Population decline - a self-correcting problem?

OTOH, there are fewer people involved in child care and in building new infrastructure.

And, fewer people to add pollutants to air and water and soil.

By the time I get to receive OASDI my child-bearing days are over.

That hand is smaller than the first hand

There’s a pretty hefty time lag there.

I wouldn’t expect that. I think children require more human time, on average, than old people.

Found this article interesting.

Middle-class Indians are now the 3rd largest growing class of illegal immigrants in the US.

Basically, they see no hope of improving their life in India so they pay a lot ($40k to $100k) to get smuggled into the US from India.

I expect this sort of irregular immigration to the US to keep increasing over the next 10 years.

It says some interesting things about what you consider middle class that you consider nurse and teacher low wage jobs. Both of those professions average earning over the median individual income for the US. Both of those require a 4 year degree at minimum.

Interesting grouping.

Sorry, I spoke a little loosely with nurses. I meant the nursing occupation, which includes more of those which are uncredentialled than credentialled. (nursing assistants and so on). RN’s are not all of those labelled nurses.

Your saying that the average earnings are over the median… that comparison doesn’t make sense.
Averages are usually higher than the median. I realize that’s a little pedantic, but I think that someone nitpicking a point might deserve a little pedantry. :slight_smile:

Let’s assume you did do an apples to apples comparison. Nursing is lower than the mean if you include what people commonly call a nurse, which often as not are nursing assistants, aides, etc.

As to teachers (in which I was not including college professors), I know plenty that have no 4 year degree, some of whom are relatives. They don’t strike me as making much, but referencing the data, I see the average teacher makes slightly above average. (About 65K, vs 62K overall). I suspect it’s the well-paid school districts and fancy private schools bringing up the average, which is not the reality for many teachers.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000

By the way, median household income is 75K for about the same time period, so both of the above incomes don’t make enough to be a single income household and still be at the median. Needing to have 2 incomes to get you to the median is sadly common, but seems to jive with being somewhat low paid, if I’m allowed to call it that.

Um… Newsflash.

High cost of living areas drive up both the average for teacher salary and the overall average as well.
Single income households bring the median household income down. Expecting teachers to earn the median household income on their own is not realistic.

As far as plenty of teachers without degrees; Where do you live? The requirement for No Child Left Behind, which are still in effect are:
“All teachers of core academic subjects must be “highly qualified” as defined by NCLB and the state . To be highly qualified, teachers must have a bachelor’s degree, full state certification, and demonstrated competence in each core academic subject that they teach.”

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/titlei_final/exhibits/exhibit_01.asp#:~:text=All%20teachers%20of%20core%20academic,academic%20subject%20that%20they%20teach.

Classroom assistants do not require degrees and don’t make much money. They are not teachers.

In rural areas and urban cores of poor states (or at least my state) they do, and couples where both are teachers are typically upper quartile locally.
In middle income/rich suburbs, no.

I suppose that’d be a factor of how prevalent two income households are. Folks want more/better stuff, they will tend to work for it. It definitely makes it harder for single adult households to compete.

There was recently a teachers strike in a city near me in which one of the key issues was what the classroom assistants should get paid. And virtually none of the news coverage talked about either what the two sides were offering / asking for or what the ultimate resolution was. People just don’t care much about classroom assistants.

Certainly there are going to be exceptions. But overall expecting teachers to individually earn the median household income, which includes a lot of 2 income households, isn’t going to happen.

Remember this all started with TTY listing teachers as a low income job.

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Canada’s comical mistakes aside, this approach has limitations which are rapidly approaching. Global fertility rates are expected to be below replacement level by 2050. I think currently it’s at like 2.3 globally, with something like 90 countries being below 2.1 replacement level. It’s just some African and Muslim countries that are above replacement level currently.

When the entire world has negative population growth, how will societies get the population growth that underpins their entire economic and social systems?

You can still import immigrants in this situation, of course, but when the source countries also have negative population growth, you are essentially collapsing their countries to prop up yours. That’s a tough message to communicate politically. Probably you’ll have to package it in some kind of pleasing rhetoric, like climate change means that no one should live in Africa anymore, for example.

At least one continent is expected to have a young population for the foreseeable future.

Sure, I think a handful of countries will have > 2.1 fertility rates by 2050, but to my point will it be enough for all developed countries to pilfer? I think you’re arguing that it’s no problem, that the entire world will simply become Nigerian, essentially. I’m not sure that’s practical, and probably you realize there will be pushback against this.

Canadian politicians certainly upped the immigration numbers too much and too quickly but have realized their mistake and are taking corrective action.

Canadian politicians were more farsighted in the 1990’s than now. The Canadian equivalent of the US OASDI was put on a long term sustainable basis then so that is one less thing to worry about. In contrast the US still has not undertaken funding reform for OASDI. I would consider that more comical than Canada letting in too many immigrants for two years!

I would agree there will be pushback in the US and Japan!

However, I have met many Nigerian immigrants in both the UK and Canada and they have added much to the local economy and culture. However we are all Commonwealth so that may have helped with their acceptance.

Interesting country you picked at random. “Sometimes a country is just a country.”