I don't get it. Why does this writer treat it as granted that USA population growth is a good thing?

[Towlie]

The Atlantic: Why U.S. Population Growth Is Collapsing

Derek Thompson's summary of statistics and alleged causes of declining USA population growth ends with this conclusion:

Even if you’re of the dubious opinion that the U.S. would be better off with a smaller population, American demographic policy is bad for Americans who are alive right now. We are a nation where families have fewer kids than they want; where Americans die of violence, drugs, accidents, and illness at higher rates than similarly rich countries; and where geniuses who want to found new job-creating companies are forced to do so in other countries, which get all the benefits of higher productivity, higher tax revenue, and better jobs.

Simply put, the U.S. has too few births, too many deaths, and not enough immigrants. Whether by accident, design, or a total misunderstanding of basic economics, America has steered itself into the demographic danger zone.

The article includes a link to "Derek Thompson: A simple plan to solve all of America’s problems". In my opinion a reduction in human population would solve all of the world's problems!

[SoonerPride]

1. The population bust is coming and it is global. Not just the US.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/The-new-population-bomb

The new population bomb

For the first time, humanity is on the verge of long-term decline

TOKYO -- For the past 200 years, a rapidly rising population has consumed the earth's resources, ruined the environment, and started wars. But humanity is about to trade one population bomb for another, and now scientists and policymakers are waking up to a new reality: The world is on the precipice of decline, and possible extinction.

The twin forces of economic development and women's empowerment are combining to end the age brought on by the Industrial Revolution, in which economic growth was buoyed by a growing population, and vice versa. Since the early 19th century, the rising tide of humanity has provoked many dire predictions: English economist Thomas Malthus argued as early as 1798 that population would grow so fast it would outstrip food production and lead to famine. In 1972, the Club of Rome warned that humanity would reach the "limits to growth" within 100 years, driven by a relentless rise in the global population and environmental pollution.

Today the world's population, which stood as 1 billion in 1800, is now 7.8 billion, and the strain on the planet is clear. But scientists and policymakers are slowly waking up to the new numbers: The population growth rate reached a peak of 2.09% in the late 1960s, but it will fall below 1% in 2023, according to a study by the University of Washington, published last year. In 2017, the growth rate of people aged 15 to 64 -- the working-age population -- fell below 1%. The working-age population has already begun to drop in about a quarter of countries around the world. By 2050, 151 of the world's 195 countries and regions will experience depopulation.

Ultimately, the study forecasts that the global population will peak at 9.7 billion in 2064 and then start declining.

Over the approximately 300,000 years of human history, cold-weather periods and epidemics have caused temporary drops in population. But now humanity will enter a period of sustained decline for the first time ever, according to Hiroshi Kito, a historical demographer and former president of the University of Shizuoka.

more at the link

The problem with this for advanced economies is who supports the elderly? Both in terms of social safety net and actual jobs.

It will turn society on its head.

For the planet it will be a good thing. For society and functioning economies, not so much.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. An aging population requires youngsters to care for it, and elders have little productivity growth

Our path is a formula for declining income, purchasing power, services, and perhaps inflation. Also we would need to import personnel to fill low skill jobs which only makes the decline steeper.

You can debate if overconsumption and the environment would improve to more sustainable levels, I think they clearly would, but lifestyle - consumption, disposable income, innovation, purchasing power - would not.

[Lancero]

6. Productivity has rapidly exceeded wages, for decades at this point.

Perhaps if wages went to the average worker, rather than billionaires who do nothing but horde it, then these nations would have a high enough tax base to care for the elderly.

Instead, tax breaks for billionaires. Compounding the issue, really - Large amounts of money, taxed little if at all, while less and less money makes it into the pockets of people who are taxed.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Disagree. Productivity growth has been steady but unremarkable. /nt

[DBoon]

9. Steady but unremarkable is much better than wage growth

[SYFROYH]

3. Nothing is getting cheaper so we need more people to produce things and tax.

It's an economy thing, as I understand it.

[raccoon]

5. Better crank up Universal Basic Income then. Robots will be taking

More and more jobs.

[Walleye]

4. The most effective way to control population growth is the education of women and girls

We all know what the Republicans think of education and women’s equality

[ratchiweenie]

10. They are determined to make sure we all reproduce to save the economy. I say the answer is we

have to let more people come here from poor countries. They want to come here. They will become our workforce. But of course, the GOP doesn't want the "dark people" to come here either.

[Walleye]

12. That is an accurate analysis. I love when immigrants come into our community.

Middle-class white people can be so boring. If nothing else we need more immigrants just for variety sake

[RockRaven]

7. Unless we're willing to tax the wealthy adequately, the only way to pay for the government

programs which everyone seems to want (Social Security and Medicare, while also having an enormous military and security state) is constant population growth. That's why people like this guy tout it as a necessity/solution -- because they are unwilling to grapple with how to pay for everything in a steady-state society.

[gratuitous]

11. This is terrible news if the only way to operate society is the current model

Ever-expanding capitalism that funnels the rewards of the system upwards, ever upwards, isn't the only way to organize and operate society. But if you think it is, then yes, declining population numbers is terrible news. What's next? Not exploiting our finite resources to exhaustion? Not forcing everyone to live a Type A personality lifestyle? Horrors!