No Children: The Legacy of Obamanomics

The recession [is having] a disproportionate impact on people of child-bearing age, who suffered higher unemployment and steeper income declines than their elders. In the process, the U.S. fertility rate dropped from over 2.1 births per woman in 2007 to 1.9 last year, below replacement rate for the first time since the mid-1980s. The 2010 Census found that the number of households that have children under age 18 was 38 million, unchanged from 2000, despite a 9.7% growth in the U.S. population over that period.

Of course many environmentalists would celebrate these numbers, and some nativists as well. But the problem is not that we need more people per se — we need an increase in younger, working-age people to make up for our soon to be soaring population of retirees. Young people are the raw capital of the information age and innovation, and new families are its ballast and growth market. _Joel Kotkin

Billions of people once looked at the US as the land of opportunity. America displayed a relentless spirit of optimism, innovation, and productiveness which many people found appealing, worldwide. As long as America's people were free to pursue dreams and opportunities in the private sector, the possibilities seemed boundless.

By attacking the private sector, Obama is destroying the hope and opportunity not only of millions of young Americans, but of hundreds of millions who live overseas and once viewed America as an example of what their countries might become.

...many developed countries are facing dramatic labor force deficits. By 2050, according to Census projections, there will be 40% fewer workers in Japan then there were in 2000, 25% less in Europe and 10% fewer in China; only projections of higher birthrates and immigration allowed demographers to suggest the U.S. workforce would keep growing.

Without these future workers our already tottering pension system will become even more untenable, as is occurring in Europe and Japan. The bad part about slow population growth is that it depresses the economy, which in turn works against family formation. _Joel Kotkin

It is not just about the quantity of young workers, of course. It is also about the quality of future workers. If American children are being dumbed down and neotenised by dysfunctional systems of education and child-raising, they will only contribute but a fraction of what they would have been capable of contributing otherwise. And if the shrinking numbers of young Americans are replaced by third world immigrants with lower aptitude to maintain and improve a high technology infrastructure, the entire society will have taken giant steps backward.

Everything rests upon the senses of optimism and opportunity, which under Obama are being submerged under a great malaise. So long as a society chooses to be sabotaged by corrupt and dysfunctional leaders, it has only itself to blame for the consequences.