the 2010s - the lost decade?

[freepcrusher]

it seems that if the 2012 pop estimate is to be followed; the U.S. will have grown only 6.2% since 2010. That I think is actually the slowest the country has grown over the course of the census. Are we now at the European stage of below replacement level reproduction?

[muon2]

It's going to take a few years to know. One factor in the drop off was the decrease in immigration during the Great Recession. If there is federal immigration reform and the economy continues to recover with only minor corrections, the immigration growth could return to a mid-2000's level.

[Padfoot]

Wasn't the birthrate for upper and middle class Americans already lower than the replacement rate pre-recession?  I thought the only reason we weren't at European levels of population growth was because of immigration.

[DC Al Fine]

The stock market has been in a bull market since March 09. If anything, the 2000's were the lost decade.

[LastVoter]

The stock market has been in a bull market since March 09. If anything, the 2000's were the lost decade.

The stock market != wages

[Beet]

The U.S. could increase the birth rate by making this policy more friendly towards families with children. A lot of women don't want to have children because of the disproportionate cost. If a woman has children too early and has invested in a career, it devastates her career. Even egalitarian-minded progressive couples usually can't escape the fact that the burden of child-rearing mostly falls on the woman. So either we return to the 1950s, or we accept a society where we impose big costs on mothers who are encouraged when they are young to invest in their education, only to make the having of children a detriment to the returns that they get on that education. No wonder the average age of childbirth is increasing.

More parent-friendly policies on all fronts are called for. Regularizing paid family leave as they do in most countries would be a positive step. Subsidizing day care would be another positive step, since the cost is currently absurdly high; another possibility is to encourage joint households (e.g., the grandparents, parents, and child), this not only eliminates the need for nursing homes and day care (which are both ultra-expensive) but it reduces the need for housing thus devastating the family's ecological footprint and being a massive environmental boon. Culturally, however this could be a problem.

[old timey villain]

I think it's about time the anti immigrant crowd finally gets the chance to see America without immigration, and I betcha they're not gonna like it. Immigration of all types, yes- even illegal immigration- has been a huge catalyst for economic growth in this country. Without it we're in for some serious trouble.

I don't think this will happen though. America is still a huge immigrant magnet compared to the rest of the world and once the economy revs up they'll start flooding in again.