schools" won't even push assignments like reading
Re: (Score:3)
It is that bad in the US.
My daughter is going to graduate from the University of Toronto next April, with a bachelor's degree in geography and a minor in English, and then a Master's of Education.
Her total student debt will be $0.00 because Canadian universities are not utter ripoffs, at least not for Canadian students. We started saving for her education when she was born through a Registered Education Savings Plan and it completely covered not only her education, but also her living expenses.
Congratulations, you made my point (Score:3)
> My daughter is going to graduate from the University of Toronto next April, with a bachelor's degree in geography and a minor in English, and then a Master's of Education.
In Real World USA, 2025 Edition this would be a recipe for economic disaster. It would be parental malpractice to send your daughter to a university for this education, at that debt level, in this job market (and likely future job markets). You would be literally better off telling her to work a full time job at McDonalds for $15-$20/hr f
Re: (Score:2)
> Why the Hell would you spend $100k on that rather than just saving to gift your kid a down payment on a condo or townhouse?
Because the lifetime earning potential, even after paying for that devalued degree, is still much higher than can be achieved without a college degree (excluding outliers like tech startup CEOs).
The idea that you need to go to a "Name Brand" school for all 4 years is, unfortunately, a wide-spread misnomer. But a college degree in the right field is still worth the investment over the lifetime of the student post-graduation.
I have a PhD, but only paid for 2.5 years of my 12 years of college education with
Re: (Score:2)
Because the lifetime earning potential, even after paying for that devalued degree, is still much higher than can be achieved without a college degree
While this is true, it's also true that if one subtracts the cost of education from lifetime earnings and amortizes that over the time spent getting an education, unpaid overtime, keeping current in one's career field, etc... the average hourly pay is worse than that of a truck driver.
Yes, you will make more, but you'll give more of your life to your e
No data backs this up (Score:2, Informative)
People - especially Millenials and GenZ - like to use this argument all the time. "Why would I want to have kids in this economy".
The problem is, there is ZERO DATA TO BACK THIS UP.
Repeat after me: The MORE AFFLUENT a society becomes, the LESS CHILDREN they have. We have hundreds of years of data to back this up. The reasons have to do with
- Increased choice for women in what they do
- Increased options for leisure time
- Decreased concern about "extending the blood line"