May 30 • 21M

Elon Musk, Fertility, and Decreasing Populations

Maybe future taxpayers won't show up

Mary Pat Campbell
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Public finance, pensions, mortality trends from the perspective of Meep (Mary Pat Campbell), a life-annuity actuary. Less frequent topics: data visualization, actuarial politics, literature, opera, and sumo.
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Elon Musk tweets:

Twitter avatar for @elonmuskElon Musk @elonmusk
USA birth rate has been below min sustainable levels for ~50 years
Image

May 24th 2022

23,080 Retweets

The Total Fertility Rate graph:

Image

Musk’s followup:

Twitter avatar for @elonmuskElon Musk @elonmusk
Contrary to what many think, the richer someone is, the fewer kids they have. I am a rare exception. Most people I know have zero or one kid.

May 24th 2022

9,533 Retweets

Musk has had 8 children, one of who died in infancy. Six of the children with his first wife. He had no children with his second wife (also divorced). And two children with ex-girlfriend.

Census population change estimates

This won’t embed on substack, alas. I will simply show you a few screenshots and you have to go over there for the interactivity.

Here is the Census link:

How is Population Shifting in Cities or Towns in Your State?

Related story: The Center Square - Census: Illinois cities combined lose 104,000 people in 2021