4 ms·

The US cannot afford, demographically, to curtail immigration, illegal or otherwise. Simple fact is the US needs more people because we’re under the replacement

The US cannot afford, demographically, to curtail immigration, illegal or otherwise. Simple fact is the US needs more people because we’re under the replacement rate.

rngfnby 9mo ago
But why are we under the replacement rate? Seems relevant
- cogman10 9mo ago
  Because of eroding worker rights and raise cost of living. You need free time for kids and if the salaries are too low for a single income household a lot of people will end up opting out of having kids. This isn't unique the the US. Basically every country with a whack work life balance is looking at population replacement problems.
  - twodave 9mo ago
    I think this is an oversimplification. History has shown that as soon as a country is developed enough that children start increasing the family expenses rather than decrease them (I.e. helping out with the farm, or whatever the sustaining family business is, but in developing countries this is overwhelmingly agriculture) the pressure to have children slacks off to a large degree and becomes more of a luxury. So it’s just a byproduct of industrialization. The US is actually better off with replacement rate than a lot of countries that have industrialized since them because of the way it happened and the wars that were fought. More rapidly-industrializing countries (China, Japan, a few other Asian and SA countries) have way shorter runways despite industrializing much later than the US. And those with one child policies really just made things worse for themselves. A very large part of what the future is going to look like in my opinion is how different countries are able to grapple with this issue and come up with solutions to the problem of a large aging population and a service, hospitality and medical industry with not enough bodies.
- acdha 9mo ago
  It all comes back to women being treated as full people. Having a child is dangerous, expensive, and a major time commitment which mean that women who have other options are going to have fewer children later in life when they have the resources to support them. We also have much less demand for unskilled workers so even women who really want children are getting educated and establishing careers first rather than getting married at 18. https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-declining https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-decli... That leaves really only two choices: pull a Ceaușescu and try to remove the choice, or improve all of the things which make people feel now is not the right time to have kids. Since the former choice is both immoral and self-defeating, that really flips the discussion to why the people who claim to want more children oppose universal healthcare, childcare, making housing more affordable, banning negative career impacts for mothers, addressing climate change, etc. There are many things which factor into an expensive multi-decade bet and you have to improve all of them to substantially shift the outcome.
  - philipallstar 9mo ago
    > It all comes back to women being treated as full people. What does this actually mean? Do you mean "get a job instead of having kids?" Working to afford life instead of having kids seem much less humanising, if anything. Being a wife and mum is being a full person, and the main thing that's bad about it is if you are a full-time mum your spouse has to work incredibly hard to compete on the housing ladder against all the two-income families bidding against them.
    - jakelazaroff 9mo ago
      Consider that many women… want to work? And some even want to work and have kids?
    - acdha 9mo ago
      I meant that they get to choose whether and when they have children, and can have full careers. Think about it in terms of opportunity cost: much over a century ago, women were expected to marry and be wives with a handful of exceptions like religious service. They did not have many opportunities for education and there were limited opportunities for independent employment with entire professions off-limits. When those were your choices, even women who didn’t really want kids that much went down that path because only a few people had the drive and social clout not to, and without modern birth control that almost inevitably lead to more kids (necessary, because mortality was shockingly high in pre-vaccine times). Now, however, there are tons of other opportunities available. Instead of kids just happening, couples can plan them and are making decisions about their finances and other life impacts such as the case you mentioned where people might realize that they can’t afford a larger home. Prospective mothers, even if they really want kids, are also being told advanced education is key or that mothers tend to have lower lifetime earnings even adjusted for field, so the questions aren’t just “can we feed them?” but “would I avoid future layoffs if I finish a masters degree before becoming a parent?” I think that’s great, everyone should control their life trajectory, but it means that to the extent we want to reverse the trend we need to be lowering the costs so people aren’t looking at trade offs like permanently lowering their career trajectory or locking themselves into a limited, highly-competitive corner of the housing market.
- LightBug1 9mo ago
  Considering at least a third of potential replacement partners are Trump voters, can you imagine women feeling sexy about them? LOL
  - philipallstar 9mo ago
    Considering the many liberal women who want men who have conservative values (although still agree with them on politics, somehow), yes. Probably yes.
    - filoeleven 9mo ago
      What does this even mean?
  - rngfnby 9mo ago
    I'd be surprised if the elections of '16 and '24 even register as a blip in demographic data.
- AngryData 9mo ago
  That's what happens when you make your population poor by outsourcing large chunks of your economic base and stomping on worker rights.
ralph84 9mo ago
For the line must always go up crowd, they feel a need. Not everyone is in the line must always go up crowd.
- halfmatthalfcat 9mo ago
  The line is always going to be going up somewhere. I’d rather it be where I live than not.
  - ralph84 9mo ago
    Then doesn't it make more sense for the people who prefer living among a high fertility rate to move to the places where there's a high fertility rate? Why should people who don't have that preference have to endure mass migration when they don't want, didn't ask, and didn't vote for it?
    - halfmatthalfcat 9mo ago
      Makes no sense at all imo, especially when you consider the origin story and melting pot ethos that made the US what it was in the first place.
      - paulryanrogers 9mo ago
        The folks in charge have made it pretty clear they want Caucasian people, especially northern European or white South African. They believe what made the US great in the past wasn't a diverse population sharing power. Rather people like them at the top, owning and ordering around everyone else.
refurb 9mo ago
That logic doesn't hold up. Legal immigration - as is today - is about 1% of the US population. That's pretty standard, and would result in an slowly increasing population. But regardless, saying "we need immigrants" then jumping to "illegal or not" is not a logical argument. We absolutely can have a system that prevent illegal immigration, while carefully screening legal immigrants. Heck, every country in the world does this except the US.
- halfmatthalfcat 9mo ago
  Can, if we had a functioning Congress that actually passed material laws. We’ve been trying to pass immigration reform for the last couple of decades.
  - filoeleven 9mo ago
    And we would have had bipartisan steps toward it before the last presidential election, if Trump hadn't told Republicans to tank it at the last minute because it hurt his biggest talking point for reelection.
    - newfriend 9mo ago
      Republicans did not support that bill. A single Republican Senator negotiated it in secret. You guys mischaracterize this bill as some amazing thing that everyone was excited to pass until Trump told them not to. That isn't reality. You can hear it from the horse's mouth here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf4EzoWR944 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf4EzoWR944
  - refurb 9mo ago
    Changing laws is irrelevant if the executive chooses to ignore them. It would be better to actually enforce the immigration laws we have right now, and see where we land. Then make changes from there.
- paulryanrogers 9mo ago
  The US values individual freedom, has porous borders, a diverse population, and a large land mass. Citizens would have to put up with some pretty draconian living conditions to ensure zero illegal migration. Even Reagan granted mass amnesty in the face of such costs. We can disagree on where the threshold of unacceptable intrusion into our lives should be. But significant change probably requires replacing the Fourth Amendment. Or--as is happening now--pretending the 4A doesn't exist and hope whoever is in power next won't prosecute them.
hackable_sand 9mo ago
Cat-brained response
- bigyabai 9mo ago
  If you have any better sources of minimum wage labor, now's your chance to say it.

The US cannot afford, demographically, to curtail immigration, illegal or otherwise. Simple fact is the US needs more people because we’re under the replacement rate.

rngfnby 9mo ago

But why are we under the replacement rate? Seems relevant

cogman10 9mo ago
Because of eroding worker rights and raise cost of living. You need free time for kids and if the salaries are too low for a single income household a lot of people will end up opting out of having kids. This isn't unique the the US. Basically every country with a whack work life balance is looking at population replacement problems.
- twodave 9mo ago
  I think this is an oversimplification. History has shown that as soon as a country is developed enough that children start increasing the family expenses rather than decrease them (I.e. helping out with the farm, or whatever the sustaining family business is, but in developing countries this is overwhelmingly agriculture) the pressure to have children slacks off to a large degree and becomes more of a luxury. So it’s just a byproduct of industrialization. The US is actually better off with replacement rate than a lot of countries that have industrialized since them because of the way it happened and the wars that were fought. More rapidly-industrializing countries (China, Japan, a few other Asian and SA countries) have way shorter runways despite industrializing much later than the US. And those with one child policies really just made things worse for themselves. A very large part of what the future is going to look like in my opinion is how different countries are able to grapple with this issue and come up with solutions to the problem of a large aging population and a service, hospitality and medical industry with not enough bodies.
acdha 9mo ago
It all comes back to women being treated as full people. Having a child is dangerous, expensive, and a major time commitment which mean that women who have other options are going to have fewer children later in life when they have the resources to support them. We also have much less demand for unskilled workers so even women who really want children are getting educated and establishing careers first rather than getting married at 18. https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-declining https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-decli... That leaves really only two choices: pull a Ceaușescu and try to remove the choice, or improve all of the things which make people feel now is not the right time to have kids. Since the former choice is both immoral and self-defeating, that really flips the discussion to why the people who claim to want more children oppose universal healthcare, childcare, making housing more affordable, banning negative career impacts for mothers, addressing climate change, etc. There are many things which factor into an expensive multi-decade bet and you have to improve all of them to substantially shift the outcome.
- philipallstar 9mo ago
  > It all comes back to women being treated as full people. What does this actually mean? Do you mean "get a job instead of having kids?" Working to afford life instead of having kids seem much less humanising, if anything. Being a wife and mum is being a full person, and the main thing that's bad about it is if you are a full-time mum your spouse has to work incredibly hard to compete on the housing ladder against all the two-income families bidding against them.
  - jakelazaroff 9mo ago
    Consider that many women… want to work? And some even want to work and have kids?
  - acdha 9mo ago
    I meant that they get to choose whether and when they have children, and can have full careers. Think about it in terms of opportunity cost: much over a century ago, women were expected to marry and be wives with a handful of exceptions like religious service. They did not have many opportunities for education and there were limited opportunities for independent employment with entire professions off-limits. When those were your choices, even women who didn’t really want kids that much went down that path because only a few people had the drive and social clout not to, and without modern birth control that almost inevitably lead to more kids (necessary, because mortality was shockingly high in pre-vaccine times). Now, however, there are tons of other opportunities available. Instead of kids just happening, couples can plan them and are making decisions about their finances and other life impacts such as the case you mentioned where people might realize that they can’t afford a larger home. Prospective mothers, even if they really want kids, are also being told advanced education is key or that mothers tend to have lower lifetime earnings even adjusted for field, so the questions aren’t just “can we feed them?” but “would I avoid future layoffs if I finish a masters degree before becoming a parent?” I think that’s great, everyone should control their life trajectory, but it means that to the extent we want to reverse the trend we need to be lowering the costs so people aren’t looking at trade offs like permanently lowering their career trajectory or locking themselves into a limited, highly-competitive corner of the housing market.
LightBug1 9mo ago
Considering at least a third of potential replacement partners are Trump voters, can you imagine women feeling sexy about them? LOL
- philipallstar 9mo ago
  Considering the many liberal women who want men who have conservative values (although still agree with them on politics, somehow), yes. Probably yes.
  - filoeleven 9mo ago
    What does this even mean?
- rngfnby 9mo ago
  I'd be surprised if the elections of '16 and '24 even register as a blip in demographic data.
AngryData 9mo ago
That's what happens when you make your population poor by outsourcing large chunks of your economic base and stomping on worker rights.

ralph84 9mo ago

For the line must always go up crowd, they feel a need. Not everyone is in the line must always go up crowd.

halfmatthalfcat 9mo ago
The line is always going to be going up somewhere. I’d rather it be where I live than not.
- ralph84 9mo ago
  Then doesn't it make more sense for the people who prefer living among a high fertility rate to move to the places where there's a high fertility rate? Why should people who don't have that preference have to endure mass migration when they don't want, didn't ask, and didn't vote for it?
  - halfmatthalfcat 9mo ago
    Makes no sense at all imo, especially when you consider the origin story and melting pot ethos that made the US what it was in the first place.
    - paulryanrogers 9mo ago
      The folks in charge have made it pretty clear they want Caucasian people, especially northern European or white South African. They believe what made the US great in the past wasn't a diverse population sharing power. Rather people like them at the top, owning and ordering around everyone else.

refurb 9mo ago

That logic doesn't hold up. Legal immigration - as is today - is about 1% of the US population. That's pretty standard, and would result in an slowly increasing population. But regardless, saying "we need immigrants" then jumping to "illegal or not" is not a logical argument. We absolutely can have a system that prevent illegal immigration, while carefully screening legal immigrants. Heck, every country in the world does this except the US.

halfmatthalfcat 9mo ago
Can, if we had a functioning Congress that actually passed material laws. We’ve been trying to pass immigration reform for the last couple of decades.
- filoeleven 9mo ago
  And we would have had bipartisan steps toward it before the last presidential election, if Trump hadn't told Republicans to tank it at the last minute because it hurt his biggest talking point for reelection.
  - newfriend 9mo ago
    Republicans did not support that bill. A single Republican Senator negotiated it in secret. You guys mischaracterize this bill as some amazing thing that everyone was excited to pass until Trump told them not to. That isn't reality. You can hear it from the horse's mouth here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf4EzoWR944 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf4EzoWR944
- refurb 9mo ago
  Changing laws is irrelevant if the executive chooses to ignore them. It would be better to actually enforce the immigration laws we have right now, and see where we land. Then make changes from there.
paulryanrogers 9mo ago
The US values individual freedom, has porous borders, a diverse population, and a large land mass. Citizens would have to put up with some pretty draconian living conditions to ensure zero illegal migration. Even Reagan granted mass amnesty in the face of such costs. We can disagree on where the threshold of unacceptable intrusion into our lives should be. But significant change probably requires replacing the Fourth Amendment. Or--as is happening now--pretending the 4A doesn't exist and hope whoever is in power next won't prosecute them.

hackable_sand 9mo ago

Cat-brained response

bigyabai 9mo ago
If you have any better sources of minimum wage labor, now's your chance to say it.