This brief is from Don Creech email I received Dec 3, 2012 (I referenced him near the beginning of this thread.) I copied and pasted the following. The words: ... "The U.S. birth rate"... is a hyperlink in the Creech email that takes you to a Bloomberg article which is at the bottom of this post and longer than what I posted here but is instructive of the huge challenge ahead.
The U.S. birth rate fell to a record low last year, driven by a decline in the number of babies born to immigrant women, who have led the growth in the nation's population for at least two decades.
The country's birth rate fell 8 percent from 2007 to 2010, according to a Pew Research Center report. The rate dropped 6 percent for U.S.-born women and plummeted 14 percent for foreign-born females since 2007, the onset of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The decline continued last year to the lowest point since records began in 1920.
The demographic trends aren't promising. In 1965, 81 million workers paid for benefits to 20 million people, a 4-1 ratio. The ratio has fallen to 2.8 workers per retiree and is expected to drop to two workers for every beneficiary by 2035, with 186 million workers paying for 91 million retirees.
Medicare, the nation's health-insurance program for about 50 million elderly and disabled people, is in worse shape. The trust fund for that program is slated to run dry in 2024, its trustees said in an April report.
The size of the two programs makes them potential targets for any deficit-reduction agreement designed to avert the fiscal cliff, the more than $600 billion in tax increases and automatic spending cuts set to start in January.
(the longer article is Bloomberg at this link) ...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...w+12/3/2012&utm_campaign=WIR&utm_medium=email
The U.S. birth rate fell to a record low last year, driven by a decline in the number of babies born to immigrant women, who have led the growth in the nation's population for at least two decades.
The country's birth rate fell 8 percent from 2007 to 2010, according to a Pew Research Center report. The rate dropped 6 percent for U.S.-born women and plummeted 14 percent for foreign-born females since 2007, the onset of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The decline continued last year to the lowest point since records began in 1920.
The demographic trends aren't promising. In 1965, 81 million workers paid for benefits to 20 million people, a 4-1 ratio. The ratio has fallen to 2.8 workers per retiree and is expected to drop to two workers for every beneficiary by 2035, with 186 million workers paying for 91 million retirees.
Medicare, the nation's health-insurance program for about 50 million elderly and disabled people, is in worse shape. The trust fund for that program is slated to run dry in 2024, its trustees said in an April report.
The size of the two programs makes them potential targets for any deficit-reduction agreement designed to avert the fiscal cliff, the more than $600 billion in tax increases and automatic spending cuts set to start in January.
(the longer article is Bloomberg at this link) ...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...w+12/3/2012&utm_campaign=WIR&utm_medium=email