Some Good News for Our Country

Last year witnessed what experts refer to as a "Baby Boomlet"...a year that experienced a burst in childbirth nationwide, regardless of race or age. In other words, something's in the water.

According to ABC News:

"Americans like children. We are the only people who respond to prosperity by saying, `Let's have another kid,"' said Nan Marie Astone, associate professor of population, family and reproductive health at Johns Hopkins University.

Demographers say it is too soon to know if the sudden increase in
births is the start of a trend."We have to wait and see. For now, I would
call it a noticeable blip," said Brady Hamilton, a statistician with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Demographers often use the word boomlet for a small and brief baby boom.

To many economists and policymakers, the increase in births is good news. The U.S. fertility rate — the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime — reached 2.1. That's the "magic number" required for a population to replace itself.

Countries with much lower rates — such as Japan and Italy, both with a rate of 1.3 — face future labor shortages and eroding tax bases as they fail to reproduce enough to take care of their aging elders.

I'm happy to oblige.

For more on the story, click HERE.