U.S. Population Change

Guest: Steve Murdock, PhD, Sociologist at Rice University and Former Director of the US Census Bureau  In his final State of the Union Address last night, President Obama laid out the reasons why we should be optimistic about where the country is headed. The United States, right now, he said, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.  President Obama went on to mention increased automation, global competition, stagnant wages and an increasing gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the population.  In the next fifty years, the United States will grow larger and more diverse, but we’ll also become poorer and less-educated as a nation. That will make us less competitive with other countries unless we address the factors dragging us down. Do nothing and Steve Murdock says we’re on a path to “inevitable socio-economic decline.”