We're Having Babies Again!
Seems people stopped having babies when the Great Recession struck. But now they're back at it, according to Sabrina Tavernise at The New York Times. "The sharp decline in the country’s fertility rate during the economic downturn has come to an end, federal data show, as an improving economy encouraged Americans to resume having babies," she writes. But if I'm reading this right, it's not like our population grew in leaps and bounds. Instead, the number of babies born in the United States in 2012 remained flat, but it was the first time in five years that the number did not significantly decline, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, as Tavernise reports. "The leveling off capped a 9 percent decline in the fertility rate from 2007 to 2011, a drop that demographers say began after the recession took hold and Americans started feeling less secure about their economic circumstances," she notes. The decline “has come pret...