Every ten years, the Census Bureau counts the country’s people. The total U.S. population is now 331,449,281. It is 7.4 percent more than ten years ago, but the second slowest increase ever. Experts say the slow rate is due to an older population, less immigration and the effects of the Great Recession. The 2008 economic crisis led many young adults to wait to get married and have families, which slowed the birthrate.
The only slower growth of the U.S. population growth was in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. The slow rate in the 2010s had a similar start because of the Great Recession and the long recovery that followed.
Demographers do not think population growth will pick up soon, and some believe growth may slow down even more. Americans are getting older — the median age in the U.S. is 38, up one year from 37 in 2010. Immigration had been decreasing, and the pandemic mostly ended it.
William Frey is a demographer with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. “Unlike the Great Depression, it’s part of a process where we’re likely to keep having slow growth,” Frey said. A slowing population growth may create problems for the country’s future.
John Lettieri is the president of the Economic Innovation Group. He said that the U.S. now has more Americans aged 80 or older than 2 or younger. “The big demographic advantage the U.S. once enjoyed over other rich nations has evaporated,” he wrote in a tweet. TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...
