Implications of the declining birthrate
June 7, 2021
The United States used to be the only big, rich nation to have above-replacement fertility. That stopped being true during the Great Recession, and our birthrates keep slipping. The latest data put expected lifetime fertility at about 1.6 births per woman, a record low — and this was the trend before the pandemic. Nor does this reflect a delay as women settle down later: Birthrates declined for women ages 15 to 44.
Yet President Biden’s new budget, which proposes massive deficits for the rest of the decade, is a proposition for a young country whose best growth years are still ahead. By 2031 the national debt is expected to reach 117 percent of gross domestic product, and interest payments are forecast to run more than $900 billion a year — about 14 percent of all projected tax revenue, up from the 7 percent projected for 2022.
