U.S. population grew only 0.1% in 2021 lowest rate since nation's founding

[kryptqnick]

Overall, the world population is still growing, but the growth rate is slowing down. It was around 2% in the 1970s, and is around 1% in 2020. But the situation differs a lot from country to country. It's 0.1% in the US, for instance, 0.2% in France, 0.6% in the UK, but -0.6% in Ukraine. So the dynamics vary all over the world, and I don't think it's a big deal overall, as long as there's a stable economy that can sustain itself. What matters significantly is aging population, of course, because it means a decreasing workforce, but how much this is a problem also depends on the economy.
And since the news about the US attributes the decrease to the pandemic, perhaps this sort of change will correct itself when it's finally over or when people stop dying from it in large numbers every day.

[Gyfts]

I don't really see a problem with this, the world's over populated as is. But developed countries having a high birth rate isn't really an issue, China and India's population growth isn't very sustainable. India in particular is growing too fast for their country to keep up, so the population growth isn't proportional to the country's development.

[Coyster]

I'm not from the U.S., and I can't really gauge how things are over there, thus I'd use my country as a case study, in my country that happens to be a developing country, population growth does not seem to be slowing down that much, over here people are less concerned with things like overpopulation, it's very common to see families who can barely feed comfortably having more than three children, driving the population up. That's not just the problem, the thing is that there is little or not resources to cater for the citizens, yet the burst in population continues, in my opinion, developing countries need a check in their population more than developed countries, I mean, the least thing a country with a struggling economy needs is more citizens to provide jobs for, good healthcare, basic amenities, etc, there really should be more and more sensitization on controlled population in nations that are poor, but sadly, their government rarely cares about that, and is more concerned with embezzlements and making their personal pockets fat.

[timerland]

Not surprising, given the lack of immigration.

Most Western countries probably experienced something similar, with a lack of immigration and a lowered fertility rate given that people are less likely to have kids when they don't know the hospital situation.

Expect a big upsurge in the coming years though.

[Sithara007]

Not surprising, given the lack of immigration.

Most Western countries probably experienced something similar, with a lack of immigration and a lowered fertility rate given that people are less likely to have kids when they don't know the hospital situation.

Expect a big upsurge in the coming years though.

Hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants and close to a million illegals. This is what the United States took in last year. And you are complaining that the immigration levels are low? Low tax rates are needed to boost the birth rate. The current Democrat logic of replacing the native population with illegals from south of the border is not going to be viable in the long run. Japan is an example of a country which has sustained itself with near zero immigration. Results are there for everyone to see. Low crime rate, surging economy and low taxes.

[Cnut237]

the population will steadily go down overtime if mortality rate is much higher than birthrate.

Variation between death rate and birth rate is what causes changes in population. Variations occur when the country is in the middle of the process of modernisation, as in the chart I shared above. Before a country modernises, its birth rate is high to compensate for its high death rate. After a country modernises, the death rate is low (talking particularly about infant mortality), so there is no pressure to have lots of children, so birth rate becomes low, too. It is only when a country is partway through this process, when the birth rate is wildly higher than the death rate, that explosive population growth occurs.

What matters significantly is aging population, of course, because it means a decreasing workforce

Again though, an aging population is a temporary phenomenon caused by an era of considerably higher births than deaths, and the progression of this cohort through the age bands. This animation of the situation is Japan is quite interesting.

[wxa7115]

Overall, the world population is still growing, but the growth rate is slowing down. It was around 2% in the 1970s, and is around 1% in 2020. But the situation differs a lot from country to country. It's 0.1% in the US, for instance, 0.2% in France, 0.6% in the UK, but -0.6% in Ukraine. So the dynamics vary all over the world, and I don't think it's a big deal overall, as long as there's a stable economy that can sustain itself. What matters significantly is aging population, of course, because it means a decreasing workforce, but how much this is a problem also depends on the economy.
And since the news about the US attributes the decrease to the pandemic, perhaps this sort of change will correct itself when it's finally over or when people stop dying from it in large numbers every day.

And that is precisely the issue, the economy has not been built with the idea that we will have an aging population at some point and with views to preparing for that future.

The economy is built with only one principle in mind and that is to maximize profits on the short term, however this has the problem of creating long term issues that are very difficult to correct, and with an aging and decreasing population then it is to be expected the current system will simply crash as it will be unable to deal with those two variables at the same time.

[romero121]

Not surprising, given the lack of immigration.

Most Western countries probably experienced something similar, with a lack of immigration and a lowered fertility rate given that people are less likely to have kids when they don't know the hospital situation.

Expect a big upsurge in the coming years though.

Hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants and close to a million illegals. This is what the United States took in last year. And you are complaining that the immigration levels are low? Low tax rates are needed to boost the birth rate. The current Democrat logic of replacing the native population with illegals from south of the border is not going to be viable in the long run. Japan is an example of a country which has sustained itself with near zero immigration. Results are there for everyone to see. Low crime rate, surging economy and low taxes.

Maybe the scenario with Japan is different, but without immigrants every form of growth in America will get disturbed/decline. Because, it is quite evident to see most of the immigrant population contribute to a massive economy as well as in the development. The decline in birth in my view is not associated with the hospital availability, but with the cultural change happening all around.

[el kaka22]

Maybe the scenario with Japan is different, but without immigrants every form of growth in America will get disturbed/decline. Because, it is quite evident to see most of the immigrant population contribute to a massive economy as well as in the development. The decline in birth in my view is not associated with the hospital availability, but with the cultural change happening all around.

There is never an argument to be made against a hardcore republican or democrat in order to save a nation. If you ask a hardcore political fan, they will say it is the other side that does it and it is never the true solution, they never come up with something that will help the nation, all they care about is diminishing what the other side is trying to do. This works for both sides, because in the end both parties suck and it's obvious, the last president who shall not be named was a bad person, was he a good president?

I am not smart enough to answer that but it is obvious that he was a bad person, that's why democrats riled up this time around and looked like they were "right" in that sense. But not getting immigrants, or getting millions of illegal immigrants are not the two only possible options. You could literally have a great background check and all ready from Mexico and USA and handle all of this very speedily and either send the bad people back or keep the good ones and just handle this problem easily.

[Sithara007]

Maybe the scenario with Japan is different, but without immigrants every form of growth in America will get disturbed/decline. Because, it is quite evident to see most of the immigrant population contribute to a massive economy as well as in the development. The decline in birth in my view is not associated with the hospital availability, but with the cultural change happening all around.

I agree in legal immigrants. The US has benefitted massively from skilled legal immigrants from all over the world. Because of the higher salaries, a lot of qualified professionals (IT, medicine, finance.etc) move to that country every year. But the same can't be said about the illegals, who arrive by the millions in migrant caravans. Whatever benefits they bring in the form of cheap labor are overshadowed by the increase in crime rate, high cost of welfare payments and the cost for educating their anchor babies.

[adaseb]

I think the statistic from Canada was also similar. And I am not surprised. Times have changed from last generation and there are more women who are working now. The more women that work the less kids they are willing too have because they want a career.

Also that’s not the only factor. Raising a kid is crazy expensive now. Day care costs are very high. And if you have a couple of kids you need a big place to live. Can’t live in a small apartment with 2-3 kids. You need a house and housing is crazy expensive most people can’t afford one. So they either don’t have kids or have less kids.

All of this leads to this population decline and it’s not surprising.

[el kaka22]

I think the statistic from Canada was also similar. And I am not surprised. Times have changed from last generation and there are more women who are working now. The more women that work the less kids they are willing too have because they want a career.

Also that’s not the only factor. Raising a kid is crazy expensive now. Day care costs are very high. And if you have a couple of kids you need a big place to live. Can’t live in a small apartment with 2-3 kids. You need a house and housing is crazy expensive most people can’t afford one. So they either don’t have kids or have less kids.

All of this leads to this population decline and it’s not surprising.

I would say that having a kid is not really related to wanting or career type of deal, men worked for centuries, and so did many women in some cultures, it was never "men go to work, women stay at home taking care of kids" around where I live for example, but yes there are more women working that’s for sure. Yet men worked for centuries and they had children, and I have been working and seeing colleagues getting pregnant and then coming back to work anyway, in our nation we have a law that says you can resign after you are pregnant and you still get your severance like you were fired, which means they can work until they are 6 months pregnant, then take a 6 month break and instead of coming to work they can resign and find another job.

So, it is not really that hard to have a career AND a child. I believe it is mainly about the expense, I can't imagine how hard it must to raise children right now, I barely pay for myself let alone someone else.

[Wayan_Pedjeng]

Why their population need to grow at a faster rate? A majority of the world nations are edging towards replacement fertility and near-zero population growth. The planet is already home to 8 billion human beings and we can't afford to increase that number by much. For economic growth, why there is a requirement of constant population growth? Why can't it be achieved with a stable population? Countries such as Germany and Japan are having stable populations, and still their economy is doing good.

[dothebeats]

If I were to be asked, I don't consider negative population rate as something detrimental. In fact, it even helps us recover somewhat from the pressures of overpopulation that has been straining our planet for too long. It might have also been fueled by a lot of the younger generation deciding not to have kids, as they believe that having kids on this day and age isn't really ideal, for there are a lot of problems at hand that can't easily be solved even if we try to focus all our attention on said problems.

With the technological advancement Man has achieved in 2 centuries since the founding of the United States, IMO, we can safely say that declining population trends won't really be a problem in stimulating economic growth. They are now replacing lots of jobs with autonomous machines capable of doing the same work Man can do in an even efficient manner. In a supply chain and mass production POV, machines are infinitely better than their human counterparts, so less humans existing won't substantially have an effect on our future economically speaking.

Then again, the trend has to be reversed somewhat, to ensure that we as a species survive, but that's another topic to be discussed.

[stompix]

The planet is already home to 8 billion human beings and we can't afford to increase that number by much.

Malthusianism is a dead theory, the world was supposed to be overpopulated at 1 billion, 2 billion, 5 billion, and look how we're still growing and there is no such thing as overpopulation, there are few countries with problems when it comes to food supplies but that's not because of the planet, it's because their own choices from the uncontrolled birth rate when they don't have enough food even for themselves to the total idiocracy of their governments.
But excluding those poor regions of Africa there is no sign of overpopulation anywhere, maybe just some extreme cases when we're talking about islands like Singapore

For economic growth, why there is a requirement of constant population growth? Why can't it be achieved with a stable population? Countries such as Germany and Japan are having stable populations, and still their economy is doing good.

Because you simply can't.
For economic growth with the same population, the one replacing the poeple in retirement would have to both produce more and consume more, as those products or services need clients too. So at one point, you will hit a wall, it's pretty simple, just think of how much could you consume and buy.

Let's assume you don't have problems with money, you buy 100 cars, but can you drive 10 of them at the same time ? You can afford the best hotels in the world but will you book 700 nights in 10 hotels in one year?
Can you drink 100 beers each day? Or go to a concert, cinema, aquarium, gliding, skiing all on the same day?
There is a limit to how much a human being can consume even if it throws away stuff, when this limit is reached and there is no increasing demand from population growth then you hit a wall, as extra products or services aren't needed, so goodbye growth.

Of course, for a period you can still achieve growth even with a stagnating population till to manage to cover all the needs of everyone,but sooner or later it will come to a stop.

And there is a second problem, with a declining population and a smaller workforce but a higher percentage of retired poeple you have a smaller taxable population with an increased burden on social welfare costs, and this is the main problem for Japan for example.
With nearly one-third of the population being older than 65, 15% unemployable because of their young age, and this getting worse and worse how will you get the money to run a country and from whom?

[odolvlobo]

The planet is already home to 8 billion human beings and we can't afford to increase that number by much.

Malthusianism is a dead theory, the world was supposed to be overpopulated at 1 billion ...

The reason that we haven't reached the malthusian equilibrium is that food production has grown faster than the population -- something that Malthus did not expect. Actually, that isn't hard if each person can grow more food than they need to eat and there is no limit to the amount of available land. But, once the land is limited then it is up to increasing productivity to feed more people.

For economic growth, why there is a requirement of constant population growth? Why can't it be achieved with a stable population? Countries such as Germany and Japan are having stable populations, and still their economy is doing good.

Because you simply can't.
...
There is a limit to how much a human being can consume even if it throws away stuff, when this limit is reached and there is no increasing demand from population growth then you hit a wall, as extra products or services aren't needed, so goodbye growth.

Increasing economic growth is possible with a stable population when productivity increases. There is no limit to demand. If people don't want more of something, they will want it to be higher quality.

And there is a second problem, with a declining population and a smaller workforce but a higher percentage of retired poeple you have a smaller taxable population with an increased burden on social welfare costs, and this is the main problem for Japan for example.
With nearly one-third of the population being older than 65, 15% unemployable because of their young age, and this getting worse and worse how will you get the money to run a country and from whom?

I have been thinking about this issue, but I don't think that an increased burden of social welfare costs for the elderly is necessarily the problem. There is a problem when there are a lot of retired people and not enough working people to supply their needs, regardless of how wealthy they are.

[stompix]

The reason that we haven't reached the malthusian equilibrium is that food production has grown faster than the population -- something that Malthus did not expect.

As I always say when it comes to Malthus, the biggest problem with his theory is that he elaborated it before tractors were invented, that curb in productivity can't be matched for a while unless we double the fertility rate for the entire world, that ain't going to happen.

Increasing economic growth is possible with a stable population when productivity increases. There is no limit to demand. If people don't want more of something, they will want it to be higher quality.

There is always a limit in demand, just think of the oil prices in the shale boom and the pre covid situation where they needed to cut production to keep prices up. And with higher quality there is the same limit, of course, poeple will want a 300sqm house rather than a one-bed dungeon but after that what's the next step? 1km2? Do you think poeple will use 30 ultra mega luxury gold plated condoms a night just because they afford them? 

Also, productivity increase means fewer poeple needed to produce something, you need to redirect those to produce something else, the cycle will repeat till you produce for 1 billion with one worker, what are the 1 billion going to do? Turn them into complete consumers? As I said, for a while it will still be possible as people upgrade their lifestyle but that will hit a wall, of course, everyone wants a new car but not that many want to change their car every month.

I have been thinking about this issue, but I don't think that an increased burden of social welfare costs for the elderly is necessarily the problem. There is a problem when there are a lot of retired people and not enough working people to supply their needs, regardless of how wealthy they are.

Unlike the US, Japan and most of the EU have a national pension fund which basically runs on current contributions rather than past ones, and there is no way you can tax poeple enough to pay pensions if the numbers are 1:1. In most of the EU, the average wage is double the retirement, if the number of workers goes on parity from 2:1 you would need to tax workers an extra 25% just to pay those.

[TheGreatPython]

Unlike the US, Japan and most of the EU have a national pension fund which basically runs on current contributions rather than past ones, and there is no way you can tax poeple enough to pay pensions if the numbers are 1:1. In most of the EU, the average wage is double the retirement, if the number of workers goes on parity from 2:1 you would need to tax workers an extra 25% just to pay those.

I would guess that old people are not really getting those pensions for free, they have paid for it and they have earned that right. If you as the younger person working feel disturbed for paying that, then you should realize that when you are older, you will have to keep working otherwise they will not pay you and you will be left to die. I would not want that when I am older, I want to live a better life, and if I am paying for it, then who to care?

It is like saying I am investing right now, and in the future I will eat the benefits of my investment, it is totally normal and instead of investing into gold or stocks or bitcoin, they invest into their pensions. Nations will pay it with their tax income, because they took it, if you took it with a promise then you need to pay it back in the future as well. That's as expected as it gets and not a "burden" considering everyone gets a turn.

[odolvlobo]

I would guess that old people are not really getting those pensions for free, they have paid for it and they have earned that right. ...

It is like saying I am investing right now, and in the future I will eat the benefits of my investment, it is totally normal and instead of investing into gold or stocks or bitcoin, they invest into their pensions. Nations will pay it with their tax income, because they took it, if you took it with a promise then you need to pay it back in the future as well. That's as expected as it gets and not a "burden" considering everyone gets a turn.

Your thinking is why Social Security and other pension plans are considered by some to be Ponzi schemes. People may believe that they are investing in their future retirement benefits by paying SS taxes, but that is false. The truth is that the taxes are not invested. They are used to pay current benefits. Despite what you want to believe, there is no guarantee that you will receive benefits when you retire. The government could simply announce one day that they are unable to continue paying benefits and the program is cancelled.

Currently in the U.S., the SS tax rate is 12.5%. In order for a smaller worker population to pay benefits to a much bigger retired population, those taxes are going to have to go up. My guess is that they will rise to at least 20% or more, and future benefits will have to be cut, or eliminated completely.

As for not being a burden, I think that I could do much better if I invested my 12.5%. The return on investment for SS is crap.

[stompix]

I would guess that old people are not really getting those pensions for free, they have paid for it and they have earned that right. If you as the younger person working feel disturbed for paying that, then you should realize that when you are older, you will have to keep working otherwise they will not pay you and you will be left to die. I would not want that when I am older, I want to live a better life, and if I am paying for it, then who to care?

From where the hell did you get the idea that I'm disturbed I have to pay for the retirement fund?
Before engaging on a useless quest on lecturing me on some things I've never said pay more attention to what I've posted.

It is like saying I am investing right now, and in the future I will eat the benefits of my investment, it is totally normal and instead of investing into gold or stocks or bitcoin, they invest into their pensions. Nations will pay it with their tax income, because they took it, if you took it with a promise then you need to pay it back in the future as well. That's as expected as it gets and not a "burden" considering everyone gets a turn.

You have zero idea how the pension fund works now.
The money you're contributing doesn't stay in a vault waiting for you to retire, that money goes to pay the poeple already in retirement just as the money they've contributed 50 years ago is gone! Got it?
By the time you retire all the money you've contributed will be long gone, your pension is going to have to come from the taxes of the poeple working, and if the ratio will be lower than 1:1.5 you're not going to see more than a few pennies.