More Americans Will Die Than Be Born in 2030, CBO Predicts—Making Immigration the Only Source of Population Growth

‎For the first time in contemporary U.S. history, the nation is approaching a moment when deaths will surpass births, signaling a profound demographic turning point.

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‎A new Demographic Outlook released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) identifies 2030 as the year when America’s “natural” population growth—defined as births minus deaths—disappears entirely. This shift is expected to have far-reaching effects on both the economy and society.

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‎The Congressional Budget Office predicts that by 2030, deaths will outnumber births in the U.S., leaving immigration as the only source of population growth and reshaping the economy.

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‎The CBO explains that immigration will increasingly become the primary contributor to population growth as fertility rates continue to fall. Beginning in 2030, the agency projects that the annual number of deaths will exceed the number of births. Without immigration, the U.S. population would start to decline that same year.

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‎Once this threshold is crossed, all future population increases will stem from immigration alone. This demographic reality has traditionally been associated with aging nations such as Japan and Italy, making its arrival in the United States especially notable.

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‎What stands out is not only the implication of a rapidly aging population, but also how quickly this scenario is expected to unfold. As recently as last year, many forecasts—including earlier CBO estimates—suggested this crossover would not occur until the late 2030s or even the 2040s. The updated projection accelerates the timeline by nearly ten years.

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‎According to the CBO, this faster shift is the result of a “double squeeze”: declining birth rates combined with an aging population, alongside recent changes in immigration policy. Analysts now expect the total fertility rate to stabilize at 1.53 births per woman, significantly below the 2.1 births needed to maintain a stable population. Meanwhile, the large Baby Boomer generation is entering age brackets with higher mortality, driving up annual death totals.

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‎The demographic outlook was further influenced by the 2025 Reconciliation Act. The legislation boosted funding for additional ICE agents and immigration judges to speed up case processing, leading to an average of about 50,000 immigrants held in detention each day through 2029. The CBO estimates these measures will result in approximately 320,000 fewer people in the U.S. population by 2035 than previously projected.

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‎Looking ahead, the CBO expects overall population growth to continue slowing for decades, eventually reaching zero in 2056. This represents a dramatic shift from much of the 20th century, when the U.S. population expanded at nearly 1% annually.

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‎The economic implications of this transformation are substantial. As the number of retirees grows, the workforce supporting social programs and providing care for older Americans is shrinking. People aged 65 and older now make up the fastest-growing segment of the population, sharply increasing the old-age dependency ratio. In 1960, there were roughly five workers for every retiree. Today, the ratio is closer to three workers per retiree, and by the mid-2050s, the CBO expects it to fall to about two-to-one.

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‎This contraction is expected to place significant strain on the federal budget, particularly on Social Security and Medicare. These programs rely heavily on payroll taxes, which become harder to sustain with a stagnant or shrinking population.

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‎Additionally, since gross domestic product largely depends on the size of the workforce and worker productivity, slower labor force growth means future economic expansion will depend heavily on productivity gains. As previously reported, weak job growth in December suggested what KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk described as a “jobless expansion,” indicating that technological advances and artificial intelligence may need to shoulder much of the burden for future growth.