The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“The decades long decline in the U.S. birthrate accelerated in 2020, as the average number of babies born to American women over the course of their lifetimes fell to its lowest level since government record-keeping began nearly a century ago. After a decade in which the population grew at the most sluggish pace since the 1930s, last year’s slowdown in births, which intensified as the pandemic took hold, suggests a new demographic normal — one that poses daunting economic and geopolitical challenges.
“In a country where fertility is now well below the replacement rate required to compensate for deaths, an obvious question arises: As the United States ages, how will a dwindling cohort of younger, working-age Americans sustain the expensive social services that their parents and grandparents are counting on in retirement?
“The rational answer is a robust immigration system, one that affords the nation a ready supply of scrappy, striving employees in jobs for which there are insufficient numbers of native-born Americans, as well as a steady stream of well-educated professionals to fill engineering, scientific, technology and medical jobs, among others. . . .
“Granted, no celestial mandate dictates that the United States must grow at a faster clip than other developed countries, as it has for most of its history. But population stagnation may mean a very different future, and probably a less vital one. . . [I]t could impede the country’s ability to maintain its status as a superpower, project influence and compete with China. . . .
“By contrast, increasing the level of legal immigration is a policy choice that comes with a direct positive impact. . . . [N]ot making it is likely tantamount to acquiescing to an era of demographic stagnation and, over time, diminished national stature.” – U.S. Birthrates Are Plummeting. Increasing Legal Immigration Can Help, Editorial, The Washington Post, 6/25/21 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: The claim that we must have an ever-rising number of foreign workers to prosper is false. Currently the U.S. is on the brink of a massive shift to automation. Within the next decade or two, almost 40 percent of jobs now done by people will be automated. In any case, we currently have no shortage of people to fill positions in “engineering, science and technology.”
Almost three-quarters of Americans with college degrees in those fields have had to find work in other occupations. American companies often prefer not to hire them because they can get away with paying lower wages to foreign workers.
The idea that we can significantly make our society younger with immigration, even the massive level we have now, is wrong. The age level of our immigrants is increasing while their birth rate is declining.
The Post editorialist seems to think that that we need an ever-growing population, propelled by immigration, in order to be a great power and compete with potential rivals such as China. One obvious problem with this view is that mass immigration is making us so diverse that we are losing our common core of national identity. Assimilation of immigrants is becoming more and more difficult because of the pervasive influence of Cultural Marxism, commonly known as political correctness (PC).
According to this ideological cult, the very concept of assimilation is suspect because America is an evil “racist” country, and no self-respecting immigrant should want to conform to its norms. When immigration enthusiasts maintain that immigrants will support elderly native-born Americans, have they considered that PC influenced immigrants may not want their taxes used to support these old “racists?” A society divided by “diversity” might not be a pleasant place to retire.
China is a unified country and will remain so. This will put the Chinese in a much better position to compete with our country if we continue with the delusion that unlimited diversity is our strength.