“So at last I was going to America! Really, really going, at last! The boundaries burst. The arch of heaven soared. A million suns shone out of every star. The winds rushed into outer space, roaring in my ears, “America! America!” - Mary Antin, 1912
There is nothing wrong with our American economy that cannot be solved with population growth coupled with reduced government spending.
Here’s the good news if you like more people: the United Nations estimates that North America will grow by 3.5% annually for the next 40 years. All of Europe will actually declined by 0.5% over the same time period. Over the next 15 years, our population is expected to grow 15% as compared to 10% for China, -2% for Germany and -6% for Japan.
The United States is the world's fastest-growing industrialized nation and third-most populous country. Net immigration is a key driver for our population growth as America is still viewed as the land of opportunity.
Unlike Europe and Japan, a robust birth rate bolstered by high immigration is offsetting the impact of an aging population. The median age in the US is 37 as compared 42 in Western Europe and 45 in Japan. In the United States, the number of echo boomers and grade school kids nearly double the baby boomers, as seen in the nearby chart.
Population growth is good for the economy and commercial real estate investments (and bad for the environment). If we want to faster economic growth, we should have a serious discussion about opening the country’s borders for a finite time period to young, intelligent, hard-working immigrants. Let in 50 million qualified first-generation Americans over the next 10 years, and watch America remain the world’s economic powerhouse.
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