Running Out Of People

For the first time in its history, the United States is running out of people. Annual deaths are projected to exceed the number of births in the US just eight years from now, in 2032. The previous low point was 0.01% in 2021, but it still counted as gr02owth. Now, given the rate of aging and the low rate of births, the country is set to experience a deficit in the number of people within its borders. An absence of people of working age will likely arrive before that.

What may be more troubling is that the data from the Congressional Budget Office does not factor in the anti-immigration policies of the current administration.  Border crossings in February were 94% lower than they were a year prior, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. As arrests and deportations continue, the number of people coming into the United States will only exacerbate the prediction and could cause the US to hit negative territory even sooner. Without immigration, the US population numbers would fall off dramatically.

The economic numbers resulting from a lack of employable people are stunning. Gross domestic product is forecast to increase at an average rate of 1.6% over the next 30 years, compared with the 2.5% average increase over the last three decades, the report said. The slowdown is due to both a weaker pace of expansion in the labor force — as the population ages and increases more modestly in coming decades — and less robust productivity gains.

“Increased federal borrowing is projected to reduce the resources available for private investment,” the CBO said. Declines in federal investment relative to GDP are also seen as a drag on so-called total factor productivity — a term to describe efficiency gains. Another damper is “a slowdown in the pace at which workers’ edu­cational attainment increases,” the report said.

Immigration could solve the problem if it were to continue. The Census Bureau estimates that immigrants account for 14.3 percent of the population, or around 47.8 million people. Continuing immigration at that rate would exceed the deficit in the number of domestic births, providing more people to fill the need for employment in critical areas.

If immigration continues to decline, or stop, the situation is one that could cripple the United States for years. “Compounded over many years, even small changes in rates of net immigration, fertility, or mortality could greatly affect outcomes later in the projection period.”

What are the options outside of immigration?

One might be the faster adoption of robotic workers, especially in and around factories. The problem with this solution is that once a work environment switches to robot use, going back to humans is almost impossible. The cost of an average entry-level robot is only $25,000, far less than the annual amount paid to an entry-level human worker. More advanced and capable robots are available in the $150,000 price range. Either choice could represent considerable financial savings over the cost of employing humans.

Bill Gates, one of the co-founders of Microsoft, goes even further in a recent interview saying that AI will eliminate “most” of the jobs currently being filled by humans. Gates says that we’re entering a new era of “free intelligence.” The result will be rapid advances in AI-powered technologies that are accessible and touch nearly every aspect of our lives. “It’s very profound and even a little bit scary — because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound,” Gates said.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, believes that continued technological advancements over the next several years will change what most jobs look like across nearly every industry, and have a “hugely destabilizing” impact on the workforce. “These tools will only temporarily augment human intelligence,” Suleyman wrote in his book “The Coming Wave.” “They will make us smarter and more efficient for a time, and will unlock enormous amounts of economic growth, but they are fundamentally labor replacing.”

It is generally considered, however, more likely that the global population will peak and begin shrinking before robots and AI replace the majority of the human workforce across most sectors. The pace of AI and robotics development is incredibly rapid but also highly uncertain. Predicting technological breakthroughs is much harder than projecting demographic shifts. A large number of technologists don’t agree with Gates’ projections.

While AI and automation are already displacing some jobs and transforming many others, replacing the majority of the human workforce across diverse sectors (including those requiring complex physical dexterity, creativity, empathy, and nuanced decision-making) is a monumental challenge. Estimates for when AI might reach human-level general intelligence (AGI) – often seen as a prerequisite for mass workforce replacement – vary wildly, from within a couple of decades to many decades or potentially never.

So, while it seems inevitable that the future of work is going to change dramatically, the downsizing of the American population could have a critical effect on the national economy. Already, other countries have made increasing their birthrate a priority. In China, the situation is so severe that women not having children is seen as unpatriotic.

VP Fuxacouch has long made large-scale family development a priority, even though his version is considerably more misogynistic than what most people find appropriate. This raises the possibility that, should Republicans maintain their political power, forced birth requirements could become law here as much as they are in less-developed countries.

That doesn’t mean women should rush out and start having babies. Children born today still won’t be of working age by the time the overall population decreases. Immigration remains the best and most logical choice for combating the problem.

Of course, when has the US government embraced anything logical?