I’ve been ruminating about this lately so I thought I’d put the subject on the floor. What will the United States be like in 2050? Here’s what I think.
In 2050 the United States will be a country of 400 million people. Demographically 45% of Americans will be of primarily European descent, 30% of primarily Hispanic descent (mostly Meso-American), 15% of African descent, with the balance West Asian, South Asian, or other.
The United States will still have a larger GDP than any other country on the planet. I won’t even venture a guess as to what that might be. China’s population will have already peaked and be declining. India will be the largest country in the world with a population of something in the vicinity of 2.5 billion, many of them poor.
The United States will also remain the world’s foremost military power. We’ll spend $400-500 billion (in 2015 dollars—I won’t even guess what that will be in 2050 dollars) on our military. Nobody else wants the job.
In some ways American urban areas will resemble those of France today—substantial gentrified inner cities surrounded by large banlieus of poor people, mostly in multi-family dwellings. Miles and miles of them. Outside these banlieus will be prosperous suburbs. Most Americans will live and work in the suburbs.
Probably three-quarters of today’s Baby Boomers will be deceased but there will still be more people over the age of 80 than at any time during America’s history. They will be disproportionately well-to-do and disproportionately white. Some Baby Boomers will still be working.
The Americans of 2050 will still work for their livings and most will still have jobs. There will be lots of robots but they won’t be doing as much as today’s sciencefictioneers think they will. I have no idea how people will earn their livings in 2050.
Much more will be the same as it is now than will be different. The America of 2050 will be just about as much like today as today is like 1980 and considerably more like today than the America of 1965 was like the America of 1930.
We’ll still be driving automobiles. There may be lanes set aside for autonomous vehicles but humans won’t have been excluded from the roads.
We’ll probably still be arguing about the same things.
Just watched Snowpiercer on your recommendation. That was an awful lot of work for a polar bear to get a fresh meal.
I agree with you except I would give greater weight to the increasing Hispanic population. Have lots of kids, work hard, and despite what president Trump says, he will not round them up and send them back. To continue, as the Hispanics gain greater numbers and political power, they will be less concerned about the plight of immigrants from far places than comfortable Whites are. My guess , Getten browner.
This may be because I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout 4, but I’m predicting nuclear apocalypse.
Gray Shambler:
My prediction is that Hispanics will increase from their present 17% of the total population to 30% in just 35 years. I’m not sure how much “greater weight” I could give them.
As to what political influence they’ll have it’s hard to tell. The history of these things in the United States is that new immigrants retain the political views they held in the old country and that persists for many generations. The Swedes are still progressives. The Irish are still machine politicians.
I don’t know enough about Mexican politics to speculate on what political views the Mexican immigrants have brought with them and will impart to their children. It might just be to remain unengaged.
In fact after recalculating my prediction assumes net in-migration of Hispanics. It’s very unlikely for Hispanics to reach that 30% by 2050 otherwise.
And that would call the “majority minority” hypothesis into question as well. If net out-migration of Hispanics continues, things are going to look quite a bit different than I think many immigration activists are expecting.
You may be right about all of the economic and demographic issues, but I think there’s tremendous change afoot in the social order. I’m basically raising kids that span a generation (oldest is 21, middle is 15 and youngest is 5.) All three went to (or currently enrolled in) our district public elementary school, which has been a top rated school that used to have a high degree of parental involvement. That hasn’t completely changed but it’s pared down to a core group of parents volunteering a lot of time. I’m shocked by the number of kids in my youngest child’s class being raised in single parent or blended families (many of which include troubled teen step-siblings.) When my oldest was in kindergarten, most of her peers had married parents and of course a fraction of those families experienced divorce later but it was maybe 20%. Now it’s more the norm.
I don’t know exactly how this all plays out, but it feels like the nuclear family is disintegrating pretty rapidly.