U.S. population growth rate at record low because of pandemic for World Population Day 2022

Not only is today A recipe from Cuba for National Mojito Day, it's World Population Day. I begin this year's observance with NBC News reporting U.S. Population Growth At Lowest Rate Since Nation's Founding last December.

The U.S. population [growth rate] fell to its lowest rate during the Covid-19 pandemic's first year. NBC News Zinhle Essamuah takes a look at what factors may be driving the low growth rate including birth rates and immigration.

No surprise, the largest drop in life expectancy since World War II during 2020 because of the pandemic was a major contributor to the record low rate of U.S. population growth along with lower birth rates. MSNBC examined the causes for the latter in The Declining U.S. Birthrate Comes As No Surprise.

There are a lot of headlines detailing a drop in birth rates, but has anyone wondered why? [MSNBC]'s host of American Voices, Alicia Menendez, details how the state of our country is impacting those statistics.

That's a good summary of the reasons why young Americans are not having as many children as their parents and grandparents and points to what could be done to reverse the trend.

ABC News reported that the trend continued into the next year in Birth rate declined in the first half of 2021: CDC.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes the decline in birth rate is likely linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the decline in birth rates and population growth got the video headlines, Vox reported that the trend reversed itself later during the year in The increase in US births in 2021, explained.

A total of 3,659,289 babies were born in the US in 2021, according to new data released this week by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. That’s 1 percent more than the 3,613,647 babies born in the US in 2020, which means that the natal class of 2021 is now what passes for a baby boom in the United States of America.

Indeed, 2021 represents the first time since 2014 that the number of babies born in the US actually increased, bouncing back from a pandemic year in 2020 that saw the largest one-year drop in births in nearly 50 years.

The 2020 dip in births wasn’t much of a surprise to demographers. Despite the popular misconception that events like blizzards and blackouts that keep couples homebound inevitably lead to more babies nine months later, the lockdowns of early 2020 were not particularly conducive to the conceiving of children. Surveys conducted during 2020 found that as many as a third of American women changed their reproductive plans because of the pandemic, while and as many as half of American adults reported a decline in their sexual activity.

That 1 percent increase in births in 2021 stems in part from planned pregnancies delayed for a year or so, until the country saw improved epidemiological and economic conditions during the later stages of the pandemic, as stimulus and unemployment aid from the government made would-be parents a little less apprehensive about bringing a new life into the world.

So the playgrounds and preschools might be a smidge more crowded over the next few years. But make no mistake: This is not a baby boom that is meant to last.

Vox then showed what last year's rise in U.S. births looks like in context.


I agree with Vox; this is likely just a temporary reversal of a long-term trend. I have a lengthy examination of what this could mean in CNBC asks 'Is The U.S. Running Out Of People?' Read it there.