Recent Reporting on US Population Dynamics - From Bad to Worse

The phrase, "from bad to worse" seems apt for the following sequence of events. First, on August 11th, The Economist published a short story on the total fertility rate for America, which has recently reached 1.9. The language was not all that hyperbolic, and perhaps even understated, though of course the fact that TFR [Total Fertility Rate] had reached 1.9 by falling from 2.1 since the great recession began was certainly spun as a negative.

However, 4 days later, Bonnie Kavoussi, an economics reporter at The Huffington Post (a Harvard grad who has written for the Boston Globe, the New York Observer, and the San Antonio Express-News), latched onto this tidbit of information and boldly declared that "U.S. Birth Rate Not High Enough To Keep Population Stable." As we all know, the United States has one of the most rapidly increasing populations in the world. To make matters worse, just a day before she had reported that the U.S. population has reached "a nerdy and delightful milestone. Shortly after 2:29 p.m. on Tuesday, August 14, 2012, the U.S. population was exactly 314,159,265, or pi (π) times 100 million..."

Below, are both stories, in reverse order, so that the jawdropping "misinformation by omission" of Kavoussi's TFR article comes first, with the Economist article last. Bonnie can be reached at bonnie.kavoussi@huffingtonpost.com and perhaps should be reminded of the true demographic trajectory of the U.S.

First, I recommend watching this video, which may help put into context Ms. Kavoussi's perspectives. It is an interview with Robert Johnson, executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and offers a frank, unbecoming assessment of how the economics profession has evolved over time.

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Article: U.S. Birth Rate Not High Enough To Keep Population Stable

Thanks to the weak economy, Americans are having fewer babies than the British and the French -- not enough to maintain the size of the U.S. population, according to the Economist...

The U.S. birth rate now is 1.9 births per woman over her lifetime, when 2 births per woman is necessary to keep the population stable...

It will cost a middle-income family nearly $300,000 to raise a child born today from infancy to age 17, when accounting for projected inflation, according to the Department of Agriculture.

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Article: American fertility is now lower than that of France

...Americans especially like to focus on the total fertility rate, or TFR, the average number of children a woman can expect to have during her lifetime. For years, America was unusual among rich countries in having a relatively high TFR of around 2.1, the so-called "replacement rate", at which a population stabilises over the long term. European countries were typically below that rate, sometimes far below it.

So it comes as something of a shock to discover that in 2011 America's fertility rate was below replacement level and below that of some large European countries. The American rate is now 1.9 and falling. France's is 2.0 and stable. The rate in England is 2.0 and rising slightly...

Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a think-tank in Washington, argues that American fertility has proved resilient in the past and could bounce back in the future.