CBO: By 2053, All U.S. Population Growth to Come from Migration

It is an article of faith among most economists, demographers, politicians, and economic boosters that continuing population growth is not only good but necessary. With the blithe assumption that people are fungible–ie, interchangeable–it doesn’t matter to these experts where the growth comes from: either through reproduction of a society’s native stock or through legal or non-legal in-migration from societies around the world. Just grow. That’s what counts.

And so, Bloomberg News finds “some encouragement” in projections made in a Congressional Budget Office report issued earlier this week. That encouragement comes from the fact that, while the CBO predicts that by 2053 all U.S. population growth will come from in-migration of the world’s excess, the newcomers will be in the “prime-age bracket,” ages 25 through 54, which forms the typical base of the country’s workforce. By contrast, the fertility rate of existing Americans will remain low: currently at 1.66 births per woman, it is projected to rise slightly by 2030 to 1.75, yet will continue to be far lower than the replacement rate of 2.1. As a result, the population of American citizens will grow older, placing increasing demand on social programs for elders such as Social Security and further burdening the medical establishment.

The message comes down to this: instead of adopting national family-friendly polcies, it’s either invite the world or perish. Never mind the customs and practices and skills of the newcomers or the changes they bring to the society’s makeup. Because people are all the same the world over, and those 25-year-old men from Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, etc, are coming to save the day. Right?

For more, see Bloomberg News. The CBO report is here.

 

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