The Reasons For The "Millennial Baby Bust" Are Not Difficult To Grasp

A sign of the increasing population times: Traffic on I-25  near Denver. Colorado's population has doubled in the past 25 years. Most of the drivers shown here are Millennials.

True to form, and like a broken clock that's correct twice each day, the WSJ editorial writers did at least get  two things tagged correctly in their editorial ('America's  Millennial Baby Bust',  May 29, p. A14).  Which isn't saying a lot given they addressed about 7 items.  Before examining the major issues they flubbed, let's look at what they got right:

1)"Declining U.S. birth rates are the product of large cultural forces that the federal government can't buy off with subsidies and income transfers."

This is true because too many (upwards of 30 million) would have to be bought off. Facing a $22 trillion national debt such a buyoff simply would not be financially (or politically) feasible.

2) "The evidence from around the world  is that pro-natalist policies can't offset these cultural trends. Singapore's fertility rate has declined since the 1990s to about 1.2 even after decades of government payouts to encourage more children."

The editorial then cites similar stats  from Japan.

Where the editors slid off the rails is when they whined:

"The theory is that it's too expensive to raise children and thus government must subsidize families. The left wants universal child care, paid parental leave, a larger child tax credit.  A faction of the right supports much of that agenda and payments for women who exit the labor force to have children."

First, it IS too expensive for most middle class citizens - millennials or other - to have children. We are talking about $274,000 on average to raise one kid to college graduation stage.   Even to just high school graduation, $220,000 is a conservative estimate.  But the editors conflate two factors here: subsidizing children and parents as a moral decision of a government, and subsidizing baby making.

In a culture in which a never- ending war is fought over abortion it should not be necessary to point out that the "agenda" both of the left (and most of the right) ought to be a no -brainer. That is, only IF a government does do these things can one aver it is seriously interested in tending to the welfare of life AFTER BIRTH..  Then such policies could be seen as real and viable as opposed to the make believe farrago of BS trotted out by Naomi Schaefer Riley in her recent WSJ op-ed "Christians Are Pro-Life After Birth Too.".  Therein citing a few specialized examples of Christian care (i.e. in foster homes, adoptions) as if these constitute universal policies - say paid parental leave, and fully subsidized child care for working parents.

This is important because Rightist Christians, especially the Evangelicals, are among the most belligerent anti-abortion warriors - but among the most miserly in protecting and nurturing life after birth .  So if you as a Christian would have me believe you  are truly "pro life after birth" I want to see you go whole hog in for the higher taxes to support that agenda the WSJ rejects.  And again, this is a separate issue from millennials not having kids.

The biggest reasons for the latter are: 1) the crushing student loan debt, now over $1. 6 trillion and 2) the lack of decent paying jobs to cover (1) as well as afford housing.  In Denver now the median home price is $584,000 and a person (couple) that wants such a home would have to earn at least $90,000 a year to have enough left over - say to raise a kid, pay utilities, groceries, other bills.  In Colorado Springs, the median home price has now spiked to $490,000. Meanwhile, the average employee here in the Springs earns $20.50 an hour.  This isn't even enough to pay for most rents, now averaging just over $1,000 a month.

Now for a personal face on it: A young woman (Hannah Moore) featured in yesterday's Denver Post Business section (p. 1K, 3K) admits she's "worked continuously" since 2007 when she graduated college, and can't afford enough for a mortgage down payment. According to the story:

"About half her income, she calculates, is eaten up by rent, health insurance and student loan payments...of $850 a month."

And Ms. Moore is one of the lucky ones.  At least she can afford to pay off $850 a month in student loan debts. Many can't and either have to settle for a minimum, say $200 a month, or joining a new movement to deliberately default on their accumulated debt.  This will likely wreck their credit forever, or at least long enough to limit their job choice which - even if they get them - will see wages confiscated.

Meanwhile we are informed ('What The Student Loan Debt is Doing To The U.S. Economy'  (June 25, WaPo):

"Researchers need to account for the across the board wage stagnation that's happened since the 1970s."

I'd say it's fairly straightforward if people are willing to open their eyes to the 800 -pound "gorilla" sitting in the room.  That is the explosion in human population. Look, since 1972 the global population has doubled to 7.3 billion and change.  As I pointed out in a previous post (July 3rd), the U.S. population has itself increased by 45 million  since 2000.  Those are 45 million people - hitting age 19 now-   who will need jobs, homes, health care providers, resources - and most of which aren't there.  Colorado alone has doubled its population in 25 years turning our traffic into nightmares (see graphic) and making competition for jobs and homes downright brutal. This state isn't alone, either. Florida has doubled its population twice since 1972.

The results?  The added numbers of job seekers to Colorado represent a supply that can't be accommodated given the kinds of jobs they seek:  mainly IT, MJ specialists or related tech. And they will not take the jobs (especially after graduating with a B.Sc. or B.A.)  that are going begging. Like picking crops of  peaches, strawberries, watermelons or cleaning school gyms.  So, in effect, a large elite labor surplus has been created, from which the tech employers can pick and choose-  and dismiss. 

This upper tier labor surplus ensures corporate employers have zero pressure on them to offer higher wages.   In the words of Adam Gadomski of Aspen Advisers - quoted in one WSJ piece from two years ago-  explaining why so many corporate employers aren't hiring top talent with pay commensurate:

"When companies lament they can't find workers to fill key openings, that is code for: "I can find talent, I just don't want to pay them as much as they cost."


Why would they when they can always find a 'next in line'  (e.g. in the techie labor surplus)  who will accept lower pay, fewer benefits?    Thus the fierce competition for scarce, better quality jobs is ultimately driving many seekers away disheartened.  Because, of course, they can't indefinitely continue to work two jobs - say one at Arby's  and  driving for  Lyft evenings - while paying $1300- 1600 a month rent.

Now, seriously, do you think they can also afford to have kids in this milieu? Of course not.

The home building also isn't keeping pace with the population growth. According to the state demographer Elizabeth Garner, there are fewer new (rental) units than in the past despite the fact that housing construction hasn't picked up since the Great Recession.  According to Garner, quoted in the Denver Post:

"Even though people think we're doing a lot of building it's not as much as they think we are."

The lack of housing, creating a shortage of supply, has radically driven up costs even forcing many who've moved to Denver to now look for housing 67 miles away here in Colorado Springs. So now our housing prices are shooting up too. We regularly receive up to two notices a week from realtors begging to buy our place "on the spot, hard cash".  Of course, we just laugh and tear them up.  As our Springs housing fills up the Denver workers are even being chased as far south as Pueblo to try to find affordable homes . And as they put pressure on the market there with their demand (and again limited supply) the housing prices again shoot up.

Nor is this problem confined to the U.S. As we have recently learned (WSJ, 'Affordable Housing Grows as Global Issue', April 3, p. B5):

"Across 32 major cities around the world, real home prices on average grew 24 % over the past five years, while average real income grew by only 8 percent over the same period."

Too many people!  Add the costs of living (homes, rents, medical care) to the numbers competing for the same limited resources such as lumber (growing ever scarcer) and you have a nightmare, e.g.


Therein, the Earth overshoot (of consumption of planetary resources)  is the basic basis for the "Affordable home bust" as well as the  "Millennial Baby Bust".  And look, don't listen to the Pollyannas  (like Prof. Steven Pinker) because it isn't going to get better.  That much we know.  Barring a massive effort to control births worldwide (no more than 8 b people by 2050)  the resource depletion, crops depletion, wars and extreme inequality that incites them will just keep getting worse.  And the risk of a deadly pandemic like Spanish flu in 1918 culling human  numbers,  also increases.  Which is just a takeoff on Isaac Asimov's theme when he delivered a lecture in Barbados back in 1976,

 i.e. that "if humans can't control their numbers then nature will do it for us."

The formula is straightforward: More humans =   more crowding, more traffic, more CO2 pollution and greenhouse warming, more consumption of water, timber, fuel, and LESS space for other life forms, as well as quality living space to share.  Asimov's conclusion was that Earth's carrying capacity was 3 billion, and we have already surpassed that by 4.3 billion.

The projections now are for at least 10 billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population.   With 2.5 billion more humans set to arrive by 2050 where will the added people go? Where will the affordable homes, or food or medical care - not to mention living space - come from ?  The jobs?  The water?  No one has a clue and that future is barely 30 years away, a literal blink.

Regarding  fresh, potable water, we learned in today's WSJ (p. A8):

"By 2030  demand for water in India will be double the country's supply."

And this is twenty years short of the additional half billion people India will likely have by 2050.

But what do the WSJ editors offer instead of hard analyses? Well, more codswallop and distractions, excuses that fit into their capitalism uber alles narrative.  Writing, for example (ibid.), as another "reason" for the Millennial baby bust:

"More women want to find fulfillment in professional work, a strong social force that won't be mitigated by a monthly check if they stay home."

While such fulfillment can't be summarily dismissed it still only accounts for about 30 percent of the failure to start families.  The much bigger reason-  according to the Fed's and other stats (e.g. from the Economy Policy Inst.)-  is not enough income to purchase an affordable home.  Which can then be traced inexorably to the stiff competition arising from ....you guessed it... too many people competing for the existing homes, jobs.

This leads us to ask why it is that excess population is not given more play in the media.   I offered an answer in my May 11 post from last year when I pointed out:

"The hedge funds and corporations that own the newspapers and run the boards of directors are in thrall to consumption and ever more debt.  If they spilled the beans about too many people already, they'd have to admit to their agenda of not only exploding population and exploding consumption but exploding debt. Already, consumer debt of all types (including student loan debt) in the U.S. has hit $15 trillion.   The increasing debt itself is a pronounced signal that things cannot go on as they are, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/44-trillion-in-deficits-by-2024-minus.html

In an article appearing in `Physics Today' (July, 2004 issue): `Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie', Prof. Albert Bartlett (Univ. of Colorado-Boulder) pinpointed the failure to name human population growth as a major cause of our energy and resource problems.


Bartlett asserted that "their (scientists') general reticence stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect or unpopular to argue for stabilization of population - at least in the U.S. Or perhaps scientists are uncomfortable stepping outside their specialized areas of expertise".

Bartlett himself, in one magnificent lecture, i.e.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA9Hnp3aV4

 Has perhaps given the best reason for this reticence of scientists to speak out: the realization that too few Americans understand the concept of exponential increase which lies at the heart of population increase.  The problem here is that if scientists, e.g. physicists, aren't willing to come forward and call out population growth as a key culprit in our wage stagnation,  planetary degradation and economic morass then few others will.  Interestingly, Bartlett echoes Asimov in his lecture - 17:20 mark on - in noting everything that makes the population problem better are things we are desperate to avoid, i.e. war, disease, famine, accidents, abortion etc.  And all the things that make the population problem worse (more people)  we are for.  (But as he notes, ultimately nature will decide from the former list to limit our numbers if we don't.)

Personally, I suspect another huge reason the Millennials aren't churning out babies is because they relate more intimately to the planetary disruption and damage our numbers have caused. In everything from destroying the oceans, e.g. via warmer temperatures and higher acidification, to the proliferation of plastics, e.g

 To polluting our limited fresh water rivers, lakes and atmosphere.  They know humans are the primary contributor to these and don't wish to add more contributing consumption units.

Bottom line: Millennials are leery of having kids because of the attendant expense. But this is directly a function of the paucity of high paying jobs needed to: a) purchase a house, and b) raise the kid(s).  That in turn is a function of population pressures in whichever locale the person (Millennial or other) chooses to live. Reduce the population pressure and you reduce the competition for high paying jobs which in turn will lead to more youngsters (graduates)  able to get them. That in turn will lead to a better chance to have kids  - at least afford one - and also afford rent or home ownership. In any case no one ought to be having more than one kid, the Earth simply can't afford it. Meaning those of us who share the Earth can't afford to have another intense resource consumer (and polluter)  added to the mix.

If Robots Are Set To Displace Human Workers - We Need To Cut The Population

Again, American (and global) workers are being told two different narratives, only one of which can be true. The first is that there are abundant jobs for those with the necessary talent and who seek to find them. I skewered this balderdash in an earlier post, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-real-reason-too-many-companies-cant.html

Therein I noted  Lauren Weber's investigation  into why so many companies are having a difficult time filling their openings.  What she found was the "companies are reluctant to raise pay, in part to protect their profit margins".  They also prefer right now to have more money set aside to buy back their own shares if it can help their bottom line, increase share prices.  According to managing director of Aspen Advisors, Andrew Gadomski, that is "holding back hiring".   He notes that when companies lament they can't find workers to fill key openings, that is code for:

"I can find talent, I just don't want to pay them as much as they cost."

Also noted was that what employers often viewed as a labor shortage is in reality a retention problem, according to Gadomski. If you are losing workers - chasing better pay or benefits - you have to replace them. 

In the case of Colorado, the so-called job "boom" has largely been exposed as a myth. In last Sunday's Denver Post (p. 1A) we saw and read of the new exodus out of this state because once people arrived to take the promised jobs,  they found they didn't pay enough to allow them to live here. This has forced many talented people - many Millennials - to rent tiny bedrooms as opposed to full apartments. Others have just given up, packed and left to return to their home states.  The other aspect, a nasty one, is the explosion of housing costs in the West (for example) has increased the nation's homeless population to over 534,000. And there's no indication this will lessen anytime soon.

The other narrative is that nearly all repetitive jobs will be replaced very soon. E.g. 

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/11/robots-ai-based-systems-set-to-displace.html

Thus, according to a WSJ  report ('Firms Leave The Bean Counting To The Robots') in the Business and Investing section (p, B5, Oct. 23) AI -based robots will soon be taking over CFO and accounting work across the land, as well as the jobs of "accountants, bank loan officers, and insurance claims adjustors.  Even FORBES now uses an AI system called  'Quill" to pen its articles, so less need for journalists.

Reinforcing the latter narrative is the new finding by McKinsey Global Institute that over the next 13 years 70 million workers in the U.S. will have to find another way to make money. In addition, "technology could replace up to 375 million employees worldwide by 2030". (Denver Post Business, p. 1K, Dec. 3).  Again, we're informed all the jobs at risk involve repetitive tasks -  and the robots at work can already "scan Tylenol bottles and lip balm at the drugstore"   as well as "build pickups and take your grilled cheese orders at Panera Bread." McKinsey estimates that "half the duties workers handle globally could be automated."

What this means, when you boil it down, is there won't be enough paid labor for humans to do given the magnitude of worker displacement via automation. And we know that another third narrative is also false, i.e. that corporations fear regulations more than labor costs. That trope has been exploded so many times it's a wonder it still emerges in debates.   But this could be on account of too many spending excessive time on smartphones as opposed to reading newspapers, or books.

This is also what blows the mega hole into Greg Ip's arguments about "needing more humans to support older workers"  in the aging nations of the world. It also skewers the typical Neolib meme that low birth rates are undermining the global economy.

Here's the real skinny: Ip and his Neolib cohort know damned well the problem can't be solved by more human workers -  because AI systems and robots are already going to take over their jobs by the freaking millions.  There won't be support for social safety nets because you don't pay an AI system or robot. So there is no way to build up any equity or monetary resources to support the aging population - OR the growing workless population. 

This is exactly why - in the 1973 conspiracy thriller 'Executive Action' (based on the novel by Donald Freed and Mark Lane that exposed the real conspirators in the JFK assassination) the featured cabal-   based in Vienna, VA -  wanted to use chemical -based genocide to "reduce a large part of the global populace."  At one point one of the  lead conspirators ("Robert Foster")  puts it to Burt Lancaster's character ("James Farrington") that: "With proper planning we can reduce the population to 500 million by the end of the century. The techniques used there can be used to reduce our own excess population, blacks, poverty prone whites".  See e.g. the clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hevxAt0sUfg 

"Foster's" concern was that the "overflow" mainly in Asia and Africa - had to be eliminated  - or they'd flood into the developed regions of North America and Europe.  Could such a crass and inhuman plan actually transpire? We don't know but the  human numbers projected  by 2030 and then 2050 do not allow much optimism that such a draconian solution might be under consideration by some global elites.   By 2050 we are talking about adding an equivalent population to that inhabiting all of Europe - plus all of sub-Saharan Africa.

Where will the jobs come to occupy all those beings? Where will the food come from to supply all those mouths-bellies? No one has a clue, not really. The so-called "green revolution" is itself basically over on account of the ongoing dilution of the soil.  And climate change will exacerbate all existing agricultural problems and shortages into a permanent nightmare. That's even if the planet can escape the monster fires we've beheld in California.

 A far better solution, in my opinion, is to begin immediately to reduce our human numbers by widespread, artificial birth control. o not let those numbers explode into a jobless, destitute future that might trigger the response of madmen and elitist thugs like "Robert Foster". A fictional character in a novel, true. But if you don't believe there aren't actual elites that exist right now with that conspiratorial mentality, you definitely have been spending too much time watching boxing kitties on Youtube.

Apart from the worst case scenario of a planned genocide, people need to grasp that by reproducing to appease a warped economic system they are merely perpetuating gross economic inequality by helping to sustain a vast pool of surplus labor. As Marx showed (and anyone with a brain can figure out- except perhaps the Catholic birth control dogmatists) surplus labor translates into lowest common denominator conditions and endless scarcity. It can never be  a recipe for upliftment, societal  improvement or even balancing the needs of an existing, aging populace.

The other solution, of course, would be to implement a universal basic income (UBI) - which would entail laying away trillions for that purpose starting now.  But the bugbear there is that the nations that might be able to afford it are saddled with monstrous debt.   For example, U.S. debt - set to reach over 20 trillion by the time the new spending bill is agreed on, is nearly 77 percent of GDP. 

Meanwhile, Europe is printing euros like there's no tomorrow, and debt - especially in nations like Spain, Portugal and Greece, piling up to unprecedented levels.  Then there is the Bank of Japan which has printed over 13.3  trillion yen   The Fed in the U.S. has done its own form of printing money by way of "quantitative easing", purchasing over $4 trillion in the bond market.

All of these signals in tandem show the instability of the global debt crisis and no one who looks into these can remain complacent.

It also shows that the solution of a UBI to help workers displaced by robots is a pure pipedream. It will never come to pass, especially with a preponderance of deficit hawks skulking around right now - who are just rubbing their mitts together and drooling waiting for the deficits to explode with this Reeptard tax bill.  Then they can go full throttle to suck every last remaining drop of blood from the social safety net. 

The solution is clear: our global population needs to be cut- and radically by 2030. If not,  either in Isaac Asimov's immortal words  "nature will cut it for us" (say by an Avian flu  pandemic or airborne Ebola) or the hidden powers that be might consider doing so - as portrayed in the Executive Action movie, and seen in the clip.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/phil-rockstroh/76622/capitalism-s-failure-of-the-flesh-the-rise-of-the-robots

Excerpt:

"Capitalists crave to replace workers with an automated labor force. The parasitic breed has always viewed workers as flesh machines, of whom, they were inconvenienced by having to pay wages. Capitalism is, by its very nature, dehumanizing. From the advent of the industrial/capitalist epoch, the system has inflicted mass alienation, societal atomization, and anomie. Moreover, the vast wealth inequity inherent to the system allows the capitalist elite to own the political class — a mindless clutch of flunkies who might as well be robots programmed by the capitalist order to serve their agendas."