The U.S. Population in 2024 is Expected to Grow by 1 Person About Every 24 Seconds

The world's population grew by more than 75 million people last year. The global population is likely to even out in the coming decades and then potentially even to start to decline. Rachel Franklin at Newcastle University in England says, “At least for a few decades, we'll have a lot of older people supported by sort of a narrower foundation of those who are in the labor force.”

As countries become more prosperous, their birthrates tend to drop. Many countries already produce fewer than the 2.1 babies that we generally say are required in order to maintain a population size. Fewer people might consume fewer resources and contribute less to climate change. Read more from NPR here.