California Demographers Forecast Population To Stagnate By 2060

Elon Musk was right when he told a Wall Street Journal forum in 2021: “One of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and rapidly declining birthrate.”

The billionaire has since encouraged the public to make more babies as concerns of a population collapse or “Demographic Winter” mount.

In a tweet in late March, Musk said that the US would face consequences due to a declining birth rate and that “Japan is a leading indicator.”

Big reckoning coming due to low birth rate. Japan is a leading indicator.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 31, 2023

“Population collapse is a major risk to the future of civilization,” the billionaire entrepreneur tweeted. 

Musk’s comments should not surprise readers — as we’ve explained over the years, the Western world was already stumbling into a Demographic Winter.

In a more in-depth view of America’s Demographic Winter, we focus on a new report from California demographers who warn that the state’s population might plateau in the coming decades. 

The California Department of Finance released a startling report about its forecasted total population of the state will be around 39.5 million people in 2060 — or about the same level as it’s currently. State demographers were projecting 45 million just three years ago — and a decade ago, these folks were expecting a surge in population to 53 million. 

A combination of a higher-than-normal death rate, a declining birthrate, a fall in international migration, and a flow of Californians moving to other states sent the total population down to 38.94 million in 2022, or minus 138,400 people, the first annual decline in more than a century. 

“You don’t have those people, and those people don’t have kids,” Andres Gallardo, a demographer who works for the state government, told Bloomberg. He said this report is the first time California’s long-term population forecast has flatlined. 

Even though California remains the nation’s most populous state, the economic impact of stagnating total population will mean municipalities will likely need help balancing their budgets.