[frnkng]

Quote from the article:

“ Last year, the Census Bureau projected that the U.S. population would peak around 2080 and head into a continuous decline thereafter.”

The census bureau has to make those projections because they are supposed to do that. But that projection is most likely so inaccurate that it is not worth the paper it is printed on.

[igor47]

Why do you say that? Demographics is a fairly well understood field. Can you point to other moments when such forecasts have been wildly inaccurate?

[dragonwriter]

So. 2100 (the end of year of the projection that peaks in 2080 and declines thereafter) is 77 years forward from last year, so we'd need to look at projections of current population from 1947 or so to gauge past similar projections.

The Census wasn't so bold then, but we can look at, say, the 1964 projections of population out to 2010 (only 46 years rather than 77 years out), which rather than a single projection had four “Series”, with the highest projection at 437,578,000 in 2010,and the lowest 321,916,000 and the midpoint between the two intermediate projections at about 375,000,000.

Actual US population in the 2010 census was 308,745,538. (And the projection missed significantly high despite all series using projections of increased life expectancy that were way below what was actually acheived and fixed immigration assumptions that were wat below the levels reached in even the 1970s, mich less the even higher levels reached later in the period; far more than 100% of the error was getting fertility estimates wrong.)

Now, a challenge for you: show a similar population projection to the 77 year Census estimate that proved reasonably accurate.

[RGamma]

Black death? Post-WW2?