Posted on 03/05/2023 5:59:03 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Californians are having fewer babies, and that will profoundly affect public policy for years to come. Local and state governments need to start planning now to handle the demographic shift.
In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, California’s birthrate was barely half of what it was two decades before. This wasn’t a sudden, unexpected dip. Rather, it reflects a long-term decline.
Without net in-migration, the low rate will result in population decline over time. Sonoma and Napa counties already have seen a population decrease due to a host of causes, just as California as a whole has experienced a drop in population.
A lower birthrate isn’t necessarily good or bad; it just is. And California needs to prepare for it.
Absent pandemic or war, population growth has been a reasonable assumption historically. Now it isn’t. The lower birthrates California is experiencing will ripple across decades. Even if the birthrate begins to increase again, the current smaller generation will strain existing systems.
There also will be financial consequences for schools and for the state in general. As those young people move into adulthood, the lower number of them will mean less tax revenue unless tax rates increase. Expensive programs created now could become unaffordable in a couple of decades. Lawmakers are loath to eliminate popular programs and benefits.
Meanwhile, the average age of the population will increase. Social services for older Californians will strain state budgets.
None of which is to say that state lawmakers shouldn’t enact new programs or that school systems should start shuttering facilities tomorrow. This isn’t a critical, immediate crisis. It is a slow-burning challenge. Governments at all levels of California ignore it at their and their taxpayers’ own peril.
(Excerpt) Read more at pressdemocrat.com ...
I thought that was why Californians were importing Mexicans. To have the babies they don’t want to have.
The editors are whistling through the graveyard. Loosing half your students, and replacing taxpayers with charity cases bodes poorly immediately, not down the road.
Nope - just one cause: Democrats.
Everyone keep calm.
We probably are gonna scrape the edge of the iceberg, but the Titanic is the greatest ship every built so a minor course adjustment should get it done....
And no, this doesn't bode well for the future - or present time.
There are reasons productive citizens and businesses are fleeing the state in droves.
Socialist utopias never work because what they want goes against human nature. When your goal is equal result (as opposed to equal opportunity) you end up rewarding the takers and punishing the achievers. Where ever this type of society exist the achievers will (if able) leave to find a place where their work is rewarded.
California’s one main problem is that it is a one party state - Democrats. They have rigged the system so that it will remain so as long as they control the ballot box.
California is definitely a type one state.
I preferred our population in 1970, and California was much better then.
“I thought that was why Californians were importing Mexicans. To have the babies they don’t want to have.”
With reshoring and NAFTA many Mexicans are moving back to Mexico because the job prospects are improving. The flood of immigrants across the southern border largely consists of people from other Latin countries, Africa and probably others fleeing collapsing economies at home. Those people won’t stay in Mexico because Mexico won’t allow it. But the US does.
The article really doesn’t address that the developed world’s population is declining because citizens of highly industrialized countries tend to have fewer children as each child requires much more investment. Children on a subsistence farm are free labor and you won’t be sending them off to college or subsidizing their first home, etc. It’s not just California with the problem. California’s problem is that their policies have destroyed the infrastructure corporations need to profit so those corporations have moved away, and their worker base went with them. Change the leadership at the top, get rid of the unelected agencies that make anti-business, anti-human regulations and people will flood back to California.
All great points. True too!
It’s ok though, because millions of Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans are having plenty of babies… in California.
If the population in California is reduced, that could mean that California has enough water to provide for itself.
Until the democrat party realizes they can score more political points with their new imported electorate by promising to cut off retirement benefits to all those old white racists.
“Until the democrat party realizes ...”
You are assuming they are sentient. Not a chance.
Nice post. Something to ponder on.
It isn’t Mexicans anymore. Mexico is just their point of entry from all of the garbage dumps in the world.
Where did all these chickens come from and why are they just roosting around?
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