Following up to our last post on what happens during demographic death spirals there have been a few stories released that help illustrate our point.
The New York Times reports that social security enrollments jumped by 13% from same period last year.
An additional 276,000 people filed for Social Security benefits so far this fiscal year, up 13% from a year ago. Anxiety appears to be a driver.
Based on our tracking, there were a whopping 436,000 additional enrollments in social security. We’ll be publishing our chart later this week.
Many states across America are suffering severe demographic declines. In Pennsylvania, Penn State is shutting campuses across the state due to lack of enrollments largely driven by insufficient population in the region.
From Pennlive.com:
Penn State’s stunning recommendation to close seven of its 20 Commonwealth campuses simply reflects the larger decline of the state it calls home – Pennsylvania.
“Pennsylvania is facing widespread population declines, with rural areas experiencing the most pronounced reductions. Forty-one of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties are facing significant population declines: rural counties are projected to lose 5.8% of their total population by 2050, while urban counties are projected to grow slightly (+4.1%),” the report states.
The ramifications of declining enrollments means once booming college towns are now bust towns and there is nothing readily available to replace it.
From MSN:
For generations, colleges around the U.S. fueled local economies, creating jobs and bringing in students to shop and spend. Growing student enrollment fattened school budgets and freed universities from having to worry about inefficiencies or cutting costs.
The student boom has since ended, and college towns are suffering.
Among metropolitan areas especially reliant on higher education, three-quarters of them suffered weaker economic growth between 2011 and 2023 than the U.S. as a whole, according to an analysis by Mark Muro and Shriya Methkupally at Brookings Metro, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C.
The demographic crisis is real and it’s a problem that largely being ignored but the impacts and reality can’t be ignored any longer. There will be winners and losers in this new demographic paradigm and we’re conducting research on the best way to profit from it.
Stay tuned, stay profitable and stay solvent…