Those are the obvious numbers, but culturally, this number is the kicker:

Think about a world where the US is still dominated by youth culture and Europe is basically a retirement home. But this extends beyond Europe, if trends hold up (and that's always an iffy statement), the US will have a higher percentage of children in its population than China as well. With global population expected to level off by 2040 and begin to decline, the US will actually be a larger proportion of the world's population as the century moves forward.

The implications globally are that the US is still likely to remain an energetic center of the world, with a younger and richer population for decades to come, but domestically the most singular result is this-- ignore all the blather about a social security "crisis." THERE IS NONE! Demographics means that the system as it is designed with minor tweaking can preserve benefits for decades to come; immigration and those fertility rates will save us, a point I made last fall in this article.

Posted by Nathan at August 29, 2002 08:02 AM

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