Elon Wrong About Population Drop
At The Wall Street Journal’s annual Chief Executive Officers’ council, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man whose net worth is an estimated $290 billion, sounded an alarm. If people don’t start procreating at an accelerated level, civilization will crumble, Musk trumpeted.
Musk worries about what he identified as the “low birth rate and the rapidly declining birth rate” which he attributes to COVID-19 and economic apprehension among the young. Elites, of which Musk is a ranking member, have promoted the “we need more people” meme for decades. Consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, developers, the ethnic identity lobby and Congress are united in their urgent pleas for more people. Domestically, cars can’t be sold, soda pop can’t be consumed, houses can’t be built, cheap labor can’t be hired and new voters can’t be created as long as potential buyers remain in Mexico, the Northern Triangle, Asia and the Caribbean. Immigrants’ search for a better life means that they come to the U.S. to become consumers, a mostly glossed-over fact in the immigration debate.
Musk’s concern was sparked by a Division of Vital Statistics report which found that the U.S. birth rate fell by 4 percent from 2019 to 2020, the sharpest single-year decline in nearly 50 years and the lowest number of births since 1979. But if Musk looked at the macro population picture, he could relax. Since 1979, an isolated point in time, the U.S. has boomed from 227 million to 334 million, a 107 million population explosion that historically high in-migration helped create. And more people are on the way. By 2050, the Census Bureau estimates that U.S. population will hit, assuming the low net migration projection, 423 million. A further point of interest for globalist Musk to ponder is that, by 2100, the world’s population will be closing in on 11 billion people, a 3 billion increase during the next 80 years.
Furthermore, if Musk is worried about stagnant population, he should take a trip to the U.S. Southwest border. Musk won’t need his SpaceX rocket to travel to Del Rio, Texas. The illegal immigrant border surge, more than 2 million and counting, exceeds the total population of these states, individually: Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, North or South Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Delaware. Neither President Joe Biden nor Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have given any indication that they will implement measures to control or stop the surge – good news for Musk and other “we need more people” advocates. Remember that the illegal alien totals, whatever they ultimately may be, are preliminary vis-à-vis the eventual totalities they represent. Princeton University estimated that the average immigrant petitions 3.1 family members, and many will begin new families, migration multipliersthat should delight Musk.
In November, the Center for Immigration Studies published a report which found that between September 2020 and September 2021, the foreign-born population, as defined by legal and illegal immigrants, increased by 1.6 million, attributable in part to the Biden’s nonenforcement border policy. The total foreign-born population in the U.S. as of September 2021 is 45.4 million.
The goal of growing the population, either through more natural births or immigration, is inconsistent with Americans’ views on how they want to live, and what kind of world they aspire to for their families. To lecture middle-class Americans, the elitists’ audience, about how many children they should bring into the world is the apex of arrogance, and compelling, indisputable proof that they have completely lost touch with the mainstream, most of whom are struggling in a hyper-inflationary era to meet their monthly obligations. Paying his bills isn’t a problem for Musk. His $269 billion net worth leaves him, his six children and future Musk generations worry-free when it comes to finances.
Polling consistently shows that Americans want less immigration. They also want government to enact sustainable immigration policy that enhances their lives, policies that the Biden administration has summarily rejected. A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll taken in late June had findings consistent with other recent polling: voters reject Biden’s open borders and long for the enforcement that President Trump’s administration implemented.
The question that population stabilization activists want Musk to answer is: Can we fairly and compassionately accommodate the arriving millions, let alone the millions more he wants to welcome, when the nation’s natural and fiscal resources are already over-taxed? Maybe Musk’s aerospace company will indeed find a way to colonize Mars and ease Earth’s population burden. In the unlikely event that might occur, it will be decades or possibly centuries away. The overpopulation challenge in the U.S. is immediate, and adding more people would exacerbate the existing, very real and growing problem.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Elon Wrong About Population Drop
Elon Wrong About Population Drop
