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Richard Deshong
While the exact date varies by who’s reporting (UN, CDC, etc.), it is generally agreed that we recently passed the 8,000,000,000 (eight billion) milestone of living souls on good old planet earth. The causes of this increase vary, but people having more children is not one of them. It requires 2.1 births per couple just to maintain a stable population and it is estimated worldwide births are running around 1.6 per couple. Of the three largest countries by population, India, China, and the USA, both China (1.1) and the USA (1.3) have the lowest birth rates, and while India still runs at a rate slightly over 2.1 it is estimated this is beginning to drop and will do so rapidly as China’s work force shrinks and Indian families become more affluent.
People all over the world are living longer and infant mortality is dropping, both of which are the main reasons the worldwide population continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate than it has over the past half century or so. But there is another very interesting statistic that doesn’t get much attention – fewer people are dying due to wars, murder, and other people-on-people deaths. In fact, when it comes to killing one another, we are currently living in one of the safest eras since records have been kept. This statistic doesn’t mean much if you currently live in Ukraine or Gaza, or if you live on a block in a crime ridden, gang-controlled US city, but overall, it is encouraging.
The Social Security Administration estimates that without a continued influx of working age employees, by 2050 there will not be sufficient able-bodied US employees paying into the SS fund to pay those already retired or retiring in the next twenty-five years. They also publish reports that say either the amount of money paid into the fund needs to rise, or more workers need to be added to US payrolls. If the cap on earnings taxed by social security were to be raised from today’s first $137,000 per person to $500,000 per person, both social security and Medicare would be funded for another fifty years. And their figures show if the population of working-class people in the USA were to increase by 5 –6 million over the next few years the SS fund would be set for the next century. If US citizens aren’t having enough babies, where do you suppose we could get a boost to the population?
So, if you are someone who believes “I got mine and to hell with everyone else”, then you’re all set, and nothing needs to be done. But, if you have kids, grandkids, or even great grand kids, and you would like for them to have a safety net in their retirement, then I suggest you contact your Senators and Congress people and tell them to quit fighting over how the chairs on the deck of the Titanic should have been positioned and work together to do their jobs.
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and went back to his food. I was a little shaken, but I received a considerable amount of applause from our fellow gawkers and some asked me to do it again so they could get more pictures. I did not. The End.