A recent YouGov poll found that 47% of Americans <a href="https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54403-what-americans-think-about-overpopulation-birth-rates-and-children">view overpopulation</a> in the United States as a “very or somewhat serious problem,” while only 41% say the same about low birth rates.
The consequences of such inverted priorities are already catastrophic. America’s total fertility rate has collapsed to roughly 1.6 children per woman — far below the 2.1 replacement level needed to sustain a population without immigration.
But don’t share those statistics with Sunny Hostin over at “The View.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The View’s Sunny Hostin: “I think it’s really reckless to be suggesting that people should have children in this country.” <a href="https://t.co/iNRzG6AfcG">pic.twitter.com/iNRzG6AfcG</a>
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) <a href="https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/2038665904431497635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @theblaze/MRC/ABC&#8217;s The View/X.com
“It’s really reckless to be suggesting that people should have children,” said Hostin. “&#8230;when you now know, in this country, there is this affordability crisis and for a two-person household — a married household — you need over $400,000 for childcare.”
Now, you may think planning an armored car heist à la Michael Mann’s 1995 classic “Heat,” is reckless, but according to Hostin, I need <a href="https://alltherightmovies.com/feature/25-interesting-facts-about-heat/">$1.6 million</a> to take care of my eight children. Anything less and they <a href="https://x.com/theblaze/status/2038665904431497635">would be</a> impoverished, uneducated, homeless, and starving.
A taken-aback Ana Navarro then blurted out, “over the lifetime of a child, or what? A year?”
“No, a year,” Hostin said.
Hostin’s fearmongering would be laughable if it weren’t so effective. In April, the CDC announced that America reached a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr043.pdf">record low</a> in births in 2025, down 1% since 2024 and 23% since 2007. With an estimated population of 342 million, the United States witnessed <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr043.pdf">3,606,400</a> births last year. In 1966, however, America saw a similar number, <a href="https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1967/demographics/P25-368.pdf">3,661,000</a> births, drawn from a population of less than 200 million.
Hostin was born in October 1968, six months after Stanford professor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/one-of-the-most-evil-men-in-history-just-died">Paul Ehrlich</a> published his landmark book, “The Population Bomb.” When every single one of Ehrlich’s predictions — from mass starvation in the 1970s to global mineral shortages in the 1980s — turned out wrong, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in 1990.
Only 10% of Americans held a favorable opinion of Ehrlich at the time of his death, according to <a href="https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54403-what-americans-think-about-overpopulation-birth-rates-and-children">YouGov</a> — not too shabby given that only 20% of respondents knew who he was. And yet a full 100% of us have been living in his world — or at least his narrative — ever since he sounded the false alarm that human beings are a form of pollution.
The MacArthur Foundation tipped its cap to Ehrlich’s checkerspot butterfly expertise, but anyone can study the “behavior of an invertebrate population”. His true genius lay in marketing to other spineless populations. 
“A pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation,” the award <a href="https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-1990/paul-r-ehrlich">citation</a> says. 
Paul Ehrlich may have been perennially wrong as a scientist, but he had a generational talent for scaring the wits out of dimwitted media personalities, craven politicians, cunning public health authorities, unimaginative screenwriters, and over-imaginative teachers. Exactly the type of marks a good con artist would need to capture if he were going to advance a narrative at war with reality. 
It worked.
On the same episode of “The View,” Sara Haines said, “The world has over 8 billion people. We no longer need to force people to procreate and pump out babies. We have arrived.&#8221;
Socially, the fallout is devastating. Smaller families mean fewer siblings, weaker extended kinship networks, and the erosion of the “social capital” that once bound communities together. Low fertility <a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/635c69dc-6a5a-467b-b7b0-3ab906fb4a94/the-consequences-of-declining-fertility-for-social-capital.pdf">reduces</a> community participation, trust, and mutual support — the very glue of civil society. 
Militarily, the danger is existential. Fewer young Americans mean a smaller pool of potential recruits at the exact moment great-power competition intensifies. The Pentagon already struggles with recruitment shortfalls; an aging, childless society cannot field the force required to deter adversaries like China. 
Economically, the math is brutal. A shrinking native-born workforce cannot support the entitlement programs built for a growing population. Social Security and Medicare face insolvency as the ratio of workers to retirees plummets. Every country that has experienced persistent sub-replacement fertility has seen its GDP growth slow, innovation shrivel, and burden younger generations with crushing tax loads to fund the vacations of the old.
The problem with effective propaganda campaigns is that they are hard to reverse. South Korea serves as a warning. In 1960, the average South Korean woman had six children. After decades of state-backed “family planning” and “voluntary” sterilization services lovingly provided by USAID, fertility fell below replacement and eventually below 1. The Clinton State Department <a href="https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/gli/gli_sep1998.pdf">lauded</a> South Korean population control as one of America’s standout achievements.
No 20th-century public intellectual better apprehended how misanthropic an elite could be. Gilded Age robber barons were at least honest about their rapacious need for more; the postwar meritocrats of the 1960s thought themselves too enlightened for greed but enjoyed all that money just the same. Then, along came a Stanford butterfly researcher, insisting that your neighbors’ kids are hurting the environment, and if only you kept more resources for yourself, nature would heal.
A growing cohort of Americans, particularly young Americans, is waking up to the fact that Paul Ehrlich was wrong all along. And Sunny Hostin’s fearmongering, not the science, has always been the point. Gallup found that 43% of Americans aged 18-29 now say the ideal family will have more than 3 children — a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/694640/americans-ideal-family-size-remains-above-two-children.aspx">13% jump</a> from the same cohort in 2011.
I remember the halcyon days of 2011 well. I welcomed my second daughter that year. Back then, the majority of my peers told pollsters that “Two is too many!” As Millennials settle into middle age, that number has plummeted by more than 20%. 
We are older and wise enough to know to turn the channel when “The View” comes on. Besides, chances are Michael Mann’s “Heat” is playing on some random cable channel at the very same time.
* * *
Terry Schilling is president of the American Principles Project.

The View’s “Behind The Table” Podcast

First Came Overpopulation Panic, Then Came The Birth Collapse

Abortion

Birth Rates

Children

DW Opinion

Family Values

Population

Sunny Hostin

The View

YouGov

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1933-the-new-ayatollah-of-iran-is-gay?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
We&#8217;re not supposed to say anything but good about people who&#8217;ve just died. As the saying goes, speak no ill of the dead.
This man, however, left a wake of death, destruction, and catastrophe wherever he went. And most people don&#8217;t even know his name: Paul Ehrlich.
I write about Paul Ehrlich at some length in my book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Speechless-Controlling-Words-Minds/dp/1684510821/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y2L5GPaNcg2v5jnT9SD5ksR5a40NcpExppW6aHVVBg2FzlIHja61O5i6m-pH9wpIMWHGSkrLhkrd8rHzMDQN1iA3BuBH-UVJi0EyStx6M6l_7HKhwR0GKrN8w6e8rOUE18q_fPEggyexww619c7-BErp7yFNm38xTMhU_w6ZaMi3k03CxrXWwSCCSRcazdNo3eNXnHdUbDw3bae74VylSnpc0SFRJr6jlNhYAX6vRAs.q0vDzxnV2mm76BoF3WDe4Demnp2J-5X6usahlx1IIbo&amp;qid=1773785807&amp;sr=1-2">Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds</a>.” 
And now, here we have his obituary in <a href="https://x.com/SonnyBunch/status/2033466323842331077">The New York Times</a>:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“Premature,” lol. The abject refusal to just admit this guy was completely wrong is one of the funnier Boomer-coded traits. <a href="https://t.co/oM5GYgDEtR">pic.twitter.com/oM5GYgDEtR</a>
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) <a href="https://twitter.com/SonnyBunch/status/2033466323842331077?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @SonnyBunch/X.com
The headline and sub-headline reads: 
<blockquote>Paul Ehrlich, who alarmed the world with The Population Bomb, dies at 93. 
His bestselling 1968 book, which forecast global famines, made him a leader of the environmental movement, but he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature.</blockquote>
Here we go. Big lie. 
His predictions “proved premature.” What were his predictions? His prediction was that if the population grew any more, we would have widespread famine, because the Earth could not sustain all those people.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1933-the-new-ayatollah-of-iran-is-gay?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-1054531" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
His prescriptions, therefore, were to stop having kids and sterilize people. We should use the government to reduce the population. These policies of his led to the one-child policy in China and forced sterilizations in India. This guy is — not single-handedly, but pretty close — responsible for the population crisis (or depopulation) that we face today.
And they say his predictions &#8220;proved premature.&#8221; 
Since he made his prediction that we would inevitably face mass starvation because the population was growing too much, since that time, the world population has doubled and global malnutrition has been cut dramatically. Today there are twice as many people as when he made his prediction, and we are more well-fed than ever.
It&#8217;s not that his predictions proved premature. They were completely wrong. Totally wrong. 
The New York Times is covering for Ehrlich in its obituary of him. Ehrlich did more evil than almost anybody in the 20th century. And the consequences of his stupid predictions and prescriptions — because he prescribed policy to governments — were mass evil.
The consequences of his ideas led to mass death, sterilization, the violation of basic rights, and he never let up on it.
Here is Paul Ehrlich, in the 1970s, discussing the problem as he saw it:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
In a 1970 interview, Paul Ehrlich stated: &#8220;The FCC should see to it that large families are always treated in negative light on television.&#8221;
He added that if this approach failed, then the government should &#8220;legislate the size of the family&#8221; and &#8220;throw you in jail if you have… <a href="https://t.co/Ij7C5eso4W">pic.twitter.com/Ij7C5eso4W</a>
— Gentry Gevers (@gentrywgevers) <a href="https://twitter.com/gentrywgevers/status/2033583323864568245?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @gentrywgevers/X.com
In the interview, Ehrlich says,
<blockquote>The first thing the government should do is try and take the pressure off to reproduce &#8230; Young couples — if they don&#8217;t have children — people say, &#8216;gee, they must be sterile.&#8217; They never say, &#8216;gee, maybe they like good wine and going to the theater and so on, they prefer that to scraping diapers.&#8217; So there&#8217;s pressure to have children. So the first thing that should happen is that the president ought to say, &#8216;From here on out, no intelligent, patriotic American family ought to have more than two children, preferably one, if you&#8217;re starting a family now.&#8217; He ought to make the FCC see to it that large families are always treated in a negative light wherever they appear &#8230;  you can move to giving women bonuses for not having babies, that almost certainly would do the job. 
If that didn&#8217;t have the effect, then you could move to changing the tax structure so that people who had the money and had the children paid more for them — in other words, increase taxes on people with children rather than decrease them, since when they have the children they require more services. 
If that doesn&#8217;t work, then you&#8217;ll have the government legislating the size of the family. And people say, &#8216;Oh that&#8217;s impossible, government can never intrude and tell you how many children to have.&#8217; Well, I got news — you know it intruded a long time ago and told you how many wives you can have and there&#8217;s not the slightest question that if we don&#8217;t get the population under control with voluntary means that in the not-too-distant-future, the government will simply tell you how many children you can have and throw you in jail if you have too many.</blockquote>
So God tells us in the book of Genesis to &#8220;Be fruitful and multiply.&#8221; 
This Antichrist figure comes out in the 1970s and says, &#8220;Do not have children. It&#8217;s unpatriotic to have children.&#8221;
It&#8217;s funny because patriotism comes from the word &#8220;Pater,&#8221; meaning father — it&#8217;s an extension of filial piety, it&#8217;s an extension of the family — and he&#8217;s saying the pro-family thing to do is to destroy your family.
He says, first we&#8217;re going to incentivize people — we&#8217;re going to discourage them culturally. Say having kids is bad, you should just drink good wine instead. 
All these arguments you hear today — Don’t you want to travel? Don’t you want to have experiences? Don’t have kids.
And if that doesn&#8217;t work, we&#8217;re going to pay people not to have kids. Give women bonuses. Subsidize it. Say instead of having kids, go work at the widget factory, do spreadsheets, we’ll give you money.
That doesn&#8217;t work? Okay, now we punish you. Forget the carrot, now it&#8217;s the stick. If you have kids, we&#8217;re going to tax you. We&#8217;re going to make you pay for the privilege.
And if that doesn&#8217;t work, we&#8217;re just going to stop you from having kids.
What does that mean in practice? Because China implemented this. It means forced abortion. The government comes in and kills your child. You want to keep your child? No. Government kills your child.
It leads to policies like in India, where people were told you can only get access to food and resources if you sterilize yourself.
That happened because of this guy. Because of his book. Because of his ideas.
He said in &#8220;The Population Bomb&#8221;: 

<blockquote>The battle to feed all of humanity is over… hundreds of millions of people will starve to death… nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.</blockquote>
Totally wrong. Could not have been more wrong.
He said we must have population control — hopefully through voluntary means, but by compulsion if necessary. That was his thesis.
He described population growth as a &#8220;cancer.&#8221; Population growth just means more people. So if more people are a cancer, then people are the disease.
Human beings are a disease.
The left has held on to that view for a very, very long time. And this is where the truly wicked origins of leftism — which endeavors to invert reality — began, during the French Revolution as an assault on the Church. This is where the real satanic, Luciferian character of liberalism really begins to show itself. One of the fruits of liberalism is the view that human beings are a disease that must be cured, that must be eradicated from the earth. 
And now this guy is eradicated from the earth. And it&#8217;s sad, because every man&#8217;s death diminishes me because I&#8217;m a human. 
As John Donne wrote in his famous poem, &#8220;No Man is an Island&#8221;:
<blockquote>No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man&#8217;s death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.</blockquote>
We should pray for him, because he led a very, very evil life. And in many ways, maybe he didn’t fully understand what he was doing. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
But we can’t just think about him — we have to think about the institutions.
This guy got everything wrong. Not a little wrong — perfectly wrong. And he never paid a price for it. He kept his positions, his prestige, his influence. His policies were implemented. They led to enormous harm. And the institutions backed him up.
And now one of the chief cultural institutions, The New York Times, is still covering for him — still saying his ideas were just “premature.”
Not premature. Wrong.
And as a final note, that idea — “forgive them, for they know not what they do” — this connects to something else.
The world feels tense right now. The stakes feel higher. There’s conflict in Iran, division at home, a lot of strain in the culture. For Christians, this is Lent. And if you’ve paid attention over the years, this season often feels like that — more tension, more conflict, more difficulty. In the story, this is the period in the desert, the temptation, the struggle.
And then comes Easter.
I’m not saying everything magically gets better overnight. But if you believe in spiritual realities, that there is a meaning to history, a rhythm to the liturgical calendar, then it’s not surprising that things feel strained right now.
Sometimes things look like they’re falling apart — like when Christ was crucified on Calvary — right before they come back together.
That’s the pattern.

Paul Ehrlich at a press conference this afternoon at Macquarie University.Internationally famous biologist, Paul Ehrlich, is visiting Australia and will be taking the position of Visiting Professor in Environmental Studies at Macquarie University.

One Of The Most Evil Men In History Just Died

babies

Birth Control

China

Death

Obituaries

Opinion

The New York Times

Joe Biden has left the building, but Bidenflation has not completely abated. A lot of us are still feeling the inflationary pain at the grocery store. Eggs, for example, went up a whopping 37%. To be fair, this was mostly due to negative supply shocks driving up the actual cost of producing eggs.
That sticker shock was recently compounded by a new “cage-free” law that <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/12/18/michigan-cage-free-eggs-new-law-impact-prices/76966711007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">officially went into effect</a> here in Michigan on January 1, 2025. Farms with more than 3,000 egg layers can no longer confine their chickens in cages, but must give them room to “<a href="https://www.michigan.gov/mdard/food-dairy/foodlaw/cage-free-egg-law" target="_blank" rel="noopener">roam unrestricted in indoor environments</a>.” 
The large egg producers that supply grocery stores have had to take a giant step backwards and rebuild their egg operations at a significantly higher cost structure. On top of that, according to the USDA, bird flu recently killed off over <a href="https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2025/01/14/u-s-egg-industry-sees-record-chicken-deaths-from-bird-flu-outbreak/#:~:text=More%20than%2020%20million%20egg,supply%20since%20the%20outbreak%20began." target="_blank" rel="noopener">20 million hens</a>. The combination of bird flu and cage-free mandates have pushed egg prices to all-time highs.
I’m not here to complain about egg prices, though. Bird flu outbreaks are terrible bad luck, but chicken flocks will recover. Farmers will adapt to the cage-free mandates and the price of eggs will subside.
The egg crisis, however, did reveal a grotesque contradiction in our public policy: In Michigan, chickens now have more legal protections than some humans. I’m talking about unborn babies, who can be killed through all nine months of pregnancy in this state, and in a quite inhumane manner, might I add. This is thanks to some of the most radically pro-abortion policies in the country, enacted in recent years under Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s leadership. Michigan voters ensconced a right to “reproductive freedom” into our state constitution in the 2022 election, which led to the repeal of nearly all abortion restrictions by the state legislature during 2023. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, Michigan now ranks as <a href="https://states.guttmacher.org/policies/michigan/abortion-policies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“very protective” of so-called abortion rights.</a>
Ironically, just after signing the bills that repealed abortion restrictions, Governor Whitmer established the <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/news/press-releases/2023/06/01/whitmer-establishes-the-growing-michigan-together-council-to-focus-on-population-growth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Growing Michigan Together Council”</a> to “develop a statewide strategy aimed at making Michigan a place everyone wants to call home by attracting and retaining talent, improving education throughout the state, upgrading and modernizing our transportation and water infrastructure to meet 21st century needs, and continuing Michigan’s economic momentum.” Michigan, you see, ranks 49th in population growth, and even leftists realize that’s not good for the economy. So the state formed a commission to come up with comprehensive solutions to get Michigan growing again.
I’ve got one: Let’s stop killing babies.
Whitmer and her ilk are right that our near-zero rate of population growth is a major problem with massive social, economic, and political consequences. Conservatives have been tracking <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/27/what-will-be-the-consequences-of-our-plummeting-birth-rate/">declining trends in fertility</a> and <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/13/dear-david-frum-u-s-population-growth-not-problem-solution/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">population growth</a> for years, sounding the alarm about the potential for demographic collapse. Awareness of population decline and its frightening ramifications is finally going mainstream, perhaps thanks to Elon Musk proclaiming that population decline is a much bigger existential problem than climate change. He’s right, of course, and serious people are catching on. Outlets such as the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/u-s-deaths-expected-to-outpace-births-within-the-decade-9c949de8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wall Street Journal</a>, <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/06/01/global-fertility-has-collapsed-with-profound-economic-consequences?utm_content=section_content&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAiAnKi8BhB0EiwA58DA4ct5fzkrQ9sKipRa-wCbLWsfKj-iv6AMak4OoGEIlDl9qyJmXdQC8RoC8DkQAvD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Economist</a>, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/politics/china-population-us-what-matters/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">even CNN</a> are getting wise to the bitter implications of declining birth rates and population collapse.
When people have fewer babies, <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/09/picture-this-demographic-decline-andrew-stanley#:~:text=Lower%20birth%20rates%20result%20in,putting%20pressure%20on%20public%20finances." target="_blank" rel="noopener">everyone is worse off</a>. Economically, we get a smaller workforce that produces less output, generates less innovation, and results in lower incomes and fewer opportunities. Politically, we get a shrinking tax base that makes it harder for the government to fund and provide public goods like infrastructure, police, and defense. The population pyramid becomes inverted—more old people than young people. Each working-age person is now financially responsible for a larger number of retirees’ government-funded pensions and healthcare, putting even bigger strains on the welfare state. At a personal level, <a href="https://cosm.aei.org/who-is-happiest-married-mothers-and-fathers-per-the-latest-general-social-survey/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">childless (and typically unmarried) people find themselves increasingly alone and unhappy.</a> The disease has advanced so far that we now have a generation of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/relationships/americans-are-having-fewer-babiesso-fewer-people-get-to-be-grandparents-a99b6001?mod=Searchresults_pos17&amp;page=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">older folks lamenting that they’ll never see grandchildren</a>.
Several countries are entering a “demographic winter,” with more deaths than births and rapidly falling headcounts. Japan, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/japan-news-population-crisis-3-numbers-1954889" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whose population has been in freefall since 2009</a>, offers a sad and tragic cautionary tale on population decline. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/japans-rent-a-family-industry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Old people rent stand-in grandkids</a>. In lieu of big supportive families, <a href="https://japantoday.com/category/tech/the-rise-of-companion-robots-in-japan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lonely elders rely on emotional support robots.</a> Young people, men, in particular, are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex" target="_blank" rel="noopener">losing interest in sex</a>. The trend ends in civilizational annihilation.
So how do we prevent Michigan, and the United States, from going down the demographic drain? Birth rates in America have been below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman since around 2008. We’ve been able to make up for declining births with massive immigration, which has kept population growth positive. You may have noticed, though, that large-scale immigration—most of it of the illegal variety — is falling out of favor. With a new administration actually enforcing immigration laws, it’s unlikely that foreigners will continue to make up for our birth dearth.
Policy wonks have all sorts of ideas for incentivizing people to have more kids. Many GOP legislators favor boosting child tax credits. Leftists who acknowledge the problem usually want more government-funded daycare or more generous parental leave. The nonpartisan Growing Michigan Together Council thinks the answer is a better statewide education system and more accessible public transit.
Any of these things might have some benefit at the margin, but interestingly (and sadly) I noticed in the Growing Michigan report exactly zero references to the direct solution: more babies. And there’s a really straightforward policy solution to a huge aspect of that problem, which is to just stop killing them. According to state data, from 1982 to 2023, <a href="https://www.mdch.state.mi.us/osr/abortion/Tab_A.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michigan lost 1.3 million children to abortion</a>. This is surely an undercount since it does not track babies terminated at home via the abortion pill. For the country as a whole, <a href="https://www.nrlc.org/uploads/factsheets/FS01AbortionintheUS.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">we’ve lost 63.5 million people to the abortion holocaust</a> since legalization in 1973. 
Numerically speaking, abortion is the primary problem when it comes to demographic decline, and it is entirely symptomatic of the root cause of all our problems: We are sacrificing the next generation on the altar of personal freedom, convenience, and hedonism. Too many people view marriage as a spirit-crushing trap and babies — even live ones kicking the womb — as a call option: If you’re not “in the money” with financial success or self-confidence, you can simply let it expire, and toss out that tiny helpless human like last week’s leftovers.
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No policy tweaks or monetary incentives will change people’s deeply held values about babies, families, marriage, and the meaning of life. Well-meaning members of the Growing Michigan Together Council are completely deaf, dumb, and mute regarding the actual problem here: we are killing babies, and we need to stop. The real problem is spiritual. It’s good vs. evil. It’s in our hearts. Now that killing babies is grotesquely enshrined as a “right” in many states, it’s going to take a huge shift in cultural values to turn the tide. Recommendations for “improving education” here or “increasing incentives” there just aren’t going to cut it — they are putting band-aids on a tumor.
America needs people. It’s good, right, and proper (and fun) for young men and women to get together, form families, and have kids. We need to return to a basic set of shared cultural values that recognizes and promotes the old normal: get married, have kids, and enjoy the good old family life. Ending abortion would be a huge step towards that shift in values, but it will most likely come as a result, not a cause. While we should keep fighting hard for the unborn and keep seeking legislative wins to protect tiny vulnerable humans, we should also realize that winning hearts and minds will take decades of commitment, personal leadership, and sacrifice. Animal rights activists fought long and hard to enact cage-free laws for the “humane” treatment of chickens — surely we who cherish human life can work even harder to build a culture that protects and values the lives of children, whatever their stage of development.
In the meantime, let us lead by example whenever possible. Get married, stay married, and have kids. Go to church, and pray: for your family, your kids, your friends’ kids, etc. Help the people around you as much as you can, especially with unplanned pregnancies and relationship strife. In the end, a large family and a long marriage are worth far more than any level of career or financial success. With God’s help, we can rebuild a culture of life and family that puts mothers, fathers, and babies at the center of everything. It’s the right thing to do, and it will even be good for the economy.
* * *
Tyler Watts is a professor of economics at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

State Capitol Building of Michigan in Lansing

In This State, Chickens Have More Rights Than Babies

Bird Flu

Gretchen Whitmer

Inflation

Leftists

Michigan

Pro-Life Movement

As the new Trump administration proposes sweeping cuts to the federal budget, progressives are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2024-12-26/please-president-elect-trump-dont-cut-funding-to-the-un-population-fund" target="_blank" rel="noopener">begging</a> the president to continue <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/opinion/columnists/family-planning-women.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">subsidizing</a> the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
But considering the UNFPA’s dark history of sponsoring draconian population control policies, slashing U.S. funding should be a top priority of the Trump administration, especially as fertility rates decline to <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00550-6/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sub-replacement levels</a> and the “population bomb” becomes an obsolete doomsday prophecy.
Trump cut UNFPA funding in 2017, following a long tradition of Republicans since Ronald Reagan who have regarded the UNFPA as unqualified to receive U.S. government support under the 1985 <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46962/2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kemp-Kasten Amendment</a>. This ruling prohibits U.S. funding for “any organization or program which, as determined by the president of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
The Democrats have restored UNFPA funding each time they’ve returned to the White House since Kemp-Kasten. When the Biden administration <a href="https://www.state.gov/prioritizing-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-reproductive-rights-in-u-s-foreign-policy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> it would reinstate U.S. support in 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the UNFPA is “essential to the health and well-being of women around the world.”
While the UNFPA prides itself as a <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/about-us#:~:text=The%20goal%20of%20UNFPA%20is,care%20and%20comprehensive%20sexuality%20education." target="_blank" rel="noopener">champion</a> of women’s health and “reproductive rights and choices,” its history is tainted by sponsorship of the most egregious violations of human dignity.
Founded in 1969, the UNFPA has spearheaded the global <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674034600" target="_blank" rel="noopener">campaign</a> to reduce fertility, particularly in developing countries. The U.S. has served as one of its largest annual <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/donor/united-states-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">donor</a> countries, except under recent Republican administrations.
Population control programs backed by the UNFPA, euphemistically described as “family planning,” have often been coercive and tyrannical. It supported China’s brutal <a href="https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/neo-malthusianism-coercive-population-control-china-india-overpopulation-concerns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one-child policy</a>, which terrorized the Chinese population with forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations for over three decades.
In 2004, then-UNFPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/abandoned-un-population-policies-to-get-cash-boost/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, “We endorse the one-child policy in China,” arguing that UNFPA family planning programs helped reduce China’s abortion rate.
Because of the one-child policy and the Chinese cultural preference for sons, China faces a massive <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/gender-diversity/article/3282574/chinas-35-million-leftover-men-spark-foreign-brides-idea-tackle-gender-imbalance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sex ratio imbalance</a>, with nearly 35 million more men than women.
In 1983, China’s National Family Planning Commission Chairman Qian Xinzhong was presented with the first <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1973563" target="_blank" rel="noopener">United Nations Population Award</a>, along with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who enacted similarly coercive <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/5/18629801/emergency-in-india-1975-indira-gandhi-sterilization-ford-foundation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">population policies</a> in India — at the behest of the Rockefeller and Ford foundations.  
The old-guard “Rockefeller Republicans” of the “eastern establishment,” such as Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger, were enthusiastic <a href="https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0054/4525564.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">proponents</a> of population control, including through the UNFPA.
In 1974, Kissinger penned a classified memo titled <a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pcaab500.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Security Study Memorandum 200</a>, which argued that suppressing developing countries’ populations was necessary for U.S. national security and economic interests.
He recommended that these population activities should be carried out in partnership with the UNFPA, the WHO, UNICEF and the World Bank, and his memo even considered withholding food aid to developing countries that refused to implement family planning programs.
To downplay accusations of imperialist motivations for U.S. population policies directed at developing countries, Kissinger suggested “repeatedly asserting” that such policies are concerned with “the right of the individual couple to determine freely and responsibly their number and spacing of children.”
Machiavellian language wrapped up in colorful appeals to human rights can often disguise nefarious and genocidal intentions.
The Biden administration <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/donor/united-states-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> the UNFPA with nearly $112 million of U.S. taxpayer money. In 2025, The Trump administration must not overlook this important budget cut, especially with pro-natal voices such as Elon Musk involved in the administration.
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It is not the threat of overpopulation, but rather depopulation, that could undermine economic prosperity and imperil the future of civilization this century. As the working-age population shrinks, countries may experience a dearth of resources to provide health care, pensions and other services to a significantly larger retirement-age population.
The U.S. government should permanently cease funding the UNFPA due to its controversial activities promoting neo-Malthusianism and coercive anti-natal policies that jeopardize human dignity, freedom and the progress of civilization.
* * *
Aidan Grogan is a history PhD student at Liberty University, a contributor with Young Voices and the donor communications manager at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). His work has been published in The American Spectator, The Washington Examiner and AIER’s The Daily Economy. Follow him on X @AidanGrogan.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.
This article has been edited for clarity. A previous version used the phrase president-elect which is no longer valid.

United Nations Security Council Meets To Discuss Situation In Gaza

Why President Trump Must Defund This U.N. Agency Once Again

Antony Blinken

Biden Administration

Donald Trump

Henry Kissinger

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United Nations

Over the past few years, the biggest knock you&#8217;ve heard against the field of public health is that they completely mismanaged COVID, mainly by exaggerating its impact. They told us it was a potentially civilization-ending epidemic — one that justified lockdowns, mandatory shots, et cetera. In the end they were wrong, of course, and for that reason no one will ever trust one of these supposed experts again.
But the really extraordinary thing about the field of public health isn&#8217;t the epidemics they fixate on. It&#8217;s the ones they ignore. In particular, there is one ongoing public health crisis that these experts really don&#8217;t want to talk about — even though, if it continues for much longer, it will quite literally bring about the end of humanity.
I&#8217;m talking about collapsing fertility rates all over the world, which is a problem you really have to put in context if you want to understand how dire things are.
Right now, Russia, China, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Ireland, Switzerland, Greece, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Qatar, the UAE, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, the UK, Germany, and the United States — and many others — have birth rates that are well below replacement level.
The U.S. fertility rate is at its <a href="https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1783920672617443824" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lowest</a> point in nearly a century. What that means is that people aren&#8217;t having enough children to sustain the population. But not every country is affected by this crisis. There are countries where fertility is much higher than replacement level. They include such esteemed locations as Niger (one of the poorest countries on the planet), Chad, Somalia, Angola, Tanzania, Afghanistan, Zambia, Cameroon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and of course Haiti.
It doesn&#8217;t take a genius to see where this is heading. Third-world hellholes are reproducing, while first-world countries — the ones that sustain the global economy that keeps billions of people alive — are not reproducing. As this goes on, and third-world inhabitants continue to pour into the first-world, the distinction between these two parts of the world continues to blur until they&#8217;re completely irrelevant. Eventually everywhere will be third-world.
This is not a new problem. But to the extent political leaders have tried to solve it, by and large, they&#8217;ve failed.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1357-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
A decade ago, for example, China <a href="https://twitter.com/ChinaPowerCSIS/status/1781729541385249271" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eased</a> its barbaric one-child policy. They expected millions more births as a result. But the following year, the country saw only an additional half-million births. And the country&#8217;s birth rate has remained below replacement level ever since.
Beginning in the 90s, Japan undertook its own <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10615026/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">efforts</a> to raise the birth rate, including offering more parental leave, more child care services, et cetera. The result? Nothing has improved. It&#8217;s only gotten much worse. Last year, Japan&#8217;s birth rate was the lowest on record.
It&#8217;s the same story in Hungary. Starting with Orban&#8217;s government in 2010, Hungary doubled its spending on families. And yet, last year, Hungary, like Japan, recorded its lowest number of births in history.
So whatever the problem is here, it&#8217;s clear that it cannot be resolved solely through more spending or government intervention. Simply providing some ad hoc economic incentives isn&#8217;t cutting it — although those policies are good, they aren’t sufficient. So what is the solution? You can say that the broader economy needs to improve, which is obviously a big part of it. But the declines I&#8217;m talking about have been in progress for decades. Singapore&#8217;s birth rate has been dropping since the 1980s, and their GDP per capita grew dramatically in the new millennium. It&#8217;s a similar situation in Taiwan. And birth rates in the U.S. were declining pre-pandemic, for more than a decade — even throughout <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-household-incomes-soared-in-2015-recording-biggest-gain-in-decades/2016/09/13/a832da44-79e0-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">periods</a> in which median household incomes were setting new records.
What this means is that figuring out the root cause of this problem is more complicated than looking at economic indicators alone. It means analyzing culture, and in particular, taking a close look at prevailing attitudes towards children and families, and trying to change them. That was the main goal of the Natal Conference, which took place at the end of last year in Austin, Texas. Speakers from all over the country gathered to assess what&#8217;s gone wrong and how to fix it.
One of them was Kevin Dolan, an organizer of the event. And he made it clear that, whether you personally like the idea of having kids or not, the collapse of fertility rates will have devastating effects on you and everyone you know. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Economic Problem" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/151AO19JmPs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Whether you agree with him or not, one of the first things you notice about Kevin Dolan is that he&#8217;s not a demagogue. He didn&#8217;t hold this conference to berate anyone for not wanting to have kids. He&#8217;s not some kind of cult leader who demands that everyone sign a pledge to create a certain number of children. He&#8217;s a normal guy. And he&#8217;s trusting, too, which is why he allowed a Politico reporter to attend the event to write about it.
How did that turn out? Predictably, Politico published a hit piece that&#8217;s so bizarre, and so totally disconnected from the event, that it verges on self-parody.
Here&#8217;s how Politico wrote about the conference <a href="https://twitter.com/politico/status/1784569937391956477" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Twitter</a>: &#8220;The far right is so obsessed with making babies, they just held a whole conference about it.&#8221;
Yes, you heard that right. Politico has uncovered the sinister Right-wing plot to have babies and ensure the survival of the human species. They caught us. We are anti-extinction. Much to our shame.
Then if you click through to the article, you&#8217;ll find this <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/28/natalism-conference-austin-00150338" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sinister-sounding</a> headline: &#8220;The Far Right’s Campaign to Explode the Population.&#8221;
It&#8217;s not hard to see what Politico is getting at. Basically, they&#8217;re saying that anyone who wants Western societies to produce children — which is to say, anyone who wants Western societies to continue existing — must be &#8220;far Right.&#8221; It&#8217;s reminiscent of how &#8220;freedom&#8221; has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/what-s-your-reaction-to-the-ottawa-standoff-and-the-border-blockades-1.6349636/why-the-word-freedom-is-such-a-useful-rallying-cry-for-protesters-1.6349865" target="_blank" rel="noopener">become</a> a dirty word in Canada. The people who want to destroy Western civilization aren&#8217;t doing a great job of hiding it anymore.
But if you go online to the Natal Conference&#8217;s website, you can find a bunch of speakers explaining very clearly what they think is happening in this country. They talk about everything from divorce laws to common fears people have about parenting, and the impact these considerations are having on fertility rates. None of this is a &#8220;Right-wing conspiracy.&#8221; That&#8217;s the familiar terminology they trot out whenever the Left knows that something is really happening and they want it to keep happening.
And indeed, there&#8217;s a very active anti-natalism movement right now. Spend any time on the darker corners of the internet, and you&#8217;ll find quite a few people who fully embrace depopulation as a positive good. It&#8217;s grim stuff.
In fact, mainstream media outlets routinely run stories about young people who don&#8217;t want to have kids because it will hurt the planet somehow. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Climate Change Preventing Children" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nb0QjLjRcEg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
That&#8217;s the more socially acceptable form of the depopulation agenda, and it&#8217;s being promoted by corporate media. But the anti-natalism movement gets more organized, and more explicit, the deeper you look.
One of the leaders of this depopulation agenda is Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Here&#8217;s footage of one of his recent conferences. As you watch this, compare Knight&#8217;s presentation with the one you heard earlier at the Natal conference, just in terms of the general sanity of the speaker. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 Voluntary Human Extinction" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ivkmVF2R9wk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
That&#8217;s the first land acknowledgement you&#8217;ll hear that doesn&#8217;t just acknowledge some of the tribes or whatever, but also acknowledges some of the wildlife. This is as cultish and as creepy as it gets, but you won&#8217;t see Politico running any articles on this guy being &#8220;far Left.&#8221; They&#8217;re not smearing Les Knight. Instead, quite the opposite.
The New York Times recently published <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/climate/voluntary-human-extinction.html">a glowing profile</a> of Knight: &#8220;For the sake of the planet, Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, has spent decades pushing one message: &#8216;May we live long and die out.'&#8221;
In that clip you just saw, you heard Knight mention that no one ever talks about the fact that world population is increasing, even as birth rates plummet. But there are a couple of obvious explanations for this. One is that — as I mentioned earlier — not all countries are experiencing plummeting birth rates. The most dysfunctional countries on the planet are actually reproducing at extremely high rates. Additionally, just from a statistical perspective, it takes time for lagging birth rates to show up in world population figures. There might be a lot of young couples now having kids in some places. That doesn&#8217;t mean those couples will be around in 20 years, still having children. Birth rates decline first, and then population declines. When you get to the point where the population itself is starting to decline, that’s when the catastrophe has really hit. The goal is to prevent that from happening.
Reversing this decline should not be a &#8220;Right-wing&#8221; project. Yet there are very few prominent people outside of conservative circles who are willing to talk about this at all. Elon Musk is the only notable exception. In fact, it should tell us something that Musk — one of the wealthiest and most powerful men on the planet — considers depopulation to be the greatest existential threat we face as a species.
This weekend I engaged in a back-and-forth with Musk on Twitter about the causes of this existential threat. The conversation started when someone posted this chart on social media. It shows that the number of men under 30 who report having zero sexual partners since turning 18 has increased from 8% in 2008 to 27% in 2018.
https://twitter.com/SMTuffy/status/1783781813950845313
That&#8217;s obviously a striking chart, and it demands an explanation. I responded by <a href="https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1783918984208765414">saying:</a> 
<blockquote>A lot of theories to explain this but it’s very clearly like 98 percent because of porn.</blockquote>
I made that observation because the iPhone and Pornhub were both born in 2007. Male virginity rates skyrocketed pretty much from that very moment, as birth rates plunged the opposite direction.
In reply to my tweet, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1784106328971227305" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote this</a>: 
<blockquote>It’s not porn, which has been readily available from the days of VHS tapes, but rather the general temptation of the online world, if you’re going to blame it on anything electronic. Sex is not what matters. Lots of people are having sex that have no kids. Population implosion is what will end civilization.</blockquote>
What Musk is saying about pornography is obviously true. Pornography clearly pre-dates the year 2007. But it was nothing like the pornography that&#8217;s been available in the past decade or so.
Here&#8217;s one small data point: Playboy at its peak sold around 7 million copies a month. Pornhub — just one site — gets something like 15 times as many visitors per day. Way more people are consuming porn today, way more often, starting at way younger ages. And on top of that, the porn itself is way more graphic and debased. This isn&#8217;t the whole reason that birth rates are declining. But it is a major plank in the depopulation platform.
That&#8217;s a strong argument for continuing to ban young people from accessing online pornography, which several states have already done. It&#8217;s also a good reason for parents to limit or even eliminate their kids access to electronics. And that should just be the beginning. If all of this sounds drastic, it&#8217;s probably because you haven&#8217;t been fully informed about the scale of the problem that Western civilization is now facing. And that&#8217;s by design.
A few months ago I did a whole <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-origins-of-the-anti-human-depopulation-agenda" target="_blank" rel="noopener">monologue</a> on the Jaffe Memo, and the origins of Planned Parenthood&#8217;s very comprehensive campaign to depopulate the planet. Very powerful &#8220;nonprofits&#8221; and political organizations in this country don&#8217;t want you to reproduce. That&#8217;s not conspiratorial; it&#8217;s just true. They&#8217;ve put it in writing.
The good news is that this is one of the few problems in our society that pretty much everyone can help solve. It&#8217;s maybe the single most solvable crisis in history. They have to expend all this effort and push all this propaganda to discourage reproduction because it&#8217;s one of the most natural things a person can do. But the propaganda is failing now. Because of the Natal Conference and efforts like it, as well as Elon Musk and other prominent figures, there&#8217;s more attention to declining birth rates than there has been at any point in recent history. That&#8217;s why Politico and Left-wing activists are melting down. There&#8217;s nothing they want to see less than more children being born. That tells you everything you need to know about their ideology — and it also tells you how to defeat it.

Family waving American flags

The Dastardly Right Wing Plot To Have Babies And Save Humanity From Extinction

Dating

Elon Musk

Matt Walsh

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Aerial. People crowd on pedestrian crosswalk. Top view background. Toned image.

The Origins Of The Anti-Human Depopulation Agenda

Planned Parenthood

The Census Bureau predicts that the U.S. population will decline for the first time ever by the year 2100 after peaking in 2080. 
Census Bureau <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/population-projections.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimates</a> released Thursday showed that the U.S. population — which now stands at roughly 333 million — is expected to reach 370 million by 2080, but then drop off to 366 million by 2100. While fewer Americans choose to have large families and fertility rates decrease, U.S. population growth mainly relies on immigration. In each projection other than the “zero-immigration” scenario, immigration is the most significant factor in population numbers in America. 
“The U.S. has experienced notable shifts in the components of population change over the last five years,” Census Bureau Demographer Sandra Johnson said. “Some of these, like the increases in mortality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, are expected to be short-term while others, including the declines in fertility that have persisted for decades, are likely to continue into the future. Incorporating additional years of data on births, deaths and international migration into our projections process resulted in a slower pace of population growth through 2060 than was previously projected.”
The Census Bureau’s projection took the most likely immigration scenario over the next 77 years, but in a “high-immigration scenario,” the bureau said that the U.S. population would reach 435 million by 2100. In a “low-immigration” scenario, the U.S. population drops to 319 million in 2100, significantly lower than what it is today. 
The most alarming projection came from the “zero-immigration” scenario, which “projects that population declines would start in 2024 in the complete absence of foreign-born immigration,” the Census Bureau said, adding, “The population in this scenario is projected to be 226 million in 2100, roughly 107 million lower than the 2022 estimate.”
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The median age of the U.S. population is projected to rise in each of the Census Bureau’s scenarios. In the most likely projection, 29% of Americans will be 65 or older by 2100, compared to just 16.4% of the population being under 18. Currently, <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/05/2020-census-united-states-older-population-grew.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16.8%</a> of the U.S. population is 65 or older, and <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/united-states-adult-population-grew-faster-than-nations-total-population-from-2010-to-2020.html#:~:text=By%20comparison%2C%20the%20younger%20population,in%20fertility%2C%20ongoing%20since%202007." target="_blank" rel="noopener">22.1%</a> is under 18.  
Earlier this year, the Census Bureau also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-median-age-reaches-record-high-as-americans-put-off-having-kids" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that the U.S. median age hit a record high at 38.9 in 2022. 
“It’s simple arithmetic. Fewer kids are being born,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, the president of demographic data firm Social Explorer.
Declining fertility rates and an aging population are issues already affecting European and Asian countries whose populations are expected to dwindle in the coming decades. Europe’s median age has increased to 44, and Japan’s median age hit 48 years old, making it the oldest country in the world.
China’s population is also in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/china/china-population-drop-explainer-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decline</a> as India overtook the communist country as the world’s most populous nation earlier this year. The population in China shrunk in 2022 for the first time since Mao’s famine in 1961 that killed tens of millions of people.

New York City

U.S. Population Projected To Shrink For First Time Ever By End Of Century

Census Bureau

Immigration

U.S.

China, you’ve been told, is a rising power. Soon, you’ve been told, they’ll surpass the United States as the center of a new world order. Their annual gross domestic product averaged 9% growth from 1989 to 2022; their standing military has 2 million active personnel; their tentacles reach into Africa, the Middle East, and South America. The real story of China is far, far scarier, because China is a power in a state of inevitable collapse. The only question is when, and how much damage they’ll do before the Chinese regime implodes. That’s because China has at least five serious problems.
<h2>Problem #1 | Demographics</h2>
China is currently, according to geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan, the fastest-aging society in all of human history. A healthy demographic chart, in terms of age, looks something like a pyramid: most of the citizens will be young, a solid number will be middle-aged, and at the very top, the fewest will be elderly. 
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-603351 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-12-at-7.36.54-PM-copy-1014x576.jpg" alt="" width="1014" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-12-at-7.36.54-PM-copy-1014x576.jpg 1014w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-12-at-7.36.54-PM-copy-300x170.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-12-at-7.36.54-PM-copy-768x436.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-12-at-7.36.54-PM-copy-1536x872.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-12-at-7.36.54-PM-copy.jpg 1875w" sizes=" (max-width: 1014px) 100vw, 1014px" /></div>
Even in 2000, the warning signs were clear in China. You can see the dramatic lack of people in the 9 and below group. That did not change. 
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-603353" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2000-2023-08-12-at-7.37.21-PM-copy-1016x576.jpg" alt="" width="1016" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2000-2023-08-12-at-7.37.21-PM-copy-1016x576.jpg 1016w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2000-2023-08-12-at-7.37.21-PM-copy-300x170.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2000-2023-08-12-at-7.37.21-PM-copy-768x435.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2000-2023-08-12-at-7.37.21-PM-copy-1536x870.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2000-2023-08-12-at-7.37.21-PM-copy.jpg 1874w" sizes=" (max-width: 1016px) 100vw, 1016px" /></div>
So here’s what that same chart looks like by 2020. Look at how the vast bulk of the population is now over the age of 30. There is no supporting demographic base to pay all the bills. This is why Zeihan says China now has a “completely terminal demography.”
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-603355" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2020-2023-08-12-at-7.37.39-PM-copy-1020x576.jpg" alt="" width="1020" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2020-2023-08-12-at-7.37.39-PM-copy-1020x576.jpg 1020w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2020-2023-08-12-at-7.37.39-PM-copy-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2020-2023-08-12-at-7.37.39-PM-copy-768x434.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2020-2023-08-12-at-7.37.39-PM-copy-1536x868.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/Screenshot-2020-2023-08-12-at-7.37.39-PM-copy.jpg 1880w" sizes=" (max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px" /></div>
China currently has a birthrate of less than 1.2 per woman. It’s worse in urban areas. 
The decline of Chinese birthrates can be attributed to two factors: first, the Chinese government’s evil one-child policy, implemented in 1980, ended in 2016, it resulted in three to four percent more boys than girls being born thanks to sex-selective abortion and infanticide; families literally killing off female babies in the womb or afterward. 
According to the Chinese government itself, the one-child policy prevented 400 million births. China’s population has already peaked — it’s now dropping. The question is as the population ages in a heavily Marxist system, who is going to pay the bills? 
<h2>Problem #2 | Lack Of Innovation</h2>
This brings us to problem number two: lack of innovation. If China were free, you know, an innovative, robust economy, it might be possible to stave off disaster for at least a little while. After all, the generation of new products and services might allow China to thrive economically in the short term, that would buy time for the social system to transition away from high levels of government support and toward something more sustainable. But China has no innovation, thanks to its state-controlled mercantilist schemes. Right now, the entire Chinese economy is reliant on producing things at scale, undercutting foreign markets, and stealing technology. As the young working population declines, producing things at scale becomes a lot more difficult. Cheap labor goes away. 
China is trying to fill the gap right now with robotics. In 2021, China represented 52% of global worldwide industrial robot installation. There is a problem with this. If a robot can do a job more cheaply than a human, why produce in China at all as opposed to somewhere that isn’t a geopolitical hellhole run by an authoritarian communist government? Furthermore, China has to import all those robots, largely from Japan.
And then there’s the problem of innovation. It turns out when you nationalize all innovation, you kill it. The solution is to rob everyone else of their IP and then try to recreate it. Some reports suggest that Chinese IP theft costs the United States up to $600 billion per year. This is an unsustainable growth model. It always leaves Chinese IP well behind Western IP. They’re stealing somebody else’s technology and then they’re trying to reengineer it. This is particularly true when it comes to microchips, where China manufactures a lot of basic microchips, but has actually been cut off from the world&#8217;s markets for sophisticated microchips. All of which brings us to the third problem: debt. 
<div id="attachment_603373" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-603373" class="size-large wp-image-603373" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1322017304-1024x576.jpg" alt="Central Computer Processor digital concept" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1322017304-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1322017304-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1322017304-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1322017304-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1322017304-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />MF3d. Getty Images.</div>
<h2>Problem #3 | Debt </h2>
If you can&#8217;t pay for things through innovation or through manufacturing, you got to get a lot of money from someplace else. Well, China’s growth has been disproportionately funded by debt. The country’s debt to GDP ratio is at least 159%, that is 60% higher than the global rate, according to the S&amp;P Global Ratings. The nation’s total stock of corporate, household, and government debt is now over 300% of GDP. It comprises 15% of all debt globally, according to the Institute of International Finance. 
Because Chinese banks are owned by the state, their decision making is rooted in government interests rather than profitability, that means they are probably carrying trillions of dollars in bad loans. As Professor Antonio Graceffo writes, “It is extremely unlikely that the Chinese Communist Party will be able to solve all of these problems or completely turn the economy around. The Chinese economy is too big and too complex to be able to remedy the deeply ingrained issues that have become endemic.”
The best visible example of China’s economic hollowness is its ghost cities. Literally cities that are just empty. China is chock filled with these so-called “ghost cities,” they include, apparently, up to 65 million empty units of housing.
<div id="attachment_603371" style="width: 871px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-603371" class="size-large wp-image-603371" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-614998450-861x576.jpg" alt="DANDONG, LIAONING PROVINCE, CHINA - 2016/10/11: Vacant streets, shops and residential buildings in Guomen Bay. Since the China and North Korea agreed to build a new Yalu River bridge at Guomen Bay in 2009, a large sum of funds have been invested in this area, hoping to develop a prosperous new city. However, the bridge's construction came to halt after 2014, Guomen Bay area seems to be a ghost city now. (Photo by Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images)" width="861" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-614998450-861x576.jpg 861w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-614998450-300x201.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-614998450-768x514.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-614998450.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 861px) 100vw, 861px" />Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images</div>
Why did this happen? Well, politicians borrowed insane amounts of money for make-work projects, with the government then encouraging people to put their retirement money into buying empty shells of apartments, assuring them the prices would continue to rise. This has generated a looming real estate catastrophe. Because none of these apartments are livable. But Chinese citizens keep putting their money in real estate because it allows them the illusion of actual ownership of something — and in a communist country, even the illusion of ownership is better than the reality that the government runs everything and you don&#8217;t own anything.
<h2>Problem #4 | Military </h2>
China has yet another problem: Military problems. Now, everybody thinks China is a powerful military country, and they kind of are. But, with China on the brink economically and demographically, they might be expected to get more aggressive militarily. And again, China does keep threatening surrounding areas, including most prominently, Taiwan. China’s 2 million man army is indeed huge. But, manpower isn’t everything, as we saw in the Ukraine War. And like Russia, the Chinese military isn’t up to snuff. China relies on older, less sophisticated chips, according to the RAND Corporation. The United States has worked to control import of chips into China, which means that their Chinese tech is just not as good as American military tech.  
The United States has even prevented Chinese companies from receiving software updates, spare parts, or technological input from Americans. 
<div id="attachment_603369" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-603369" class="size-large wp-image-603369" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-486276722-864x576.jpg" alt="BEIJING, CHINA - SEPTEMBER 03: Chinese soldiers ride in tanks as they pass in front of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City during a military parade on September 3, 2015 in Beijing, China. China is marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and its role in defeating Japan with a new national holiday and a military parade in Beijing. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-486276722-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-486276722-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-486276722-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-486276722-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-486276722-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-486276722-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-486276722-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Kevin Frayer/Getty Images</div>
According to Chris Miller, author of Chip War, China now lags the United States by up to a decade. What’s more, China doesn’t yet have the capacity to project deep water power. They have a lot of boats in their Navy, and their Navy is effective in coastal zones, but they have no capacity to project power beyond those zones. Which means that Taiwan and the South China Sea are squarely in China’s crosshairs – because 92% of all sophisticated microchips are produced in Taiwan, we could see China attempt to blockade the island with the threat of destroying TSMC, Taiwan&#8217;s microchip manufacturing company.
<h2>Problem #5 | Dictatorship</h2>
Finally, you have problem number five: dictatorship. Underlying all of these other problems is the biggest one of all: China is a one party dictatorship. While fools like Thomas Friedman of The New York Times write that “China&#8217;s one-party autocracy can impose the important policies needed to move a society forward” the reality is the reverse: because the dictatorship is the be-all end-all, it can’t allow the freedom and innovation necessary to grow the country and fix its problem. Instead, dictator Xi Jinping, in an attempt to enshrine his own power, has doubled down, seeking more economic control, more autarky, greater militarism, more carbon-based fossil fuels to push manufacturing growth.
China is in very serious trouble. Does this mean that China is going to break apart into a million policies? No. But it means that the current regime is on shaky footing. And that means they are likely to get very aggressive in the near term, in an attempt to shore up their foundation. Because if they don&#8217;t, that collapse is going to happen sooner rather than later.
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FACTS – Ep 2 China-V5

Despite What You’re Being Told, China Is Dying

Ben Shapiro

Military

Xi Jinping

The U.S. population has reached a record-high median age, according to Census Bureau data released Thursday. 
Americans’ median age hit 38.9 in 2022 as the country faces a rapidly aging population resulting from declining birth rates, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/us/census-median-age.html#:~:text=What's%20New,Thursday%20by%20the%20Census%20Bureau.">reported</a>. The median U.S. age has steadily risen from 30 in 1980 to 35 in 2000 to nearly 39 in 2022. 
“It’s simple arithmetic. Fewer kids are being born,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, the president of demographic data firm Social Explorer. 
States with the oldest median age are Maine (44.8) and New Hampshire (43.3) while the youngest states are Utah (31.9), the District of Columbia (34.8), and Texas (35.5). Utah, whose large population of Mormons encourages adherents to raise large families, has one of the highest fertility rates in the U.S., <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/fertility_rate/fertility_rates.htm">according</a> to CDC data. Maine’s fertility rate of 49.9 births per 1,000 women falls far behind Utah at 63.6. 
The Times also reported that communities with a larger population of black Americans — such as D.C. and Kaufman County, Texas, a suburb of Dallas — are staying relatively young compared to the rest of the U.S. The median ages in both D.C. and Kaufman County were under 35 years old. 
The U.S. is following the trends of aging populations and declining birth rates that are alarming European and Asian countries. Europe’s median age has increased to 44, and Japan’s median age hit 48 years old, making it the <a href="https://www.worlddata.info/average-age.php">oldest country</a> in the world. Meanwhile, dozens of African nations are retaining a median age under 20. 
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Birth rates in the U.S. fell during the first year of the COVID pandemic before going up and then <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-birth-rate-in-decline-again-as-post-covid-rebound-subsides">slightly declining</a> again from 2021 to 2022. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provisional report published earlier this month, there was a less than 1% decline in total births from 2021 to 2022, decreasing from 3,664,292 babies in 2021 to 3,661,220 in 2022.
Many American families are delaying having children if they choose to have any at all. The CDC report charted a continued rise in births from women in their early 40s and late 30s as well as a continued decline in teen births, which have dropped a staggering 80% since 1991. Births among women aged 40-44 have not decreased since 1981, with 2020 being an exception. 
Nathan Gay contributed to this report.

Back view of little boy and his great-grandfather walking on dirt track at backlight

U.S. Median Age Reaches Record High As Americans Put Off Having Kids

Americans' Median Age Reaches Record High

General

Residents of several cities in the United States require a salary much higher than $100,000 to feel as if they are earning six figures due to elevated <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/inflation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">costs</a> of living and aggressive <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/taxes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">taxes</a>, according to a recent <a href="https://smartasset.com/data-studies/new-100k-how-taxes-costs-affect-us-cities-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from SmartAsset.
The financial technology company found that residents of Honolulu, New York City, and San Francisco require salaries between $310,000 and $312,000 to earn the equivalent of $100,000 in an average part of the country since high earners in the three cities face tax rates above 40% and living expenses more than 80% above the national average.
“Those with a $100,000 salary earn more than double the median individual income for 2021, which might imply financial comfort on first glance. But when accounting for taxes and cost of living in America’s largest cities, those six figures will feel much smaller,” SmartAsset said in the analysis. “Ultimately, to have the purchasing power of $100,000, you will have to earn a substantially higher salary.”
Oakland, Los Angeles, and Long Beach followed the other cities with respect to the gross income needed to “feel like” one takes home $100,000. Residents of the cities see costs of living roughly 50% greater than the national average, partially due to expensive real estate, while income taxes approach 40% in Oakland and nearly 38% in Los Angeles and Long Beach. “California cities require the highest gross incomes of any state,” SmartAsset noted.
With an effective tax rate of 13.5%, California is among the most heavily taxed states in the nation, according to an <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/publications/state-local-tax-burden-rankings/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the Tax Foundation. The state also has among the most progressive income tax systems, meaning that wealthy households supply an outsized portion of revenues relative to other households, according to an <a href="https://itep.org/whopays/#:~:text=Some%20states%2C%20such%20as%20California,have%20very%20progressive%20income%20taxes." target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
The most affordable cities for high earners, on the other hand, are Memphis, El Paso, and Oklahoma City, where residents need salaries between $117,000 and $120,000 to “feel like” they are earning $100,000. Cities in Texas, such as Corpus Christi, Lubbock, and Houston, are also among the most affordable for individuals earning six figures, who can “feel like” they are earning $100,000 with salaries between $121,000 and $125,000.
“In general, states with no state income taxes have an edge when it comes to overall purchasing power,” SmartAsset added. States without income taxes include Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.
Population trends over the three years since the lockdown-induced recession broadly match the difficulty of earning robust incomes in cities with high costs of living and tax rates, as well as recent trends in crime and the extent to which lockdowns impacted business recovery.
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Data released by the Census Bureau at the end of last month <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-fastest-growing-and-fastest-shrinking-counties-in-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demonstrate</a> that counties home to major cities in California, Illinois, and New York witnessed the nation’s most stark numeric population decline last year, while those home to major cities in Arizona, Texas, and Florida saw the largest numeric population growth. An analysis from the Economic Innovation Group noted that domestic outmigration from large urban counties <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/two-million-people-bolted-from-americas-major-cities-since-the-lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">surpassed</a> two million residents in 2021 and 2022, a trend that contributed to a population increase in the suburbs and exurbs.

US-TOURISM-HAWAII

A $300,000 Salary Feels Like $100,000 In These Three Expensive Cities, Analysis Finds

A $300,000 Salary Feels Like $100,000 In These Expensive Cities

Economy

Taxes

Millions of people left major cities in the United States between 2020 and 2022, years dominated by government <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdown</a> policies and elevated <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/crime" target="_blank" rel="noopener">crime</a> rates, according to an <a href="https://eig.org/2022-county-population-trends/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> released last week by the Economic Innovation Group.
Domestic outmigration from large urban counties reached 1.2 million residents in 2021 and 861,000 residents in 2022, implying that more than two million people moved from large cities in recent years. The trend contributed to a population surge in the suburbs and exurbs, which saw 486,000 and 822,000 new residents, respectively, between 2020 and 2022.
Increased rates of immigration from outside of the United States, however, added 507,000 residents to large cities in 2022, an increase from 186,000 residents in 2021 as worldwide travel restrictions eased. “Though large urban counties have not yet rebounded from large population outflows experienced in 2020 and 2021, they did nearly halt overall population loss in 2022, buoyed by more normal rates of international migration,” the analysts summarized.
Individuals who took advantage of remote work policies appear to have accelerated the domestic migration phenomena even as constrained housing markets likely slowed the trends.
“We find work-from-home related fundamentals remained important drivers of population shifts in 2022 but less than they were in 2021. One reason may be that the shift to remote work early in the pandemic was a one-time shock and this led to a one-time, temporary change in migration patterns, which are now converging towards normal,” the analysts said. “Alternatively, remote work may have an impact on migration patterns that will take a longer time to unfold. In this case, the weaker relationship with work-from-home fundamentals may be due to housing supply becoming a more binding constraint to work-from-home-driven population shifts.”
Lockdown mandates caused low labor force participation and supply chain bottlenecks, worsening already lackluster levels of new construction for residential real estate. Median home sale prices increased from $322,600 in the second quarter of 2020 to $467,700 in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Data released by the Census Bureau at the end of last month <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-fastest-growing-and-fastest-shrinking-counties-in-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demonstrate</a> that counties home to major cities in California, Illinois, and New York witnessed the nation’s most stark numeric population decline last year, while those home to major cities in Arizona, Texas, and Florida saw the largest numeric population growth. Los Angeles County, California, lost more residents than any other county in the United States as the population fell by 91,000 between July 2021 and July 2022. Cook County, Illinois, whose county seat is Chicago, saw its population decrease by 68,000 over the same time horizon.
Population trends correspond with the cities and states which enforced aggressive lockdown mandates. California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom only <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gov-newsom-officially-ends-covid-state-of-emergency-after-three-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reversed</a> the state of emergency established amid the spread of COVID as late as February 2023, while Chicago Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoots-heavy-hand-vaccine-free-your-time-is-up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">informed</a> unvaccinated residents as late as December 2021 that their “time is up” and said her health mandates were “inconvenient by design.”
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Elevated violent crime and property crime rates in American cities have contributed to an exodus of businesses and residents. The phenomenon has continued into 2023: Walmart announced this week that the firm would <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walmart-closes-four-stores-in-chicago-amid-elevated-crime-rates" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shutter</a> four stores in Chicago, while Whole Foods unveiled the forthcoming <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/san-franciscos-flagship-whole-foods-closes-after-only-one-year-due-to-high-crime-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">closure</a> of the organic grocer’s flagship location in San Francisco.

Oakland, California

Two Million People Bolted From America’s Major Cities Since The Lockdowns

Millions Of People Bolted From America's Large Cities Between 2020 And 2022

Crime

Lockdowns

Counties home to major cities in California, Illinois, and New York witnessed the nation’s most stark numeric <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/population" target="_blank" rel="noopener">population</a> decline last year, while those home to major cities in Arizona, Texas, and Florida saw the largest numeric population growth.
Los Angeles County, California, lost more residents than any other county in the United States as the population fell by 90,704 between July 2021 and July 2022, according to <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/population-estimates-counties.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> released on Thursday by the <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/census-bureau" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Census Bureau</a>. Cook County, Illinois, whose county seat is Chicago, saw its population decrease by 68,315 over the same time horizon.
Dr. Christine Hartley, the assistant division chief for estimates and projections in the population division at the Census Bureau, noted in a press release that “migration and growth patterns” for the nation’s counties approached levels previously witnessed before the lockdown-induced recession. Some urban counties saw “domestic outmigration at a slower pace,” while counties with large universities saw their populations “fully rebound this year” as the schools returned to conventional instruction rather than online courses.
Queens County, Kings County, and Bronx County, New York, which constitute the New York City boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, followed the counties dominated by Los Angeles and Chicago, which are the overall largest in the nation, with respect to numeric decline.
The largest counties for numeric population growth, on the other hand, were Maricopa County, Arizona, whose county seat is Phoenix, which gained 56,831 residents between 2021 and 2022. Harris County, Texas, whose county seat is Houston, gained 45,626 residents.
Collin County and Denton County, Texas, which are home to the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, followed the counties dominated by Phoenix and Houston as the most robust in the nation with respect to numeric growth. Polk County, Florida, which is near the Orlando and Tampa metropolitan areas, and Lee County, Florida, which is home to Cape Coral and Fort Myers, likewise followed the counties in Arizona and Texas.
Census Bureau officials noted that domestic migration patterns shifted considerably between 2021 and 2022, especially with respect to the number of Americans moving between different counties. Some 60% of counties witnessed positive domestic migration last year.
“During the height of the pandemic, many small counties experienced higher levels of domestic migration, while many large counties saw lower levels of domestic migration,” the agency noted. “This pattern has reversed between 2021 and 2022, where many of the small counties that experienced increases in domestic migration saw that pattern slow down. In the meantime, many large counties, particularly in the South and West, observed an uptick in domestic migration.”
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Natural decrease, on the other hand, outpaced natural increase in more than 74% of counties; in other words, the majority of counties in the United States witnessed more deaths than births. “The incidence of natural decrease remains historically high,” the agency added. “Natural decrease counties are found nationwide but are especially prevalent in some states.”
The Census Bureau previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/in-2021-americas-population-grew-at-slowest-rate-since-founding-of-the-nation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that the population of the United States expanded at the slowest pace since the American Revolution in 2021. Officials cited “decreasing fertility” and “increasing mortality due to an aging population” as two of the factors behind the phenomenon.

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