This article challenges the Ben Wattenberg view that Social Security solvency in the US is related to population growth. Population growth would only delay the problem and future sustainability and aggravate demographic and environmental conditions. The Social Security Trust Fund needs a remedy before 2013 and 2032. Revenues will only pay for 70-77% of benefits paid out to the elderly. Population size would need to increase by an additional 200 million to reach 600 million by 2050 in order to balance the ratio of workers to elderly. In 2013, 22.2% of immigrants and 19.1% of native population will be aged 65 years and older. The author shows population projections to 2050 to show the impact of increased immigration and a 4:1 ratio of working age to elderly persons. The pace of growth and the size of the growth would strain social resources, management ability, and infrastructure. Immigrants' low wages would not satisfy the trust income deficit. A doubling of the immigrant labor force by 2040 would also require an additional capital investment of over $20 trillion for equipment and training. The tripling of new immigrants since 1995 could increase immigration of aged parents. Solvency may be reached through policy shifts that would encourage more women to work for longer periods, eliminate pronatalist taxes, limit immigration to under 200,000 yearly, deter non-self-sufficient, unproductive immigrants, restrict immigration of those aged over 50 years, end evasion of Social Security taxes in the informal economy, charge user fees for sponsorship or employment of foreign workers, and deny retirement credits for those ineligible to work in the US. Policies should allow seniors to work.
While there are some recent indications that fertility rates are beginning to decline, the current composite for most of the less-developed world is still nearly 4.1, double that needed for zero population growth. Only about 20% of the current world population (about 1.2 billion people) could be said to have a generally adequate standard of living, defined here as something approximating that of industrialized Western Europe, Japan, or North America. The other 80% (approximately 4.5 billion), incorporating most of the inhabitants of the developing nations, live in conditions ranging from mild deprivation to severe deficiency. Assertions that the earth might be able to support a population of 10, 15, or even 20 billion for an indefinite period of time at a standard of living superior to the present one are demonstrably false and misleading. It is therefore necessary to confront the inescapable fact that human numbers will have to be reduced by 80% or more, from the all-but-inevitable 9-11 billion in the mid-21st century to something approaching 2 billion by the end of the 22nd century, some 200 years from now. If it is indeed inevitable that global population size is destined to reach 10-12 billion within the next half century, even efforts to reach a somewhat larger optimum population in the 4-5 billion range would still require a very significant decrease in human numbers, roughly on the order of 60%. In pragmatic terms, the initial stabilization and subsequent 80% reduction in human numbers suggested earlier could be brought about with relative ease by establishing a worldwide average fertility rate of approximately 1.5-1.7 over the next several generations lasting well into the 22nd century at least.
Mid-term, the Clinton administration has done well on international population assistance measured against the Reagan-Bush years, but not so well with regard to the needs of developing countries. With regard to US population growth, the administration has done virtually nothing and may not realize that a problem exists. A serious domestic population problem does, however, exist. The US population grew from 76 million in 1900 to 262 million in 1995, with 43% of that growth due to post-1900 immigrants and their descendants. A conservative projection with some decline in immigrants' fertility leads to a population of 397 million in 2050 and 492 million in 2100, 91% of that growth due to post-2000 immigrants and their descendants. The US is already suffering environmental pressures generated by population growth. In this context, the author argues that US population growth and immigration should be central issues in government policy making. Possibilities for the rest of Clinton's term must now be judged in the context of Republican victories in November 1994 and the adjustments Democrats will make as they work to regain lost ground.
The draft Programme of Action to be discussed at the UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo is not about population and development, but about women and related agendas, supporting the various family forms (which promote population growth), and incalculable amounts of funding to increase the breadth of goals (e.g., more funding to improve the quality of life in cities). It does little to link those goals with global population growth. The US Department of State supports the militant feminists' agenda, which is for money to be directed to women's advancement activities rather than to direct population programs. Their reasoning is that women will achieve the socially desirable fertility level if they have unimpeded freedom of choice. The Vatican, which opposes birth control and abortion, is chastising the women's groups and the population movement. The US government has shifted its position to accommodate the militant feminists. It is not listening to bioscientists, demographers, and others who might have mellowed the advocacy approach. The draft Programme of Action has no population goals, which are needed to operate a population program. The US government should call for meeting unmet needs for contraception, expansion of family planning facilities and services in developing countries, and reinstatement of goals in the international population dialogue. It should also continue efforts to persuade developing country leaders of the importance of the population issue and of incentives and disincentives. Its first priority should be population, followed by development assistance to maternal and child health services coordinated with family planning services.
US population at present growth rates will approach 400 million and maybe pass 500 million by year 2050. Population growth may, however, be reduced by lowering fertility and/or reducing immigration flows. The author opens with the argument that President Bill Clinton should follow ex-President Nixon's recommendation to establish a national goal of providing adequate family planning services for all who want them and notes early efforts to affect population policy in the US. The National Commission on Population Growth and the American Future concluded in 1972 that the government should establish a long-term strategy to monitor demographic, resource, and environmental trends; reform government archaic organizations in anticipation of growing urbanization; adopt a national, publicly funded, volunteer program to reduce unwanted fertility, improve pregnancy outcomes, and improve child health; and forcibly limit immigration. These recommendations were shelved, but certainly warrant consideration and adoption two decades later. A less pointed Global 2000 Report was present to President Carter in 1980. Environmentalist groups began to address population in the late 1970s and 1980s, with eighteen environmental organizations joining forces in 1988 to develop the Blueprint for the Environment as a guide for the incoming US administration. The author describes the views of these groups on US population and stresses the need for them to lobby on population. Potential approaches are suggested.
