Wall Street Journal: “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the population growing from 349 million this year to 364 million in 2056, and then starting to shrink. A year ago, the CBO projected the U.S. would reach 372 million people in 30 years; in September, it cut that forecast to 367 million.”
“The slowdown reflects the aging population, declining fertility, and President Trump’s immigration policies. The U.S. has come to rely on immigration as an important source of growth. Deaths are expected to exceed births in 2030; in September, the CBO had projected this could start by 2031.”
Fertility rate: The total fertility rate has fallen to around 1.6–1.8 children per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1, and major forecasters expect it to remain below replacement for decades.
Aging: Rising life expectancy and the large baby‑boomer cohort moving into older ages mean deaths will climb, and deaths are projected to exceed births (“negative natural increase”) around the 2030s–2040s, absent offsetting forces. In fact, analysts now consider it plausible that the U.S. could see its first year of outright population decline as soon as the 2020s, if low fertility coincides with fragile or negative net immigration.
Immigration: Aggressive immigration crackdowns and fewer foreign students and workers are now a central reason growth is being revised down; CBO lowered its 10‑year population projection by about 7 million due mainly to lower net migration assumptions.
