What To Expect When No One's Aspect Chapter Summary

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What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: Critical Analysis When I first began reading this book, some of the issues and problems that the author, Jonathan V. Last, presented about our country’s fertility rate, I found quite surprising. For example, in the section of the first chapter where Last writes about the history of the U.S. fertility rate he states that in 1800 during the first census the fertility rate for white Americans was 7.04, and 7.90 for black Americans in 1850. As America grew older as a nation the fertility rate began to decline for both whites and blacks. Today the average fertility rate in the U.S. is 1.93, less than 2.1 which, Last calls the “golden number.” One of his arguments on why our country is in trouble from this drop of the fertility rate below 2.1 is, as the baby boom population moves from the workforce into retirement we won’t have enough people in the workforce to replenish the funds of Social Security and Medicaid that these retirees are…show more content…
I became even more shocked when I read what he believes what will happen to our countries social welfare programs based on the effect of a declining birth rate. He states, how American workers will pay more money into these programs as the baby boomer generation phases out of the work force and into retirement. Although I agree with this theory however, what I don’t agree on is his solution to this problem. He believes that Americans should have more children to raise the fertility rate therefore creating more workers to pay into social programs. I believe instead of trying to convince Americans to have more babies we should fix the foundation of these programs, so that every American doesn’t feel obligated to have a child and it remains a guilt free

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