Trendspotting: Is America Heading for Zero Population Growth?

NewsWire: 8/10/21

• In half of all states last year, more people died than were born. Could the slowdown in U.S. population growth soon lead to our first population decline? (The Wall Street Journal)
• NH: This is a solid overview of what’s happened to U.S. population growth over the past few decades. Early estimates indicate that in the shadow of the pandemic, the population grew 0.35% for the year that ended July 1, 2020--the lowest rate ever.
• The big question is if whether we may soon see a (transitory) population decline. The deciding factor will be immigration. I’m quoted here saying that, given the extent to which the pandemic has suppressed immigration, it is possible that the next population update (for the year ending July 1, 2021) will show a small decline. What is more likely is that U.S. deaths will exceed births. Either event would be a historical first.
• In April, when we presented our 2020 Demography Review of the United States, it included charts showing that in 2021 and 2022, nearly all of our meager population growth is projected to be from net migration. They also showed that working-age population growth in 2020, even including immigration, actually did go below zero. And that was a historical first. Reason? Large Boomer cohorts are now reaching age 65 (the exit ramp), small last-wave Millennial cohorts are now reaching age 20 (the entrance ramp), and 2020 was a nasty mortality year for all age brackets. 

• Population growth has been the economic driver for the developed world for the last two centuries. But the numbers don’t lie. We’ve entered a new era of near-zero growth, and unless birth or migration trends change, we’ll be here well into the 2060s.