Gebeloff, R., & Goldstein, D. (2022, December 22). U.S. Population Ticks Up, but the Rate of Growth Stays Near Historic Lows. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/us/census-population.html
The population grew in 2022 mostly due to immigration, but the overall population growth still remains near historic lows, according to data from the Census. The population grew 0.4% from 2021 but is still one of the lowest growth rates in our nation’s recorded history. A million of the 1.26 million people accounting for the growth in population were all immigrants entering the United States. The rest of the growth in population was due to natural change, where there were simply more births than deaths, the largest amount of natural change since 2007. William Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institutions said, “immigration is going to be a key aspect for our future growth.”
This article is mainly talking about how the population growth rate did increase in 2022 from the previous year, however the nation is at all time lows for recorded population growth rates. I believe the recent lows in growth rates are due to outside factors such as the covid-19 pandemic. There was a short dip in growth rate, but I think that the population is starting to increase again and is therefore an issue that the United States should consider or focus some more of their attention to. I am surprised that the population growth rates are as low as they are, even considering the pandemic. I would have thought that with more people in our country, the growth rates would be increasing most years from the previous years, and I didn’t think that there would be such a large dip in the population growth rate from previous years.
Interesting phenomena. I might have thought COVID would have led to more babies just because people are home so much… but maybe fearing the world they’d bring the baby in the middle of a pandemic. So, recognizing the problems of a shrinking population and knowing we are in the “post industrial” phase of demographic transition, would you encourage more immigration to bring in more workers to fuel are economy? It’s such a divisive issue, but are those added people necessary to our workforce?
I hope this topic kept you interested this year. Thanks for all your good contributions, Andrew.
I think that an increase of immigrant workers wouldn’t be a bad thing because the immigrants would have opportunities and a better life. Additionally, they would take up jobs that others might not want to, and the greater workforce will strengthen our economy. Thank you for your comments!