I take a little issue with the belief that SS will be “bankrupt” in 2035. Yes, without changes, the current $2.9 trillion surplus will be gone. But so will a significant portion of the generation currently causing the most stress on the system. A few tweaks – increasing SS tax rates, shifting budgets from other sectors, etc – should be enough to get the country through another decade of generational imbalance until the system once more works its way back into the black.
It will be interesting to see how elderly conservative retirees confront the question of “more F35s” vs “benefits continuing at their current levels.”
I also think that the coming dominant generations in U.S. politics will want to have a healthy retirement system for themselves as well.
Sorry to be the annoying fact checker but Gen X isn’tall that much smaller, at least per Brookings. About the same as Z. Share of population: Boomers 21.8%; Gen X 19.9%; Millennials 22%; Gen Z 20.3%.
“Geriatric Millennial” meme aside the reality is that in 20 years many Boomers will be dead, the most of the Gen X cohort will be over 67, and the that group now being teased as “Geriatric Millennials” will be not too far behind.
Actually, the Baby Boomers have affected the Social Security system less than the Silent Generation and maybe the Greatest Generation and maybe even the Lost Generation (the years of each of which you can see below):
The overall problem is people not calculating how long the average lifespan would be in the future. A good rule of thumb is that the average lifespan increases by two months every year. When calculating how much people on Social Security should receive, how much they should pay in, and when they should be able to begin receiving it, that rule should be followed.
Pardon the bump after seven months but latest estimates show the US population increasing by less than 400,000 the past year, or about a .13% increase.
Interesting notes: it was the first time since 1937 that the population increase year to year was less than one million. And, according to the Census Bureau, it was the first time immigration numbers (244,000) were higher than natural increase, defined as births minus deaths (148,000).
Things get really interesting on many fronts when the annual natural increase numbers turn negative.
Indeed. Because immigration remains a huge and hotly contested issue in this country and it will become even more so as the country’s population and demographic situations begin to change.
One thing that maybe only I’m thinking about: there is a huge pushback against opening the gates at our southern border because of language and cultural “differences.” What happens when we begin to have a greater need for higher levels of immigration and the best source is sub-Saharan Africa? Some minds in the midlands are really gonna asplode.
Maybe. On the other hand, if we get to that point, Europe probably has dibs on those immigrants due to their closer physical proximity. I hadn’t paid it much thought, but at first glance there does seem to be relatively limited populations in the Western Hemisphere that are under pressure to migrate in large numbers. There’s the Central American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, etc.), Venezuela, and Haiti off the top of my head. Even the “traditional” idea of Mexicans coming to the US seems to no longer be the case in terms of large numbers.
Nigeria is currently on pace to reach a population of 400 million or more by the end of the century. And while they’re the biggest in their neighborhood, they’re not the only growing nation. That region may be able to re-supply western Europe and the US both. But regardless of whether those immigrants are English speakers or not, there will be racial and cultural conflicts.
It’s interesting that little discussion has taken place in this thread about how to increase domestic birth rates. I haven’t addressed it personally because I’m not convinced that we should want to. But it’s such a new issue that I’m open to any thoughts anybody might have.
There’s a number of factors as to why Americans in their 20s and 30s are less likely to be having children, including:
The high expense of child-rearing, and childcare
Pessimism about the economy and the political situation in the country
Pessimism about climate change, and a lack of willingness to bring children into that world
Lack of a good partner
A desire to focus on one’s career, and other things in one’s life
And, over the past two years, of course, immediate-term concerns about COVID-19
Tactics like making childcare more affordable for working parents might well help, but our Federal government appears to currently be unable to address this legislatively. And, addressing pessimism about the future of the country and the planet are much harder.
In all fairness, the ration of geniuses dreaming up solutions to various problems is overshadowed by the much larger number of morons and A-holes who cause the problems in the first place.
Demographic collapse is going to be a serious issue down the road. China is only one of the countries where this will be a huge issue. I get that people who have been told for decades about the population bomb and scared by the growing population, as well as those concerned with human-caused climate change would be excited by the news (though this isn’t really news) that instead of an ever-expanding population we are looking at a pretty large overall population reduction in the next 100 years, but it’s something we’ll definitely be dealing with going forward.
On the plus side, reducing the global population should further reduce CO2 emissions, in theory at least, as well as other resource utilization… sometime decades from now (see final paragraph). But in cases like China, you are going to see a serious rollback in their economy, as they will have a fairly large elderly population being supported by a much, much smaller young population. That is pretty much a recipe for economic woes (not that this is the only thing).
Other countries, including much of Europe, are going to also have major issues. Russia is already in a population decline, though a lot of this is people leaving. Countries with healthy immigration are going to do fairly well…one of the things that keep the US fairly balanced is we allow so many to (legally) immigrate each year. It’s something I think a lot of countries are going to need to seriously look at if they want to keep some balance.
The big thing here is that this is all years, decades really, down the road, though as noted some countries are already starting to feel the pinch. The population still hasn’t peaked, just due to how demographics work. China, for instance, won’t really be having issues for several decades. So, this isn’t any sort of quick fix for climate change or whatever another scarce resource is out there…it’s more like a slow-motion train wreck that you see coming from miles away, or like a glacier slowly moving towards your settlement. The fire burning your settlement down is probably more of an immediate threat than the glacier that will roll over it in 100 years.
I’d be very concerned about a drop in world population meaning that there’ll be fewer young working drones to support my shamefully high benefits during retirement. But I’ll be long dead before that happens.*
*unless the Bill Gates/Big Pharma/Vaccine Depopulation Conspiracy picks up steam and everyone starts dropping like flies.
I know everyone loves their kids and all. But children are expensive, time consuming, demanding, and unpredictable. This probably falls under “focus on career / other things”, but the last thing I wanted in my 20s and 30s was children. I much rather spent my time hanging out with friends, going out to dinner with my wife/girlfriend, enjoying various hobbies/activities, working on my career, and just basically enjoy being an adult with few real obligations.
The article from The New York Times that I linked to in the OP mentioned South Korea as having the lowest birthrate (at less than one child per woman) in the developed world.
(BTW, here is a gift link to the same NYT article, except this one should be accessible by anyone.)
So you’re saying that the 2rd derivative of population w.r.t. time is declining, which is equivalent to saying that the 3th derivative is now negative?
The amount of increase is the first derivative, which is now declining, so the second derivative is negative, I think (the third derivative - the amount of jerks, seems to be still increasing )
China just reported a birth rate of .75 for 2021, the second year in a row it has been less than 1. Real birth numbers decreased from 12 million to 10 million.
)