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US Birthrate Plummets To Record Low
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that the U.S. birthrate is at its lowest since 1920, the earliest year with reliable records. The rate decreased to 63.2 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age — a little more than half of its peak, which was in 1957. The overall birthrate decreased by 8 percent between 2007 and 2010, but the decline is being led by immigrant women hit hard by the recession, with a much bigger drop of 14 percent among foreign-born women. Overall, the average number of children a U.S. woman is predicted to have in her lifetime is 1.9, slightly less than the 2.1 children required to maintain current population levels. Although the declining U.S. birthrate has not created the kind of stark imbalances found in graying countries such as Japan or Italy, it should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, says Roberto Suro, a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California. 'We've been assuming that when the baby-boomer population gets most expensive, that there are going to be immigrants and their children who are going to be paying into [programs for the elderly], but in the wake of what's happened in the last five years, we have to reexamine those assumptions,' he said. 'When you think of things like the solvency of Social Security, for example, relatively small increases in the dependency ratio can have a huge effect.'"
... this means I'll get back $1 for every 20 I kicked into the system since 1969?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
...who said they were illegal, and why would you assume simply refering to an 'immigrant' would result in only illegal immigrants?
Wow, just...wow.
They would always comment about how, when couples back-in-the-day got married, the first thing on their list of wants was children. Now, the list of wants usually starts with a house, two cars, living in a nice neighborhood, better insurance, a bigger TV, a good living room set... One's take on the matter: "America's so selfish nowadays it doesn't deserve children."
they built a new addition over the last 3 years to handle more students and they are still getting more applications than seats. this is for kindergarten. 160 some seats and they got almost 200 applications. this is for a NYC public school
Get fuckin.
Even if you are here illegally, you get payroll deductions. In fact, since you're afraid of the government you may decide not to file a tax return and claim your refund. You might consume more services at the local level, such as going to the ER for medical care which is expensive. There's a lot of data sloshing around; but it's clear that illegal immigrants pay some taxes. They definitely can't avoid sales tax which is pretty high in California now. For the types of jobs immigrants work, that sales tax is a pretty big hit since they'll be spending a large portion of their income right away--even if it's under the table and has no payroll deduction.
Note, I'm not defending the idea of coming to a country illegally. We need to secure the borders, and address the supply and demand for labor in a way that's fair, productive, and beneficial to the whole country. I'm just saying that it's not accurate to say they pay "no taxes".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You do know there are millions of legal immigrants flooding into the country right? The bar for legal US immigration is low and it is intentionally made easy to immigrate. That is why some people don't think we should be giving a free pass to the illegals. They essentially bypassed taking a couple days to learn the Constitution and a basic English test and an oath of loyalty to the US. People who have a problem with those requirements aren't our kind of people.
And the article didn't say they were depending on taxes from the immigrants, they are depending on their children and their children will be citizens whether the parents were or not.
the average number of children a U.S. woman is predicted to have in her lifetime is 1.9, slightly less than the 2.1 children required to maintain current population levels
Oh my GOD! It's like we'll have to allow some people to migrate into our country just to sustain ourselves! QUICKLY, let's open the floodgates of and bring more people in before we all just wither and fade away!
Seriously? This is an issue?
That anyone feels this is newsworthy is why we have a distruct of sociologists. They have serious discussions over "well, duh" type findings.
All that said, I see what they're trying to say: "Social Security if fucked". And while that's an important thing to say, it ALSO falls into the category of "well, duh".
The best argument for prosperity is that people stop breeding like rabbits. You look at wealthy nations (US, France, Germany, Canada, Japan) and universally you have at or below replacement population growth among the domestic population. The Japanese government is actually marketing parenthood because their kids have simply ceased to reproduce.
There are other ways to control population growth. You can rely on Malthus and starve/murder/plague people to a stable population. You can do as China has done and make >1 child a crime, with all the lovely consequences inherent to that. Only prosperity remains as the one certain method of stopping excessive growth without all of that heinous shit.
that's why the republicans does not want women to get subsides on their birth control pills!
My husband and I agreed not to have kids. By all rights we're in the sweet spot for it - young professionals, good careers ahead, own our house, etc. But.... I just don't see the need for it. We have his nieces and nephew any time we get the urge to play with kids or hold a baby. We have tons of friends with kids who are super glad to have us watch their rugrats for a night.
And let's not get into how expensive children are, or how hostile work environments are to parents of either sex (but especially women.) I believe both parents deserve equal maternity/paternity leave and for a far longer period than most employers are willing to give them. We'd have to both be comfortably working from home to even consider it.
So, we're not quite the couple in the beginning of Idiocracy, but we're close enough.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I do remember many times seeing the reports of how over-population was going to put such stresses on resources that it would be catastrophic to the globe. Well, looks like the problem has been solved. Yes it will be painful for a moment in time, but once population stabilizes, or even falls, there will be more for folks.
Frankly, the Govt can keep what I've paid into SS and the like. Just stop taking it out of my paychecks. I will take care of myself thank you very much.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
I think within 20-30 years, social security will be just about tapped out and unable to pay more than a small percentage of people that paid in.
What will end up happening is only the needy will be given social security money, anyone who has any amount of savings will not be allowed to draw out of it.
So for anyone working now - just treat social security as a black whole, money taken from you never to be seen again. Save enough for your own retirement to be comfortable. It's not hard to do, even just a few thousand a year now can make a huge difference later.
You might think that it would be better to save nothing so you would be one of the handful actually given social security money. But I wouldn't rely on that variable, save yourself and you know exactly what you have for retirement.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why would you want tonnes of kids when you can find a job and they want to cut your food stamps?
You can't even get a living wage at Walmart!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
How is being the very lowest it's ever been recorded as being since we began reliably recording it "not a record low"? Which word are we disagreeing on here, "low", or "record", since it certainly qualifies as a "record low" for any definition of either of these words I'm aware of. And if it's only a record low for most of our lifetimes, do tell us when it was lower? Which year? And how and where was that record recorded?
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
if you read the article they have a nice chart going back to the 1800's. the last 50 some years the birth rate has been flat since peaking in 1960.
right about the same time as women going into the work force and becoming independent and having children later. instead of peaks and valleys like before we will probably have a nice smooth birth rate going forward as people have kids later in life
Seriously, the social security problem is easily solved by actually making the wealthy pay their proportionate share of the taxes. It isn't even a significant factor compared to the effects of uncontrolled population growth on the human race.
Our population is far too high as is and it going shrinking some isn't a bad thing. Just because we've been planning for overcrowding, increasing resource usage, etc doesn't mean should not demand that our population continue it's horrible growth increase to fulfill our fears.
People often like to claim that humans consume without bounds and replicate until all resources are used up and will eventually move on. A stop in population growth would indicate an equilibrium with our environment and disappoint them. Is that really so bad?
This is a problem with the US economy in general - it is based on growth. Those European/Asian countries that have been around for thousands of years are more stable, and have economies based more on sustainable goods and services. One of the main economic numbers that drives the US stock market is "new housing starts" - a number based solely on having the population continually increasing. Once that slows down - and can't even be propped up by the banks fudging mortgages - the entire country is headed for a depression.
If you want less pollution you want fewer people. If you want a richer nation (with more pollution and more environmental degradation) then you want more educated immigrants. Either way we should look to Canada and have an immigration policy where we set standards for those who want to become citizens.
Any proposed solution will lead straight to Godwin's Law, sooner rather than later.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Legally immigrating to the US does not require one to do any of those things. Only those who wish to take US citizenship, which legal immigrants are eligible for only after years of living in the US, must do those things. And many legal immigrants to the US are happy to stay at the level of permanent residency, never applying for citizenship.
Der gonna take er jerbs!!!!
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Why do you assume immigrants must be illegal? The law should allow the amount of legal immigration we need, and the immigrants that will help our country grow. Immigration is vital to our economy now, and will become more so as the population ages.
Young, vital, driven immigrants are just the sort of people we need, yet nativist know-nothings act as if immigrants are a blight, not paying taxes or contributing anything to the economy. If we shut off immigration, as the xenophobic fringe demands, we will look like Japan soon, with an aging population and not enough young people to support them.
The USA was built by immigrants. It would be the height of folly to excessively limit immigration now when we most need it.
However, it's the lowest it's been in 90 years. The US birthrate was very high before the 20th century. The population was relatively small, most people were farmers, and needed all those kids. My mother is 83 and the baby of the family, and she has three brothers and six sisters. Back then, that was normal. before 1900 the average family was even bigger.
This is only a record low for most of our lifetimes.
I'm confused, you claim this isn't a record low because it used to be much much higher 100+ years ago? Your post honestly doesn't make any sense to me. This really is almost certainly a low for the US, since as you yourself point out, before the advent of modern medicine and technology, many women would have 5+ children. They needed to: not only was the help around the farm vital to succeed, but with the death rate being so high, especially among infants, the population could only stay steady if everyone who could had a lot of kids.
Also, I should point out that it is a record low, quite literally: it's the lowest on record, which by definition is a "record low". It may or may not be the lowest ever for the US, but it quite likely is.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
.... will allow people the luxury of having children. If a couple has a hard time feeding themselves, how the heck are they going to feed a family. Let's bring back the tax rates from Eisenhower and see what happens when the pie is more fairly distributed.
The status quo assumption is that retirees can only be cared for if there are more people in every generation to tithe. A far better model is to equitably distribute "ownership" of civilization's resources and technology. Then instead of tithing the young and depending on unsustainable population growth, people would simply earn income from their share of ownership of human civilization. This should in fact be OK with conservatives, because the principle (passive income received from inheritance) is one of their bedrock principles. We just have to extend it (via redistribution of title to assets) to everyone. This also solves the problem of The Race Against the Machine.
Close to 10%.
Why does the author seem to argue for increased immigration? He says we need more tax paying immigrants and their children to pay for Social Security in the future but the number of jobs available is effectively decreasing per capita in the country and we all know unemployed people, natives and immigrants, are a net drain on our government services. So if we restrict immigration to stabilize or decrease our supply of labor to meet the current demand for labor we will have to massively cut Social Security benefits to stabilize it.
This looks to me to be a Catch-22.
used to be you had 5 kids and 2 of them would die by 5 or 10. smallpox, typhoid, cholera, polio, death in child birth. add in your normal bacterial infections spreading and making your kids blind or some other disability because anti-biotics weren't available.
these days we have vaccines, antibiotics and other drugs to treat conditions that used to kill.
my older kid had pneumonia a few years back. a little zithromax and he was ready for day care in 2 days.
one of my school teachers once said that pneumonia put her in the hospital for a month
before that it wasn't that unusual to die from it
Poor Horatio.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I suspect that people with education and stable incomes continue to have children at the already low rate that they have historically.
That immigrants are also reducing the number of pregnancies hints that they understand the consequences and costs of raising children. Or maybe it hints that with access to free medical services (and yeah, lets not kid ourselves, for them it is free), they have managed to throw off the traditions of the third world of having many children even when living in squalor in the hopes that some of them will survive to take care of them in their old age.
(You would sort of expect this, since anyone willing to abandon their homeland and go on a long and dangerous journey risking arrest, and sometimes life, in the hopes of improving their conditions, would seem unlikely to fall back into the trap that they left).
Its been a long time since this country had a depression lasting 5 years, (with another 4 years on the horizon). Long enough for even the clueless to begin to understand the costs involved of feeding kids while out of work.
So who is still having those kids? I suspect the least able to support them. Unmarried teen age girls living in poverty. Despite nationally declining rates, teen birth rates in the United States remain persistently high, at 34.4 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19. And these rates are dramatically higher than in other developed countries. Twice as high as Canada.
Also those living on public assistance, of one form or another, where having another kid means another increase in their assistance check.
The birth rate for women 15 to 50 years old receiving public assistance income in the last 12 months was 155 births per 1,000 women, about three times the rate for women not receiving public assistance. See page 15.
With no skills, and no prospects, there seems to be an entire population of breeder-class individuals. And they are not necessarily the immigrants that we all thought they were.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Now if only the birth rate would drop world wide. Sigh, pipe dreams.
This is an issue that doesn't get enough attention. Let's face it, if we are to have any near future (20-50yrs) for entitlement programs, we need to be encouraging both immigration and reproduction.
There is a fixed amount of land and resources available to the US. If they would simply tax corporations that extract those resources appropriately there would be enough wealth to go around.
Adding more people is a band-aid solution to a failed system.
Isn't that the point of kids? So you have someone to look after you when you get old? ;-) I jest, I jest.
Frankly, I'm repulsed by this notion that "Hey, we gotta keep pumping out more kids so that we have a big base paying into social security to offset all the geezers taking their benefits". In any other situation, the notion of needing lots of new contributions to help fund the payouts to the holders of mature shares would be called what it really is: a pyramid scheme. Every pyramid scheme, eventually, runs out of sources of new influx as the system grows exponentially. And, in the case of population, it brings with it all sorts of negative consequences, like soaring housing costs in places that don't suck.
Frankly, I view population growth as akin to deficit spending... you can only get away with it for so long. So, rather than wait until we've exceeded the earth's capacity to support us, let's bite the bullet now. Let's embrace policies which encourage either zero-growth or population reduction and just accept the fact that it means that we'll all have to work a longer % of our life-expectancy.
The problem is, the only viable alternative is the stock market. Now, to scare you even further:
How is the entire stock market not a Ponzii scheme? It relies entirely on steadily increasing numbers of consumers to buy the goods, driving the sales growth that sustains all of those high P/E ratios. The whole system will eventually collapse in on itself, so every time I hear about a downturn in stocks, I wonder why everyone is panicking merely because it may or may not collapse sooner than anticipated....
See how much scarier it is when you look at the big picture instead of just a narrow part of it?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I'm curious to know this as well.
"Not a record low" might make sense if data was limited to the boomer generation, which it clearly isn't since they're (per TFS) reliable since 1920. In the context of a --widely documented-- plummeting of birthrates during the industrial revolution, I'd be hard pressed to think this is anything but the lowest record ever for the US. 1920, in case it needs reminding, was a year after the Spanish Flu pandemic, and in the midst of the economic depression that followed WWI -- shit tons of bad debt got liquidated almost overnight, so it didn't last like the current one. In a country that never say a battle on its soil after it entered the latter in 1917, at that.
FWIW, that birthrate seems to have "little prospects for a better economic future" written all over it. Probably for good reasons, too.
On a separate note, it might be time to open the immigration floodgates with Mexico. Oh wait!
What really bothers me is the 3 interesting upmods. I know this is slashdot and all "I don't read the article, or summary, or sometimes even the title," but do we not even read the comment we're moderating now?
Except for Hawaii. Their earliest year with reliable records was 1962 apparently.
You forgot those who use fake IDs and someone else's social security number for work. They get the full deduction, but not a cent of refund.
New Economic Perspectives
I was amazed at all those large Okie families in the PBS series on the Dust Bowl. Of course most of them were formed in the 1920s when the rain, crop yields and WWI reconstruction demand were good. Maybe they most stopped having kids during the Depression and Dust Bowl.
Which word are we disagreeing on here, "low", or "record"
"Reliably." That's the word I missed.
Free Martian Whores!
Hi there. Immigrant to the US from Canada here. I figured I'd just respond to the parent (mostly a troll) and some of the siblings here.
Immigration to the United States requires a significant amount of money and time. First, you have to qualify for either one of the immigrant visa categories, or come across on what's called a dual intent visa and then adjust status to Permanent Resident. These processes variously require interviews with USCIS and a significant wait for certain categories (more than a decade in a few, months to years for most), not to mention that the filing and other fees for the whole process can run into the thousands of dollars. (Did you know that USCIS, like the Post Office, doesn't take taxpayer dollars and instead is self-funded from filing fees? Good for you, not great for immigrants.)
If you came over on a nonimmigrant visa, like a visitor, work, or educational visa, you're likely going to have to return home before you can start the real immigration process, unless it's "dual intent" like the K-1 fiance(e) visa as I mentioned before.
Reason has a very good overview of the various paths available.
No, we aren't required to take a test on civics and English. That is required when one naturalizes, or becomes a United States citizen. This has a prerequisite of legally residing continually in the US for three or five years, depending on the visa category in which you entered. (Oh, and another thousand dollars, thanks.) The process, like other USCIS processes, takes about a year in wait and processing time. The process is also entirely not required; one can continue to be a permanent resident for as long as one likes, as long as one continues to file for an extension of one's Permanent Resident status (i.e. green card).
I personally plan to become a US citizen (well, dual citizen) as soon as possible though, because it allows one to obtain a US Passport (faster border travel), means one is done with USCIS forever (barring very specific, very rare circumstances), and allows one to vote.
So I guess what I'm saying is, the next time you want to make assumptions about legal immigration, look into it first. It's quite complicated, expensive, and not for the faint of heart.
"Give me your tired, your poor"? Not so much.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Most white people in the USA are illegal immigrants. Just ask any American Indian.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's not just the overall birth rate, but also the break down of birth rate to various segments of population that matters.
The linked article displays population projection from now to 2050, broken down by segments. It also shows the education levels of each segment. What it imply is we will end up with a less educated work force moving forward unless we are doing some heavy investing now.
So, your $20 in 1969 may turn into $0 (albeit in 2050) unless we can somehow shore up "the kids these days".
"You do know there are millions of legal immigrants flooding into the country right? "
Stop listening to Rush Limburger and the other members of the idiot brigade.
there are NOT millions of them FLOODING into the country.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
i have an idea where this is coming from...
That or birth control?
...or loosen immigration laws and have those with healthier birthrates to contribute to the system.
ceci n'est pas un sig
It's hard to have kids when half the world is raiding.
you're not going to secure borders if you prevent people from becoming legal citizens just because they got here illegally. As the phrase goes, you trap more flies with honey than with vinegar. If you think taxes is even a focus on that, it's just ignorance by definition and a 100% incorrect focus.
Illegal by what law? You can't be illegal if there is no law.
Yes it does. you tax them, if they leave, you tax their products more than if they were here.
It works very well if you dont have your government full of scumbags that cater to rich corporations first and the country last.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Illegal immigration is the vast majority of current immigration. No need to assume, when you can measure.
However, most immigrants, illegal or otherwise, pay Social Security taxes! It's amazing how often that's overlooked in debate. The number of cash-only dayjob workers is statistically small, and most immigrants (legal or otherwise) have some social security number associated with their job! Given that social security is the primary tax most people pay these days, the notion of the "illegal working tax-free" is unfounded.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So wait, you're suggesting that a giant Ponzi scheme (you know, the kind where you have to keep adding new people to continue payouts, aka Social Security) starts to fail when it no longer gets new members?
And that even a government-MANDATED Ponzi scheme will eventually fail when demographics turn against it?
How is this "new" or "informative"?
-Styopa
Population reduction is actually in the United Nations Agenda 21 and Obama has signed the US full out on it (most Americans don't know this or what all is contained in Agenda 21).
There are over 7 billion people on this planet and Agenda 21 goal is 1 billion or less.
There are a number of ways this is being achieved, one of which has been the consumption of GMO corn with sterilizes (caused reduced sperm count) men (hey guy there is your birth control)
All this really does cause one to question laws to kill gays.... re: Uganda
Yes it does. you tax them, if they leave, you tax their products more than if they were here.
So you're going to make everyone better off by increasing the cost of the things they buy?
I'd still be curious when it was recorded as being lower, even if the record isn't reliable...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
1. Advanced material wealth and higher education suppress birth rates.
2. Advanced material wealth and higher education attract immigrants.
3. Emigrating is difficult under the best and most legal circumstances. Therefore, immigrants tend to be more ambitious and harder working than average.
4. Consequently, immigrants can supplement native birth in broadening the economic base, while simultaneously adding economic dynamism via their own ambition and the more generalized effects of cultural diffusion.
5. Profit!!!
6. GOTO 1.
Yes it does. you tax them, if they leave, you tax their products more than if they were here.
So you're going to make everyone better off by increasing the cost of the things they buy?
So you're going to make everyone better off by increasing the cost of externally produced things they buy; thereby making the domestically produced items cheaper by comparison?
Sounds OK.
Correct. I have an east German sitting beside me right now that never plans to become a citizen, even though she is eligible to do so. She has an SSI card, & pays taxes, just can't vote in local elections or hold (most) offices.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I wasn't aware that the Indians had laws regarding the immigration of Europeans to North America.
I don't know the term but while the federal rate has gone down the "real world" rate (state, medicare, gas, etc) of taxes paid is and has been rising, as a percentage of income, for a long time. All that has happened is that people being bad at math focus on that one federal number while their pockets are picked clean in a myriad of taxes and fees used to make up the difference.
The bar for legal US immigration is low and it is intentionally made easy to immigrate.....They essentially bypassed taking a couple days to learn the Constitution and a basic English test and an oath of loyalty to the US.
If the bar is that low, then why are people coming here illegally? Perhaps you are buying into some sort of illusion of how easy it is to get in, because based on the number of people sneaking in, I don't buy it. You do realize that sneaking in isn't easy or safe, right? Why would anyone sneak in if getting in legitimately is really that simple? I call bullshit....
People who have a problem with those requirements aren't our kind of people.
You know, I actually would welcome those people. Because to sneak in, you have to deal with possibly dangerous characters, risk injury, imprisonment, or even death sneaking across miles of desert. Anyone who wants freedom that badly is OK in my book. These are the people who will appreciate its value, because they had to earn it. The people I don't think we need are the lazy, self-centered assholes already here who expect that freedom is safe, easy, and free.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The country must maintain its population and ideally grow. There are many reasons. The economy relies on a growing consumer base and a growing labor pool. The influence the US has on the world is somewhat proportional to its population, so we need a large population to exert our influence on the world. Militarily we need a large population to use to defend ourselves. Also, a decreasing population is an aging population which becomes more and more difficult to care for when there are not enough young people. We are nowhere near overpopulation. Most of the country's land is empty. Food is relatively cheap and can be famed on less land than ever before. 1) Make it more affordable to have children: Increase tax deductions. Subsidize day care. Pay 100% for paternity/maternity leave immediately after birth (some states have a waiting period). 2) Increase immigration. Allow anyone from any country to immigrate to the US as long as they are healthy, not criminals or terrorists and are capable of working and supporting themselves until they have a job. There should be no quotas. Waiting periods should be minimized. A man should be able to walk into any US consulate in the world and be in the US 90 days later after we have verified he meets all those criteria.
Singapore tried to influence birth rates with some success, some failures. First they tried to lower it, and were successful, then they tried to raise it and were successful. They also tried to get educated and successful people to have more kids and poor uneducated people to have less and did not succeed.
Whether the overall birth rate was high or low the group with the most kids was "women who did not finish high school."
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
I was able to earn enough in the summer to pay for college and beer (but not rent, lived at home, bought most of my own food, though) in the early '90s. Of course I'm in Quebec. Maybe you should try massive civil disobedience like students here (they protested school fee increases when they should have protested offshoring, but the government was aiming for the higher loans/higher fees cycle so the kids had a point).
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Be part of the solution. If you have not had a family yet, limit yourself to 2 kids of your own and adopt the rest if you want more. If you already have a family, teach your kids not to have more than 2 of their own either. Current Population: http://tinyurl.com/currentpopulation 6.9 billion people World fertility rate for population replacement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility 2.33 children per woman From: http://tinyurl.com/futurepopulation According to the United Nations, the global population could be as high as 11 billion in 2050 or as low as 8 billion, if the right programs are put in place now.
It will be a great day when the economy improves without pollution and population levels rising.
I know that Germany has a horribly low birth rate, which is already causing problems. In Europe, Ireland is relatively high, though lower than it used to be. It would be interesting to predict the long-term social situation caused by large portions of the population being outside of the workforce. A country with a 2.1-2.4 children per couple, stable over a long time, is going to be a stable, happy country.
Corporations don't pay taxes, they collect taxes. Taxing coprorations is nothing more than a sales tax (where else will the money come from, lower profits? As if.), and sales taxes are regressive.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
i have an idea where this is coming from...
That or birth control?
Masturbating to porn instead of having sex could be seen as a form of birth control.
Touchè.
Bullshit. And why bother measuring, when you can just make up numbers?
According to Wikipedia, there is 7 to 20 million illegal immigrants in the US.
According to the US census bureau, there are 40 million immigrants in the US as of 2011.
Doesn't quite seem like a "vast majority", or actually any kind of majority, does it?
Seriously. 2 minutes of googling. But why bother if you already have the wrong answer in your head?
on a country with a diversity immigrant visa lottery program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa
Baby Boomers are *supposed* to gobble up the Social Security trust fund! The reason the trust fund was created in the first place was to pre-fund the retirement of the Baby Boomers!
Believe it or not, people didn't just discover the Baby Boom last week. The actuaries of yesteryear were not complete morons. Changing demographics were built into Social Security from its inception.
The AP has really deteriorated. Shame on them for publishing this scare-mongering, disingenuous piece worthy of Fox News.
Now just before Bush came into office in 2001, as an example, 1 American dollar was worth about 1.75 British pounds...After Bush left office...1 American dollar was worth about .55 {cent/pent} in British currency.
You are clearly mistaken about the exchange rates. The USD has never been worth anywhere near 1.75 GBP, at least going back to 1953.
The rate was 1.48 GBP to 1 USD in Jan 2001 (when Bush takes office) , and 1.45 GBP to 1 USD in Jan 2009 (when Bush leaves office). It did go as high as 2.10 in the interim, but there was no trend even close what you are suggesting.
Not that I'm defending Bush, nor do I think that any of the rest of your post is remotely accurate, but those figures just stuck out to me as being entirely wrong.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
All Government bonds, including those owed to SSI, are considered part of the Debt (well, if you are going with the $14 trillion number). The only way to pay off the debt is to buy back the bonds and when you lower the deficit you will by definition be selling less bonds to all customers, including SSI. So the trust fund was used to "fund" the deficit, but it never changed the apparent size of the deficit. One consequence of this is that paying less benefits doesn’t lower the debt or deficit in any way. It DOES allow us to more easily continue to fund the deficit however with the net result of lowering taxes.
If you don’t like looking at SSI as separate, that is fine, but then you need to cut that debt number nearly in half.
Not that we don’t have some real decisions ahead. Let me give you a hint, when granny finally squares off with the military, granny is gonna win. The cards are in her favor and until the SSI fund actually runs out, everyone else gets the short stick.
Of course politicians on both sides love to play smoke an mirror with this.
Sorry It DID NOT worked in Brazil where we pay 3x times for a POS car.
OR 4 times for every electronic (compare apple stores).
Face it, you want cheaper cost of living invest in infrastructure and education.
Yeah, because the ~45M illegal immigrants are all standing outside the 2,200 Home Depot stores (not all of which are in the US)...
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
That reinforces my point, rather than detracting from it.
But the presumption is that permanent residency is a stepping stone to citizenship.
Yes. There. Are.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_legal_immigrants_does_the_us_take_in_per_year
People with mod points. Please stop modding people up informative when you can paraphrase their argument as "nuh uh" just because you agree with their politics.
Overr here, from a financial perspective, kids are INSANELY expensive. The media (toys, tv, movies, clothing, etc) and our government (school costs, taxes, regulations, esp college costs) have leveraged people's natural desire to have children against those people. Wanna have kids? You're going to be broke unless you make a very large salary.
I keep being told how cheap kids are by some people, but seeing the financial reality it goes like this:
"My husband has a fine, comfortable job making 75K a year! We have two cars and a house, let's have a kid!"
Me: (more nicely than this) As your financial advisor, I advise you to make double what you are now and then consider it.
Them: Well it's our decision
Me: Ok.
Them 12-18 months later: Barely able to afford house repairs, have to trade down to one car, and the "free" parent has to greatly consider getting a job because these people finally realize that schooling and giving kids opportunities costs a HUGE amount of money.
Me: Can't say I told them so, but I watch their happy, healthy lives go to shit as they are ground down under the weight of their new responsibility.
I know this sounds horrible and terrible and all sorts of bad things, but this has been the de facto standard in everyone around me who I've seen have kids. Thing is? THEY KEEP HAVING THEM! Suddenly they have 3 or 4 kids, no saving for retirement or college, and are locked into "family life". For a while this is nice... until the kids hit school age and the bills start piling up.
From what I've seen, I recommend that people NEED to be making at least 50K PER PERSON in a family. If you're making 100K you're pretty much ok with two people. 150K? Ok, you can have a kid and give them what they need to get by in the world. Want more? You better work your buns off or you're looking at a grim future.
This is just my opinion, but sadly i've found it true more times than I'd like. I'd like to think everyone can have kids, but the financial reality these days is that you'd have to be crazy to do so without a lot of backup cash or a cushy job.
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Pre conquest native Americans lived in societies with customs, rules, traditions and culture, they had their laws which I am quite sure didn't include allowing the influx of a load of white folk to take their land and livelihood. Much like my ancestors completely ignored Saxon immigration controls around 1066. Nasty stuff happens, it is illegal at the time but the victors then legalize it after the event.
Here's a CBO report on illegal immigrants and their effect on taxes. While illegal immigrants do use services, they seem to pay quite a bit in taxes, too. They pay sales taxes and by renting property they are indirectly paying real estate taxes that fund local governments and schools.
they also had much, much higher wages and a larger share of the profits. Wages have been falling for 40 years. Right now the the only way to get anything out of the rich is to tax it out of them. Also, if you just look at the top 1% taxes are the lowest they've been since 1920. It's the middle and poor that are getting hosed.
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it's a social welfare program for people too pig headed to accept charity. Ayn Rand famously refused it at first, until a friend convinced her to take it so she wouldn't die homeless in a gutter (not that I'm speaking literally here, not in the idealized die in the gutter 'cause your poor sense that so popular with the conservative kiddies these days).
Basically you can't live independently unless you're really, really lucky (think Mitt Romney and with his dad's connections and millions). The vast majority of us just get picked off by the capitalists who throw the yolk of the 'Free Market' on us and turn us into Wage Slaves (16 tons, whata you get?).
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You're misplacing your anger. It was not his generation. It was a few select people that used their wealth and power to trick, cow and frighten the entire USA. They use sentiments like you just expressed to divide us so they can conquer us. Stop thinking in terms of punishment for mistakes. Start asking what people REALLY deserve. Food. Housing. Health Care. You ARE entitled to those things. Don't let the Mitt Romneys of the world tell you otherwise. Don't let them set you at each other's throats....
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My mom always said, "so in my old age, you can keep me in the way I wish to become accustomed to."
And seeing my grandparents' struggles - grandma a former teacher on a pension, grandpa a vet on a pension, both taking piece-work and part time work just to keep ends meetings, I can definitely see why.
Inflation eats any savings plan you can come up with. Kids are a safety net that improves with age. ... usually.
For making more resources available for mine.
there are NOT millions of them FLOODING into the country.
It depends is you count multiple years. Immigration to the United States puts the legal figure at over a million a year. How many are unaccounted for?
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
My friend from India (who moved to England and then to here) said he had to go through hell just to get a green card, something I think like three different exams covering American history, the Constitution, and Civics. He isn't a citizen, and he hasn't found any compelling reason to become one due to the costs and red tape involved.
He says all the time how crazy it is that all you have to do is be born here, and you're automatically a citizen. He is a pediatrician, by the way, and tells me that he gets illegal immigrants in his clinic all the time that take advantage of the state's free health care program (which is pretty damn good, by the way.) My state (Arizona) spends billions per year on illegal immigrants. People wonder why the state senate passed SB1070; that's why. I haven't yet met somebody who came here the legal way (without simply being born here) who is opposed to SB1070, in fact they've only spoken favorably about it. Several of the senate members who voted for the bill in fact are immigrants.
No country in the world allows illegal immigrants to run under the radar as much as we do. Mexico, who complains the loudest about our immigration policies, denies legal immigrants the right to protest or assemble, and if they have a job, and a citizen wants it, they have to fire the immigrant and take him even if he is less qualified.
Meanwhile, special interest groups that have nothing at all to do with our state, come and file lawsuits on behalf of people who aren't supposed to be here at all under law, as if we're the ones breaking the law. SB1070 only applies existing federal law to the state level. In fact, federal law ALREADY requires all immigrants to carry documentation with them at all times, yet we get called the "papers please" state for enforcing that law locally. Godwin's law at its finest.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
replying to my own post to correct:
I just re-read this, and those rates should read 1.48/1.45 USD to 1 GBP. The point still stands.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
The bar for legal US immigration is low and it is intentionally made easy to immigrate. That is why some people don't think we should be giving a free pass to the illegals. They essentially bypassed taking a couple days to learn the Constitution and a basic English test and an oath of loyalty to the US.
Interesting statement. It clearly indicates you know nothing about immigration to the US. While it is (relatively) easy to get a student visa to go to school in the US, it is far more difficult to get a resident-work visa. To get a resident-work visa, you first need to find an employer who is willling to sponsor you, fill out the paperwork, and pay the fee. Then you need a labor certification from the Department of Labor, more money and time. Then you can file the actual visa application (money) and wait for an eligible date (time). How long this takes depends on your visa category and the country you are applying from. If you are in the E3 category (Skilled Workers, Professionals, and Unskilled Workers (Other Workers)) and applying from an oversubscribed country (ex: Mexico), this can take a long time. Only 140,000 employment-based visas are granted for 2012. With a 7% cap on each country and an ~29% issuance to the E3 category, a restaurant worker from Mexico would be competing for one of ~2800 visas granted this year. They likely won't get it and will have to wait until the following year or longer.
That is the minimum required for immigration to work unless you are in the priority category or have some other kind of exemption. You could stop there. However, your visa will expire eventually and usually cannot be renewed. So if you want to stay in the US, you have to start applying for permanent residence, which is another big hassel that takes a lot of time and money. Without at least a Master's degree (PhD is better), you can be waiting for a lottery number for a very long time, and paying a lot of money in lawyer's and application fees.
So, no, it is not easy to immigrate to the US. It is arguably easy to figure out what forms to fill out and submit them, but it is not easy to get the actual visa that you need to get, which then allows you to get the permanent residence, which then allows you to apply for citizenship.
Back in/before the 70s, The Pill could only be taken for a few years - the dosage was considered too strong. So, after a few years of marriage, kids started showing up.
And for thousands of years of recorded history before that, there was no "choice". You had kids until you couldn't.
We represent the first generation of humanity that can cheaply, easily, truly choose when/how many in regards to children. So it should be absolutely obvious we would wait to be more financially ready. It has very little to do with greed, and I find it more than a little little ironic that members of America's most selfish generation (boomers) should point such blame at anyone else.
Playing with nieces and nephews can be a lot of fun, but there is no feeling comparable to the joy of raising your own child.
Unless you are Donald Duck and are raising your "nephews".
Huh? There haven't been any East Germans since 1991.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If no offpsrings, then nothing to carry down. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
My wife and I have been trying to have kids for a few years now, but just last year we found out she has PCOS, so that's why we've been unsuccessful. Since our insurance isn't covering it, we have to save up $16k for a shot at our first child. To achieve that end, we're sacrificing many things that are unnecessary. I'm curious to know how many of the stats take infertility into account.
This system of government is obsolete and desperately in need of updating. I find it startling that we are still using it. It just cannot handle the needs of the country. Reference the fiscal disaster pending in the new year, caused by political cowards and manipulators. Reference the exploding debt. Reference the suicidal deficits. Any government that cannot fund itself and the nation is either illegitimate, or desperately in need of structural change. This form of government has failed the test of fiscal responsibility. Until we talk of structural change and call a new constitutional convention that sets up a new modern structure that cannot be paralyzed by venality and greed for power we are just supporting failure. I find it hard to believe that a couple of million political ancestors hundreds of years ago had all the answers with regard to the proper structure of our government. Are there no geniuses in our 300 million citizens? Are there no courageous men left?
E Proelio Veritas.
no one ever said they were. Just that you are entitled to live. Real freedom isn't the freedom to die in a gutter. If you must work as a slave to buy the bread to eat, to buy wood to burn in the winter to survive, to buy medicine to live, are you really free? True freedom is economic security. Without economic security you are at the mercy of the haves. Of the lucky few. You're not free, because if you stop doing what they tell you then they let you die. Remember, you're not free when I can compel you to do something against your wishes...
Also, you're making another mistake, which is assuming we're incapable of providing food, housing and health care for one person without depriving it from another. This isn't the 1800s. We're no longer at the mercy of mother nature. The Dutch, for example, unencumbered by notions of false capitalistic "Freedom", have solved the problem of their port cities being destroyed by storms ever 30 years. Meanwhile America continues to let it happen while building ever increasing monuments to the petty desires of a few lucky bastards...
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Yup & she was one of the 1st ones over the wall when it fell.
There is a war going on for your mind.
my impression is that one of the factors that strongly affects birthrate is the prospective parents' faith in their future, their confidence and optimism. This phenomenon may be mediated through the effects of chronic elevated stress hormone levels. I don't have access to my reference database at the moment, so I apologize in advance for not being able to provide cites to support my thoughts. But given the dismal economic prospects for those in the lower and middle classes in America, and the fact that they comprise the vast majority of prospective parents in the US, is it at all surprising that birth rates have fallen so low?
You know why Mexico is hard on illegal immigrants? It's because an illegal immigrant can become legal in Mexico simply by spending a few hours filling out forms. If you are in Mexico illegally one of two things is true: a) you are too damn stupid to ask what Mexican immigration law is, or b) you are actually a criminal. It's not easy to immigrate to Mexico and get a job there if a) is true, so the Mexican legal system makes the understandable assumption that anyone there illegally is a criminal. That's a bit different from the US, where most illegals are perfectly normal, but can never be legalized.
Note that, in person, I would never bother correcting a person like you on this point. There is no point in disagreeing with someone who is smart enough to do the research and find out what Mexican immigration law is, but is so blind to reality that he doesn't ask "why would a nation of immigrants do that?"
BTW, your Indian friend isn't Indian if he's surprised at our citizenship system. India also used jus soli citizenship until 2004. I suspect he's not actually your friend, he's merely a brownish guy with an accent who chose not to argue with you when you brought up immigration.