U.S. Population On Track for 1.182 Billion

By Charles Breiterman
Wednesday, August 26, 2009, 12:40 AM

In the year 2000, the United States Bureau of the Census issued three population projections for the United States. To the best of my knowledge, these are the most recent projections that go up to the year 2100:

Year Middle Series Lowest Series Highest Series Zero Immigration
2009 297,436 290,018 307,060 286,322
2100 570,954 282,706 1,182,390 377,444

So, on which trajectory do we find ourselves? The Highest Series.

The Census Bureau's "Highest Series" projected the population of the United States would be 307,060,000 on July 1, 2009.

So, what did it turn out to be? The Census Bureau now estimates that we hit 307,070,000 people as of that date. That means we are almost precisely on the Highest Series trajectory. And that means we are on track for a population of 1.182 billion persons in the year 2100. For comparison, India currently has a population of 1.16 billion, and China 1.3 billion.

The United States reached a replacement level fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman in the year 1972.

The majority of population growth since 1972 has been due to post-1970 immigrants and their descendants. They will account for nearly all of our population growth the rest of this century. Not that immigrants are bad people, but they tend to come from cultures where the women have a lot of children. The United States is on track to add its next 100 million people faster than any nation in the world except for Pakistan and India.1 The U.S. population for the year 2100 in a scenario where immigration is halted (the “zero migration seriesâ€