One of the weirdest places I’ve ever visited is Vienna. Amazing old architecture, and a very wealthy and storied city for such a small country. Of course, that was all just the echoes of empire. The strangest part was that everybody was so old — hardly a child to be seen anywhere.
That was Europe 30 years ago. This is America today:
We need more babies. American fertility rates are declining at a record pace. A new Wall Street Journal report citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that fewer births mean less workers to drive the economy and fewer people paying into a tax base to finance benefits for the elderly.
“This is one of the first signs we’re seeing of a real tangible threat to the long term economy,” says Yahoo Finance’s Jeff Macke. The U.S. needs 2.1 children per woman to keep the population stable. In 2013, women were only averaging 1.86. Fewer babies and a declining population means less consumer spending.
Forget what the politicians are trying to sell you. The most important indicator of hope is making a baby.
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