You probably haven’t noticed, but America’s going through an extreme change. In the past few years, America’s fertility rate has begun to drop drastically. As fertility rates decline, older populations are beginning grow. This is a huge problem because while the crude birth rate continues to drop, about 78 million older Baby Boomers are just beginning to retire. The economic burdens for children being born in this generation are twice as high compared to a child born 35 years ago. If this decline continues, the elderly are going to have no one to rely on in the future. We can already see how this has affected elders in East Asia, where the fertility rate is the lowest in the world. In this cartoon, I’m showing a little old man on top of the world all by himself. This cartoon is a prediction of our future, where elders of 60 and over will double between now and 2050, reaching 2 billion! That’s a ton of old people who won’t have anyone to rely on. I think this is important because fertility rate decline isn’t just a problem in America. If we don’t figure out something quickly, not only will our elders suffer, but so will our world.
