Population Balm
The (horribly ugly) Census Bureau HQ, Suitland, MD
Oh, dear. Yet another reason to worry about Vermont: It’s barely growing.
In the year ending last July 1, the state’s population had grown by a mere 711 people, according to the latest estimates from the Census Bureau. Worse (or so it seems), that meager growth came about only because births outnumbered deaths, not because people moved into the state. In fact, 554 more Vermonters moved out than newcomers moved in.
Come to think of it, the births didn’t outnumber the deaths by much. Compared to folks in most other states, Vermonters aren’t having many babies.
What are we doing wrong?
Well, to start with, maybe taking stories like this too seriously.
Or at least by taking them as entirely bad news. A stable population does present certain problems. But it also presents opportunities, a possibility unmentioned in the media coverage of the Census Bureau’s announcement last week.
No, there is no suggestion here that the journalists and/or their bosses were in any way unethical, lazy, or ignorant. To begin with, the reporters doing the stories may simply have been rushed; what with all the layoffs, there aren’t enough of them to do the job right. At worst, they followed the conventional – and somewhat provincial – wisdom: Bigger is better, meaning not getting bigger is worse; also whatever happens here doesn’t happen anywhere else, or if it does we don’t care.
Thus both the Burlington Free Press story by Matt Sutkoski and the Associated Press story that ran in the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus noted that three states actually lost population last year, but mentioned only Vermont’s net domestic in-out-migration loss, either last year or over the course of the decade, as though it illustrated an unusual situation.
(Actually, over the decade, 3.877 more people moved into Vermont than out of it. It was just net domestic migration – people moving to and from another state – that fell, by 1,124. Immigrants from other countries made up the difference)
But the Census Bureau data show that more Americans moved out of than into 13 other states, including California, over the last decade, and 20 had more domestic out-migration than in-migration in the year ending July 1.
In fact, in many states, including such recently fast-growing places as Nevada and Florida, the total net out-migration – whether to another state or another country – was far greater than Vermont’s, even proportionately to their larger populations. What’s happening here does not appear to be all that unusual.
Nor baffling, By not growing in population, Vermont is very much ike the people and places with whom and with which it is comparable. Those people are American-born non-Hispanic whites, and there are not going to be more of them – anywhere –in the future than there are now.
According to another recently-released Census Bureau report, were it not for immigration (referring here only to immigration from other countries), the population of the United States would decline by 2050. Being far from the centers of immigration (mostly Latin America) and not too inviting to those immigrants (largely because of the weather) Vermont is likely to remain dominated by boring white Anglos, precisely the kind of folks who don’t do much reproducing.
Worse (from the perspective of those who think population growth is necessary), Vermont is disproportionately full of relatively affluent, relatively well-educated boring white Anglos. People like that aren’t reproducing enough to replace themselves all over the world. There’s little reason to suppose that the Vermonters among them are about to act much differently.
Meaning they might as well get used to living in a state with a stable population. It looks as though it’s here to stay.
As the conventional, established, reaction to the news indicated, a non-growing population raises some potential problems. At the Free Press, reporter Sutkoski quite sensibly contacted a conventional, established, business consultant, Richard Heaps of Northern Economic Consulting, Inc, who provided the conventional, established, analysis.
“Conventional, established,” here is description, not insult. Much of what Heaps said should not be dismissed. Slow population growth means slow growth in the labor force, he noted, which in turn “means it’s tougher to expand a business in Vermont than it would be otherwise,” so some businesses might expand elsewhere.
So they might. On the other hand, with a smaller labor force, a state wouldn’t need that many job openings to maintain full employment. A small, select, fully employed work force would seem to be the hallmark of a prosperous state, unless one assumes that bigger is always richer.
But were that the case, a big, heavy, bicycle would cost more than a very light one. It uses more material and probably requires more workers to build it. As everyone knows, though, the opposite is the case: the lightweight bike costs much more, its value enhanced by the intelligence that figured out how to make it so light.
What was missing from the coverage was some reaction from less conventional experts who might have pointed out the possible advantages of a stable population, or at least the reasons why it need not be inconsistent with greater prosperity. Because only a holiday and the weekend have passed since those stories appeared, no such expert will be quoted here, either. For future reference, though, one might try the folks at Worldwatch Institute, or economist Herman Daly. Their outlook need not be accepted as revealed truth; it might be part of the conversation.
Because the earth is finite. Human inventiveness can expand the limits imposed by that finitude, and it has. But it can only do so up to a point. The contention that the point is approaching or has been reached is not easily dismissed.
Meaning that the country, city, or state that can show the world how to get richer and happier without getting much more populous could get very rich indeed.
(NOTE: Yes, if you thought you remembered that last Monday’s post indicated that this one would deal with state tax matters, you remembered correctly. Come back Wednesday.
And to repeat: No post this Friday morning. Enjoy your hangovers.)
Tags: population, Richard Heaps
December 28th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Thanks for this.
As you pointed out, there’s a lot wrong with the coverage of this issue. Here are a few other issues not addressed by the reporters or the consultant quoted in the article.
1. The idea that we will have difficulty filling “jobs” assumes that all of the people who have “jobs” are employees. This is mistaken and ignores the fact that a significant number of the people who work in VT are sole proprietors and/or partners. These figures are reported separately and are rarely combined with “jobs” figures. Rather than bemoaning the supposed difficulty of filling “jobs”, we should acknowledge that many in-migrants bring their jobs with them. Indeed, VT is near the top in the number of new jobs per new residents.
2. VT’s comparatively strong dependence on small establishments (1 – 9 workers) is an advantage because many of the founders / owners come here for the quality of life. That means they’re less likely to leave to find cheap labor like the large establishments that tend to leave the country and eliminate huge numbers of jobs.
3. As you noted, the articles failed to provide more than cursory context. It is common for such pieces to focus almost exclusively on VT instead of putting our experience in perspective. That allows naysayers to claim VT is bad (“anti-business”) and other states are better, although no evidence is presented to substantiate that.
4. Concerns over population growth and economic development have been fueled by Mssrs. Woolf & Heaps for several years. But their findings are somewhat suspect and not without a purpose. To fix the (misdiagnosed) problem, they argue for lower taxes in order to attract more businesses. This is advocacy rather than objective analysis. [We are all advocates to some extent but mainstream media tend to present such information as undisputed fact.]
For example, there really is no shortage of bodies. There are thousands of Vermonters who are not technically in the labor force but who are able & willing to work. Some would move into the work force if wages were higher. It’s econ 101 and is called the market clearing rate. If you pay them, they will come. One needs only to look at wages for skilled occupations in NYC & Boston to understand (part of the reason) why so many younger people leave (although many come back once they’ve established careers).
Moreover, Woolf & Heaps routinely cite population figures that ignore those from 65 – 70. In fact, a growing percentage of that age cohort works (a third of men and a quarter of women). [Note: The reasons some of them work suggests a failure of our social safety net but that's another story.] This is important because that’s an age cohort that is growing, not shrinking.
The fact that the stories failed to offer other views is bad journalism and a disservice to readers. I agree that staff cuts have made the task more difficult but the default setting for such stories is and has been to call Art & Dick and call it a day. Some reporters have sought “balance” and sometimes call me or others with different views but not all the time.
What you’ve described is just one example of a larger problem. Is it any wonder so many people hold views that mirror those espoused by Jim Douglas (echoing the Chamber, Woolf & Heaps, the Tax Foundation, etc.)? Almost everything they hear or read is narrowly framed and not countered with other information. It makes it very difficult to have serious discussions about policy when so much time is spent disabusing people of the misleading “facts” they’ve come to accept as received wisdom.
Finally, your comments about limits to growth are important. It’s not only the “bigger is better” mantra but the “business as usual” aspect. That is, most economic development practitioners look to find a way for VT to fit into the larger picture even though the system leaves us terribly vulnerable. We could “grow” just as easily by figuring out how to be less dependent and (re)gain some control over our future. That means maximizing the value of the resources we have, including people. I wonder how many gubernatorial candidates will support approach.
December 28th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I’m glad you’re familiar with Herman Daly. Its about time there was an honest discussion about the fundamentals of neoclassical economics. The growth is good assumption is probably the most tacitly accepted phenomenon in our political economy and is probably the most illogical considering ecological constraints… And Doug, I read your comments all the time at GMD and here and I can’t tell you how many times I have referenced points you’ve made with regard to VT economics. We need more economists like yourself.