EconAir

  Americans UPDATE (October 2025) Projections are changing rapidly because of the dramatic change in net immigration and a slight but continuous fall in the birth rate. Long run projections, assuming historic levels of immigration, now seem high. In January, the CBO's projections  showed "without immigration the population would shrink beginning in 2033" if birth rates stayed at current low levels. W ithout immigration, the CBO now expects the US population to start shrinking in 2031. If there is net negative immigration - more deportations and immigrants leaving the US - CBO projections indicate that the population may reach zero growth as early as around 2028.  About half of immigrants, about 6 million, entered the country with some protection from deportation, especially under asylum status. This protection is being withdrawn. There are some estimates that the total immigration population of the US is falling, about 1.5 million over the last year. This may indicate net...

The Future Manufacturing Labor Force   SUMMARY This post is a summary of some of the themes of previous posts on demographic and population projections, with an emphasis on how demographics will impact economic growth. See bibliography at the end of this post. For a list of all blog posts on a wide variety of topics, see  List of Posts by Topic on my blog.   Almost all countries outside of Africa are already facing or will soon face below replacement birth rates. Without immigration, this could lead first to smaller labor forces with greater numbers of retired citizens. Eventually, however, both the number of workers and retired citizens will decrease. During both stages of the transition, there will be issues of how to increase total output, maintain standards of living, and allocate income between the two major age groups. For background, see  Global Demographics and Population Projections .   Population and economies can growth even if birth rates are below r...