U.S. births fell a little in 2025, according to newly posted provisional data.
Slightly over 3.6 million births have been reported through birth certificates, or about 24,000 fewer than in 2024. The decline seems to confirm predictions by some experts, who doubted a 22,250-birth increase in 2024 marked the start of an upward trend.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its provisional birth data late last week, filling in two months of missing data and offering the first good look at last year’s tally.
The posted numbers account for nearly all of the babies born in 2025, according to the CDC. Data is still being compiled and analyzed, but the final tally might only add “a few thousand additional births,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees birth and death tracking at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Experts say people are marrying later and also worry about their ability to have the money, health insurance and other resources needed to raise children in a stable environment.
Last year, the Trump administration took steps to encourage more births, like issuing an executive order meant to expand access to and reduce costs of in vitro fertilization and backing the idea of “baby bonuses” that might encourage more couples to have kids.
So far, only the number of births are available — and not birth rates and other information that can give insights into who is having babies.
For example, although births increased in 2024 over the year before, the fertility rate actually fell, noted Karen Guzzo, a family demographer at the University of North Carolina.
The fertility rate is a statistic describing whether each generation has enough children to replace itself — about 2.1 kids per woman. It has been sliding in America for close to two decades as more women wait longer to have children or don’t have kids at all.
For 2025, “I wouldn’t expect birth or fertility rates to have risen; I would expect them to fall because childbearing is highly related to economic conditions and uncertainty,” Guzzo said in an email.
Also, most of the births in 2025 would have been children conceived in 2024, when people were worried about affordability and political polarization, she added.
As a general trend, U.S. births and birth rates have been falling for years. They dropped in 2020, then rose for two straight years after that, an increase experts partly attributed to pregnancies put off amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 2% drop in 2023 put U.S. births at fewer than 3.6 million, the lowest one-year tally since 1979.
For the first time in modern history, the United States is on the brink of losing its most basic engine of growth: more births than deaths.
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) Demographic Outlook, released Tuesday, the year 2030 marks a tipping point that will fundamentally reshape the economy and social fabric. That’s the year the “natural” U.S. population—the balance of births over deaths—is projected to vanish.
“Net immigration (the number of people who migrate to the United States minus the number who leave) is projected to become an increasingly important source of population growth in the coming years, as declining fertility rates cause the annual number of deaths to exceed the annual number of births starting in 2030,” the CBO writes. “Without immigration, the population would begin to shrink in 2030.”
From that point on, every additional person added to the U.S. population will come from immigration, a demographic milestone once associated with aging countries like Italy and Japan.
The shift is striking not only for what it says about America’s rapidly aging society, but also for how soon it is expected to arrive. Just a year ago, many demographic forecasts—including the CBO’s own forecast—placed this crossover well into the late 2030s or even the 2040s. The updated outlook from CBO moves the timeline forward by nearly a decade.
This rapid acceleration, the CBO said, is driven by the “double squeeze” of declining fertility and an aging populace, combined with recent policy shifts on immigration. CBO analysts have drastically lowered their expectations for the total fertiility rate, now projecting it to settle at just 1.53 births per woman — well below the 2.1 “replacement rate” needed for a stable population. At the same time, the massive “Baby Boomer” generation is reaching ages with higher mortality rates, causing annual deaths to climb.
The timeline further compressed following the passage of the 2025 Reconciliation Act, which increased funding for more ICE agents and immigration judges to process cases faster, resulting in approximately 50,000 immigrants in detention daily through 2029, CBO said. The office calculated that these provisions will result in roughly 320,000 fewer people in the U.S. population by 2035 than previously estimated.
The new projections show that U.S. population growth will steadily decelerate over the next three decades until it finally hits zero in 2056. For most of the 20th century, the population grew at close to 1% a year: a flat population would represent a historic break from that norm.
The economic consequences of this shift are hard to overstate. While the number of retirees swells, the pool of workers funding the social safety net — and caring for the aging population — is narrowing. Americans aged 65 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the population, pushing the “old-age dependency ratio” sharply higher. In 1960, there were about five workers for every retiree. Today, that ratio is closer to three-to-one. By the mid-2050s, the CBO projects it will fall to roughly two workers per retiree. The contraction will have “significant implications” on the federal budget, including outsized effects on Social Security and Medicare, placing pressure on those trust funds which rely on a robust base of payroll taxes that a stagnant population cannot easily provide.
Further, because national GDP is essentially the product of the number of workers multiplied by their individual productivity, the loss of labor force growth means the American economy will have to rely almost entirely on technological breakthroughs and AI to drive future gains. This may be happening ahead of schedule, as continued weak employment growth in December showed a “jobless expansion,” in the words of KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk, as Fortune previously reported.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan has called population decline the country’s “biggest problem” and set out an action plan for her ministers to follow in hopes of tackling the issue.
Why It Matters
These demographic trends have hollowed out rural communities, driven up the dependency ratio—the number of working people supporting those outside the labor force—and placed growing strain on social safety nets, threatening the long-term growth of Asia’s second-largest economy.
Japan, like many high- and middle-income countries, has struggled to stabilize its declining birth rate amid the rising cost of living, stagnating wages, and shifting attitudes among younger generations toward work-life balance and parenthood.
The impact is especially pronounced in Japan, which the United Nations has classified as a “super-aged” society—meaning at least 20 percent of the population is over 65. In Japan, that figure is close to 30 percent.
Newsweek reached out by email to Japan‘s Foreign Ministry with a request for comment.
What To Know
“Recognizing that the greatest challenge facing our country is population decline, we have established the Population Strategy Headquarters to comprehensively promote countermeasures,” Takaichi said Tuesday at the inaugural meeting of the body, which she created as one of her first acts since taking office last month.
“These include maintaining essential social security services in local areas, advancing measures to address the declining birth rate, creating living environments in rural areas where people—especially young people and women—can live and work with peace of mind, building new regional economies that generate added value, and promoting coexistence with foreign talent,” she said.
The prime minister outlined a series of initiatives for her Cabinet to implement, such as support for child rearing and other measures to address the population decline. She called for ministers to present a “comprehensive strategy” on revitalizing local economies in depopulated areas and to promote social security reform, including a review of how benefits and burdens are balanced.
Takaichi also directed Kimi Onoda, who leads the newly established immigration office, to follow up on earlier Cabinet instructions and “establish a proper framework for basic research and policy development regarding the acceptance of foreign nationals.”
Japan’s population declined for the 16th straight year in 2024, with just 686,061 births—the lowest since records began, according to Health Ministry data. The country’s total fertility rate, which measures the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, fell to 1.15, down from 1.20 the previous year.
What People Are Saying
Takumi Fujinami, a senior researcher at the Japan Research Institute, said in an August interview with the Asahi Shimbun newspaper: “These numbers were expected, so there’s no major surprise. The main cause of the declining birth rate is the shrinking population of young people. We’re unlikely to see a dramatic improvement any time soon. I view these figures as ‘indicators’ that reflect the condition of our society.”
Fumio Kishida, former prime minister of Japan, said in 2023: “The youth population will start decreasing drastically in the 2030s. The period of time until then is our last chance to reverse the trend of dwindling births.’
What Happens Next
Japan has already committed significant resources to incentives, ranging from per-child cash allowances and subsidized fertility treatments to some of the world’s most generous parental leave.
Starting in fiscal 2026, the 3.6 trillion Japanese yen ($22.3 billion) in annual spending pledged under former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s “unprecedented” child and family policy package is set to take effect. It remains to be seen whether this new wave of investment can meaningfully impact the country’s demographic woes.
How divided are America’s feelings about California?
Ponder a curious poll of 1,000 American adults conducted for Clever Real Estate, which asked about various traits of the 50 states. My trusty spreadsheet’s review of this popularity contest dug into the nation’s love-hate relationship with the Golden State.
For example, the survey took a curious route to gain insight into “desirability” – asking folks to rank states as both “most” and “least” desirable.
Most desirable? California ranked No. 2, behind Florida. Then came Hawaii, Texas, and New York. Each have big economies and/or great vacation spots.
The lowest scores were in Mississippi, Kansas and Nebraska. Need I say more?
However, look what popped up when the question of “least desirable” was asked: conflicted feelings for California.
The Golden State got the No. 1 ranking followed by Alabama, New York, Alaska and Florida. Lowest scores were for North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Montana.
Price points
A somewhat more logical split was found in the rankings on twin questions about affordability.
California ranked No. 3 as a place for a relocation with “an unlimited budget” – trailing Hawaii and Florida. The lowest scores were in Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.
But if you’re financially struggling, a move to California ranked 42nd best. Can’t argue with that, considering the Golden State’s lofty cost of living.
Top bargains were Alabama, Arkansas and West Virginia. Worst? Massachusetts, Hawaii and New Jersey.
Other grades
California was also poorly graded as a “most underrated” state with a No. 43 ranking.
To score well, size mattered, as in small populations. Tops were Vermont, Wyoming and Maine. Worst rankings had less of a theme: Mississippi, New York and Louisiana.
Two other poll questions were harder to define if they were tracking good or bad traits.
“Most boring” could mean dull or peaceful. California ranked a mid-range No. 29.
Iowa, Idaho and Wyoming were the most boring. The least were Hawaii, North Carolina and Massachusetts.
And, finally, there’s the “quirkiest residents” grades. Quirky could be a positive or a negative, depending on one’s tolerance for the out-of-the-ordinary.
California ranked No. 1, ahead of Alaska, New York, Utah and Oregon. Least quirky? North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland.
Final score
California got very divergent grades.
Six of its rankings fell within the top or bottom 10 among the seven questions. That tied North Carolina for the most extreme grades.
Six states had five extreme rankings: Florida, New York, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and North Dakota.
Or ponder a geeky “standard deviation” stat that tracks volatility. Only three states had wilder deviations in their poll rankings than California: New York, North Carolina and Mississippi.
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com
Why doesn’t Hermes just produce more bags and then everyone can have a Birkin? That’s basically the argument of people pressing President Donald Trump to declare a housing emergency.
The fact is there’s plenty of housing, just not in the most desirable neighborhoods. Population growth is slowing, deportations are increasing and new home construction already outpaces family creation. The shortage is a myth created by activists so they can force residential living patterns to conform to DEI dogma.
A simple calculation proves it. The Census Bureau collects annual data on both the number of households and the available housing stock. The latest data shows 131.3 million households and 146.5 million housing units, an excess supply of over 15 million units.
The housing shortage is a myth created by activists so they can force residential living patterns to conform to DEI dogma. (Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Activists cannot deny the excess so instead, they argue that it is not enough.
A well-functioning housing market has a natural vacancy rate. Just as labor markets need unemployment for efficient job matching, housing markets need vacancies for buyer-seller alignment, renovations and seasonal use.
Activists say that rate should be 12% instead of the current 10%, and to hit that target an additional 1 million units are needed. But they are cherry-picking the baseline rate. Census data tracked since 1965 shows vacancy rates have fluctuated wildly, ranging from 8.3% to 14.5%. There is no stable “natural rate.” Today’s 10% rate falls well within this historical range. When you stop using artificially high assumptions, the shortage disappears entirely.
Perhaps anticipating this, activists also argue that demand is higher than census data shows. First, they claim construction has fallen behind historical trends, from 1.5 million units annually in 1968-2000 to 1.23 million since 2001, creating a cumulative deficit. Second, they argue for massive pent-up demand, claiming millions of people would form separate households if housing were cheaper, using statistical models to estimate 3-5 million “missing” households.
Both arguments assume demographic conditions that no longer exist. America has transitioned from rapid population growth of over 1% annually before 2000 to a more stable 0.5% today, projected to reach 0.1% by 2055. The next 30 years will add 23 million people versus 70 million in the prior 30 years, reflecting lower birth rates and longer lifespans. Deaths will exceed births by 2038 as the population matures. Meanwhile, the current administration targets deporting one million people annually, a figure not included in Census projections that assume stable immigration.
Like Birkin bags, the real problem isn’t supply, it’s that people want exclusive neighborhoods, and no amount of construction changes that reality. What’s really going on here is that activists are manufacturing a housing crisis in order to impose a DEI regime on where people choose to live.
This is a corruption of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), which was focused on equality of opportunity not results. The bill did aim to disrupt segregated living patterns but only through the narrow mechanism of eliminating overt housing discrimination. In particular, restrictive covenants, redlining and explicit racial barriers.
As the legislative history records, the goal was to ensure families could live “where they wish and where they can afford,” acknowledging that financial capacity remained a valid constraint on housing choice.
Today’s activists have abandoned that sensible framework. Instead, they want to eliminate disparities in living patterns by lowering community standards through government coercion. Their chief target is local zoning laws, which serve the important function of maintaining community character. It’s why Washington, D.C., which bans skyscrapers, doesn’t look like Manhattan.
New York City’s Economic Development Corporation exemplifies this approach, scolding neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, SoHo and the West Village for “restrictive land use regulations” that limit density. They explicitly note that “Community Districts producing the least affordable housing are disproportionately white.” Their demographic focus reveals the true agenda.
The Obama administration weaponized this logic through HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, forcing towns that accepted federal funding to eliminate zoning laws and to provide detailed reports on racial demographics. The effort had an important political dimension. By forcing high-density, low-income housing into suburban communities, activists aimed to flip red areas blue.
President Trump recognized the stakes in his first term, and tasked a White House team led by John McEntee to eliminate the rule, which they did in 14 days. Biden reinstated it, but HUD Secretary Scott Turner wisely eliminated it again soon after taking office.
Unfortunately, some Republicans and Libertarians have fallen for the housing shortage hoax and still don’t realize that eliminating sensible neighborhood standards like zoning are a stalking horse for imposing DEI quotas. This is a problem because housing activists continue to push their radical agenda aggressively at the state level.
In 2021, Massachusetts passed a controversial law forcing the 177 towns along the commuter rail line to change their suburban zoning laws to permit high-density low-income housing. The bill was drafted to look optional and incentive-based, but officials are enforcing it as mandatory. Similar efforts are afoot nationwide, amplified by liberal columnists like Paul Krugman calling for “increasing population density,” meaning eliminating suburban single-family zoning.
Democrats have brought DEI quotas to every institution in America. Your neighborhood is next. That’s the real housing crisis.
Paige Bronitsky is a property attorney who served as a deputy assistant secretary at HUD and as a White House senior advisor in the first Trump administration. Follow @PaigeBronitsky.
Daniel Huff served as a deputy assistant secretary at HUD and White House lawyer in the first Trump administration. Follow @RealDanHuff.
What are the top 20 happiest countries in the world? How do mental health and well-being trends look in the United States and Canada? The 2024 World Happiness Report is in!
The World Happiness Report is a research initiative to compare happiness levels between different countries.
The project first launched in 2012, surveying more than 350,000 people in 95 countries asking them to rate their happiness on a 10-point scale.
Each year they release a new report and the 2024 full report was just published a few weeks ago. There are some interesting findings in it that are worth highlighting.
First let’s look at the happiness rankings by country.
Top 20 Happiest Countries
Here are the top 20 happiest countries in 2024 according to the report.
The scores are on a scale of 1-10. Each participant was asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a “10” and the worst possible life being a “0.” They were then asked to rate their current lives. The final rankings are the average score for each country.
(By the way, this simple test for measuring subjective well-being is known as the “Cantril Ladder,” it’s a common tool used in public polling especially the Gallup World Poll.)
The results:
1. Finland (7.741) 2. Denmark (7.538) 3. Iceland (7.525) 4. Sweden (7.344) 5. Israel (7.341) 6. Netherlands (7.319) 7. Norway (7.302) 8. Luxembourg (7.122) 9. Switzerland (7.060) 10. Australia (7.057) 11. New Zealand (7.029) 12. Costa Rica (6.955) 13. Kuwait (6.951) 14. Austria (6.905) 15. Canada (6.900) 16. Belgium (6.894) 17. Ireland (6.838) 18. Czechia (6.822) 19. Lithuania (6.818) 20. United Kingdom (6.749)
The top 10 countries have remained stable over the years. As of March 2024, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world seven times in a row.
There was more movement in the top 20 rankings. Most notably, this is the first year that the United States dropped out of the top 20 (from rank 15 to 23 – an 8 place drop).
More alarming are the age gaps in happiness reports. In both the U.S. and Canada, those above the age of 60 report significantly higher rates of happiness than those below 30.
Above age 60, the U.S. ranks 10 overall on the world happiness rankings. Below age 30, the U.S. falls to rank 62, just beating out Peru, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
Could this be a sign of a continuing downward trend in places like the U.S. and Canada?
Potential Factors Behind Life Evaluation
How to measure happiness is always a controversial topic.
To this day, psychologists and social scientists don’t really have a reliable way to determine happiness besides simply asking someone, “How happy are you?”
However, the World Happiness Report attempts to take the above findings and break them down into six main factors that contribute to overall life evaluation on a societal level.
These factors don’t influence the final rankings, they are just a way to make sense of the results:
GDP per capita – A general measure of a country’s overall wealth.
Life expectancy – A general measure of a country’s overall health.
Generosity – The level of a country’s trust and kindness through charity and volunteering.
Social support – The level of a country’s social cohesion and community.
Freedom – The level of a country’s freedom to live life as a person sees fit.
Corruption – A general measure of government competence and political accountability.
Each factor helps explain the differences in overall happiness between countries, with some countries performing better in certain areas over others.
One benefit of this model is that it looks beyond GDP (or “Gross Domestic Product”) which has long been the overall benchmark for comparing countries in the social sciences. The U.S. has the highest GDP in the world and frequently ranks in the top 10 per capita, but the happiness rankings show there is more to the picture.
Conclusion
The World Happiness Report is a good guideline for comparing happiness and well-being between different countries. How does your country rank? It will be interesting to see how these rankings change over the next few years, do you have any predictions?
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Marc Lamont Hill speaks with scholars of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.
As the war in Gaza rages on, the death toll keeps increasing and residents face starvation. Despite the heavy civilian toll, the United States keeps voicing its strong support for Israel.
Criticism has been raised of Washington’s approach to Palestinian victims. Is there a double standard when it comes to Palestine? And why do some in the US seem to conflate solidarity with Palestinians with anti-Semitism?
On UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks with Sahar Aziz, professor of law and Middle East legal studies scholar at Rutgers University; and Mitchell Plitnick, president of Rethinking Foreign Policy and co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace, about whether Islamophobia affects US foreign policy.
In the United States, speaking freely about Israel’s war on Gaza often has a price.
For expressing their opinions on the Israel-Palestine, many Muslim Americans and Arab Americans have paid a hefty price, including the loss of jobs and suspension from college.
Universities across the US are also cracking down on student activism.
Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza on October 7, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has received double the usual amount of reports of bias and requests for help, according to the executive director, Nihad Awad.
Speaking to host Steve Clemons, Awad warns that as the Israeli narrative continues “falling apart”, more attempts to dehumanise the Palestinian people will be seen.
BUDAPEST — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused other European leaders of fearmongering over the threat of climate change at the expense of ignoring the problem of falling birth rates.
“Europe is acting out of fear and fear makes us defeatist,” said the right-wing leader on Thursday. “We say there’s no future, and as such, this is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Hungary is one of a number of Central and Eastern European countries that are trying to reverse falling birth rates. All countries across the European Union have fewer than the 2.1 children per woman needed to keep the population stable without migration.
This aging population raises thorny questions for governments around how to fund the welfare state as the number of older people increases and the proportion of people of working ages falls.
In his address at the two-day Budapest Demographic Summit, a pro-family conference organized by the Hungarian government, Orbán said that “Western elites” were ignoring the question of demographics, and were instead busy with “carbon quotas.”
“They require people to live in fear of an approaching Armageddon,” he said.
Orbán’s government has made birth rates a key political priority, investing around 5 percent of the country’s GDP into family-creation policies like tax breaks and subsidized loans for new houses. Hungary’s birth rate is no longer the lowest in the EU, where it was a decade ago, instead hovering a little above the bloc’s average.
On Thursday, the Hungarian leader ramped up these policies, announcing that the government would lower the threshold for women to receive a lifetime exemption from paying tax from four children to three.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who attended the summit in Budapest, praised Hungary’s efforts to encourage families to have more children and warned that demographic change is an existential risk for her country.
“In our view, demography is not just another of the main issues of our nation. It is the issue on which our nation’s future depends,” she said. “We need the courage to say that demographers’ projections for the future are very worrying.”
Europe has registered birth rates below replacement level for decades, but it’s an issue that has been gaining more attention, especially in Silicon Valley. Elon Musk recently cited Orbán’s efforts approvingly.
Katalin Novák, Hungary’s president and the organizer of the conference, echoed Orbán’s messaging on misguided European priorities. She said that while “alarm bells are ringing about climate change, little attention is being paid to the real problem.
“The demographic winter is turning into an Ice Age,” she said.
Many factors are influencing the remodeling decisions, which are different based on the age of the … [+] homeowner.
National Association of Realtors
The costs to purchase a new home right now continue to escalate, putting it out of reach for much of the population, driving more households to stay in place and do what they can to maintain, repurpose and reimagine their homes.
Many of the households currently on 15- and 30-year mortgage payment plans are at rates below 5%. Now, mortgage rates have skyrocketed to their highest levels in about 15 years. So, at the new rates, a home buyer would add more than $40,000 to the life of the loan on an average home purchase. With that said, it’s no wonder that a recent Zillow report noted that homeowners with mortgage rates below 5% are nearly twice as likely to want to stay put in their current home.
While economic factors aren’t the only reasons people stay in place, it is the leading driver today, which is also triggering investments in home improvement projects.
Commitments to home improvement projects also could be easier today because homes are appreciating at the fastest rates ever. The average annual appreciation typically sits around 4%, but recently homeowners experienced an average of 17%, giving them plenty of equity to tap into to finance projects.
“Pent-up demand and macroeconomic conditions, such as aging housing stock and high mortgage rates, which continue to drive home improvement activity, are instilling a sense of optimism among builders, remodelers, architects and interior designers as they look ahead to the second half of the year,” said Marine Sargsyan, Houzz staff economist.
With these drivers motivating more home improvement projects, let’s take a look at some details around who is doing what, when, where and why.
A Different Era of Remodeling
Over the years, remodeling projects have evolved. Today, they take on many new variations.
First, we are coming out of a pandemic. Homeowners are emerging from lock down, and they face new work situations. Companies across the country are shutting down offices, pushing people back into their homes for the daily office grind. So, homeowners are looking at ways to renovate to create quiet, calm, technology-enhanced spaces to work.
Second, the pandemic also drove households to think about their home can impact their health. So, remodeling projects centered around health and wellness, including indoor air quality, are becoming more frequent. Research from Chrissi Antonopoulos, a senior energy analyst at Pacific Northwest National Labs, shows that many of the motivators for home improvement projects are quality of life based.
Third, the housing stock is aging. Today’s Homeowner reports that the median age of a home in the U.S. is 39 years old, with 50% of homes being built before 1980. So, a larger percent of projects are tied into the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of homes.
Houzz data goes into additional detail on the projects that are related to the aging housing stock, with close to 30% of homeowners choosing to upgrade plumbing in 2022, with electrical and home automation improvement projects close behind.
Finally, the government is offering incentives that are motivating owners to consider clean energy retrofits. Harvard’s Improving America’s Housing Report shows that 34% of home improvement spending goes to energy-related projects, which has remained steady during the last decade. There is a strong correlation between the aging of a home and the investment in energy efficiency projects, which increases substantially when the house is more than 20 years old.
Investments in home remodeling projects focused on maintenance increases after a house is 20 years … [+] old.
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
These incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act are new and just being communicated to homeowners at a state level, so could inspire much more remodeling activity during the coming months.
Regardless of the incentive, the study also shows that 93% of homeowners felt they had a better quality of life after finishing their renovations, which as Antonopoulos pointed out, is a major incentive.
Homeowners Age In and Out of Remodeling
Why would the homeowner’s age matter in these home improvement activities? In general, older homeowners have more disposable income to finance projects and to hire labor to do the project. On the flip side, they also have the experience and knowledge to tackle projects on their own. Plus, they most likely have been living somewhere longer, so they have built up more equity in their home, which can also be a financing mechanism.
“We know older generations who have been in their homes longer have, on average, more equity to tap into to do more expensive jobs which typically involves a contractor,” said Dave King, the executive director of the Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI). “Additionally, there is some evidence to suggest that younger generations simply aren’t as interested in the trades and haven’t learned the same DIY skills as their older counterparts. and are therefore less likely to do DIY as a percentage of total projects done.”
However, many younger buyers aren’t going to be priced out. To find affordable housing, many have to take on fixer uppers, and they may just simply have the energy to make it work. Data provided by HIRI show that younger generations are more likely to purchase a home that needs improvement.
Younger home buyers are more likely to purchase a home that needs to work, both for affordability … [+] and also to make it their own.
Home Improvement Research Institute
“There has also been some work in the last few years from HIRI that suggests Millennials are more likely to do a hybrid with contractors,” King said. “Gen Y will do some of the work themselves, then have a pro come in for certain aspects.”
The National Assocation of Realtors reports that 12% of recent buyers who are older Millennials purchased a previously owned home because they wanted a DIY fixer upper.
The group’s deputy chief economist and vice president of research, Dr. Jessica Lautz, adds that a considerable share of younger buyers may have compromised on the condition knowing they would need to later remodel, but did what they could to enter the housing market today.
The Social Media Impact
Younger generations also grew up watching every style, size and shape of renovation show on TV, and now watch social media influencers talk about renovations online. When I did a quick search for influencers focused on remodeling, I got lists of hundreds, and the most popular have more than a million followers.
This content and the influencers behind it are creating streams of content that are easy to access and can make anyone catch the DIY bug. The HIRI data shows that younger populations are much more likely to consider themselves “heavy DIYers.” Maybe that is because there is a Youtube video that can walk them through nearly any project that they want to take on.
Younger home owners consider themselves to be more DIY than oder generations.
Home Improvement Research Institute
It appears that younger generations are doing more projects that fit in the discretionary space such as needing more space in their home compared to older generations who are more likely to simply be doing maintenance, which again could be because of the longevity in the home.
Older generations are more focused on repair and maintenance home improvements versus optional … [+] updates.
Home Improvement Research Institute
From the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies Remodeling Futures Group recent Improving America’s Housing report we see similar data. It shows that younger owners continue to be the most likely to do DIY projects and are somewhat less likely to do pro projects. But, maybe that is not always the case.
“That said, we have seen the DIY share of improvement spending trend downward over the last several decades for the youngest owners under age 35, which we’ve also speculated is because younger owners today are not as skilled at DIY projects as prior generations or as interested in spending their time on these activities,” said Abbe Will, senior research associate and associate project director with the Remodeling Futures group. “And with the aging of the housing stock, younger owners today are also buying into homes that are more likely to need upgrades requiring skilled installation like roofing and electrical/plumbing systems and equipment.”
Data from Today’s Homeowner supports this, showing that older homeowners only spend 15% of their home improvement budgets on DIY projects.
Houzz reports show an increase in households of every generation hiring pros to do the work, up 2 percentage points to more than 9 in 10 renovation projects in 2022.The same report points to Gen Xers and Seniors relying the most on pros at 46% each.
Another demographic differentiator was marriage. The Today’s Homeowner reports show that married couples with children spent more on remodeling projects than single people.
Bringing Meaningful Value
With every homeowner chasing their dream home, there are lots of opportunities for renovations. As homeowners spend more time at home, they need a space that can deliver intangible value, be safe, healthy, comfortable and secure. Anotopoulous says that means talking to them about health and wellness, not about money savings.
“In residential there are no shareholders, so they don’t renovate homes because they want to make money,” she said. “They are concerned about indoor air quality, or health. The motivations that the U.S. Department of Energy traditionally use are not the things that drive uptick in the residential market.”
Her research on the spectrum of home improvement motivators shows that even though people often say they are committing to a renovation for financial reasons, they most often are not. Her advice is to stay away from a focus on lowering utility bills and talk about thermal comfort instead, like most HVAC companies that sell comfort. So, there are other motivators that we have to acknowledge even if the pros, and the homeowner themselves, don’t fully understand.
The Future
The market remains healthy. Today’s Homeowner predicts that home improvement sales will reach more than $620 billion in 2025.
With current economic factors, there will continue to be discretionary spending financed by home equity and homeowners wanting to get the most pleasure out of where they are stuck in place.
And, once they are invested, they want to stay put for a while. The 2023 Houzz and Home Study reports that more than 60% of homeowners plan to stay in their home for 11 years or more following a planned renovation in 2022. Plus, only 6% of today’s homeowners doing renovations plan to sell their home, which is half of where it was in 2018 at 12%.
With more homeowners staying in place, not a lot of new housing coming online, it looks like a healthy road ahead for remodeling.
Plus, 69% of homeowners feel a major sense of accomplishment after they’ve completed their project, but who wouldn’t enjoy a healthier, safer, more resilient home?
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Successfully navigating the ever-evolving world of marketing necessitates a strong understanding of consumer demographics. The ability to tailor your strategies to your audience is essential in driving engagement and fostering brand loyalty. Lately, emerging data on the Black population demographics have signaled significant shifts, bringing forth new opportunities and challenges for businesses.
In such a dynamic landscape, marketers must remain adaptable and vigilant, adjusting their targeting tactics and ensuring that advertising messages resonate with the values and aspirations of these communities. By staying attuned to these demographic changes, businesses can tap into the potential of one of the fastest-growing consumer segments while fostering an environment of trust and respect.
Over the past two decades, the Black population in the United States has grown by 30%, totaling 36.2 million individuals as of 2021. This significant change in demographics is characterized by the fact that roughly one-in-five Black Americans are immigrants or the children of immigrants, showcasing Black Americans’ diverse and multifaceted nature. This reality highlights the importance for marketing teams to delve deep into the nuances and complexities of this dynamic population to engage and cater to their specific needs and preferences effectively.
Additionally, with income levels and purchasing power continuing to evolve within the Black community, businesses must adopt innovative and culturally sensitive approaches in their advertising efforts that acknowledge and celebrate the rich diversity of this expanding demographic, ultimately fostering more authentic connections and driving successful campaigns tailored to the unique experiences and backgrounds of Black consumers.
Understanding the diverse experiences of Black Americans
Understanding the diverse experiences of Black Americans is an essential part of developing effective marketing campaigns. It is important to recognize Black Americans’ nuanced history and diverse culture so that campaigns can be crafted specifically with each subgroup in mind. For instance, Black Americans’ cultural values and preferences with West African roots may diverge significantly from those hailing from Caribbean nations.
By understanding the vast array of cultural layers and embracing individualized language, subtle cultural distinctions and specific requirements, advertisers can forge a stronger connection with the diverse Black community, ensuring a more meaningful and enduring impact within contemporary multicultural audiences.
Taking note of differences in language and cultural practices
When formulating marketing campaigns targeted toward Black Americans, it is essential not to treat everyone as if they were a monolith. People from subcultures within the Black American population may have strong ties to their language and cultural practices, which must be accounted for when crafting an effective campaign.
These distinctions — such as differences in language or specific customs — can provide insight into what marketing tactics will most effectively engage with the target group. Failure to recognize these subcultural variances could easily result in missed opportunities or dampened results during a campaign.
Acknowledging how socioeconomic factors impact consumer habits
The untapped potential of the Black community in America represents a significant opportunity for businesses seeking to expand their market reach and generate substantial profits. A recent McKinsey analysis has revealed a staggering $300 billion in unmet demand within this demographic, indicating a transformative possibility for companies willing to adapt their strategies and cater to these specific needs.
In addition, with the Black American population’s buying power projected to exceed $1.8 trillion in the coming year — surpassing the annual GDPs of nations like Mexico and the Netherlands — it is evident that engaging with this lucrative market is a forward-thinking investment. Businesses that recognize the potential of tapping into this expanding revenue base will foster a connection with a powerful consumer segment and position themselves for enduring success in the future.
Understanding the intricate mosaic of the Black American community is fundamental when developing marketing campaigns. It is critical to recognize the common threads that unite this diverse group and the distinct characteristics that set them apart. Successful companies take the time to delve into subtle cultural nuances that could significantly impact a campaign’s efficaciousness.
For example, merely relying on images or ideas catering to U.S.-born Black Americans may inadvertently ostracize Black immigrants from other countries. A key component to bridging these potential gaps is enlisting spokespeople possessing a solid grasp of cultural competencies, ensuring that messages resonate with the full spectrum of the targeted communities. Though the process may demand a higher investment of resources and effort, the advantages of tapping into this market and solidifying customer relationships will undeniably yield a tremendous return on investment.
ASTORIA, Ore. — Scientists along the West Coast are calling for action to help sunflower sea stars, among the largest sea stars in the world, recover from catastrophic population declines.
Experts say a sea star wasting disease epidemic that began in 2013 has decimated about 95% of the population from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska to Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, The Astorian reported.
The decline triggered the International Union for Conservation of Nature to classify the species as critically endangered in 2020. A petition to list the species under the federal Endangered Species Act was filed in 2021.
Steven Rumrill, shellfish program leader at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in his more than 40 years as a marine scientist, he hasn’t seen a widespread decline of a species on the same scale as the sunflower sea star.
The sea stars, which are among the largest in the world and can span more than 3 feet (91 centimeters), are predators to the kelp-eating sea urchin. Without them, sea urchin populations have exploded, causing a troubling decline in kelp forests that provide food and shelter to many aquatic species along the West Coast.
Rumrill contributed to a recently published roadmap to recovery for the sea star as a guide for scientists and conservationists.
“It just sort of breaks your heart to see a species decline so rapidly to the point of extinction,” Rumrill said. “At the global scale, we’re recognizing that the impacts of humans have had major impacts on populations and lots of extinctions worldwide. Here’s one that’s happening right in front of our eyes.”
The roadmap was completed in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, National Marine Fisheries Service, and state agencies in California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska.
The sea star wasting disease is estimated to have killed over 5.75 billion sunflower sea stars, according to the document.
The source of the outbreak has not been conclusively identified, but the document points to evidence that warming ocean waters from human-caused climate change increases the severity of the disease and could have triggered the outbreak.
Rumrill said listing through the Endangered Species Act could result in federal funding to continue research.
Matthew Burks, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said whether the agency recommends the sea star be listed under the Endangered Species Act will be posted to the Federal Register by early next year.
While sunflower sea stars appear to be the most affected by the sea star wasting disease, they are among about 20 documented species of sea stars at risk along the West Coast.
NEW YORK — Fidelity Charitable is getting into NFTs, the digital images that are registered on the blockchain, despite a torrent of bad news from the adjacent world of cryptocurrencies.
The nation’s largest grantmaker is sponsoring a raffle that ends Tuesday, where participants can claim one of the NFTs, which stands for nonfungible token, and 50 will win $1,000 to donate through a donor advised fund at Fidelity.
“The reason we’re doing this is we really believe there’s a whole new generation of givers and philanthropists out there,” said Amy Pirozzolo, head of donor engagement for Fidelity Charitable. “We want to be where they are and the channels they use and the formats they use and further encourage their generosity.”
Around 16% of Americans say they invested in cryptocurrencies, according to a poll from Pew Research Center last year. The demographic most likely to invest were men between the ages of 18 and 29, with 43% reporting that they had invested.
The blockchain is the technology that underlies the trading of cryptocurrencies, but it can also record the ownership of digital items like images, videos or Tweets. Fidelity said that 50,000 different wallets, potentially representing that many individuals, have already registered to create an NFT and potentially win the money to donate.
Contributions in cryptocurrency to donor advised funds at Fidelity exploded last year, growing from the equivalent of $28 million in 2020 to $331 million in 2021, Fidelity has said.
Speaking of the NFT project, Jacob Pruitt, president of Fidelity Charitable, said, “I think it’ll be a unique way to engage with next gen investors. It’s another way that I think Fidelity is innovating and leaning into a new space.”
Donor advised funds allow donors to claim a tax credit for charitable donations, but do not require them to give those funds away within any specific timeframe. Organizations that host DAFs, like Fidelity Charitable, also handle more complex donations, which includes exchanging the assets for cash and producing receipts for donors for tax purposes.
“Many of the nonprofits either can’t take on these assets or they have to hire outside counsel or people to staff to do it,” Pirozzolo said.
One reason for the jump in cryptocurrency donations is that until recently, their value had appreciated significantly. The cryptocurrency market saw a huge boom in 2021 with the price of Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, rising to an all time high of around $68,000 in November last year.
But the meltdown of Terra — a stablecoin, or a type of cryptocurrency that tries to peg its value to an asset like the U.S. dollar — in May brought down a series of major cryptocurrency businesses. Then, earlier this month, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX and related entities, suddenly filed for bankruptcy leaving both American and international users unable to access assets they held on the exchange.
James Lawrence, co-founder and CEO of Engiven, which facilitates cryptocurrency to nonprofits, including Christian ministries, observed that many people giving cryptocurrencies are making major gifts and that often those happen in the last quarter of the year. That means it’s too early to say how the cryptocurrency market’s fluctuations may impact donations this year. He said he doesn’t see people donating cryptocurrencies as that different from other donors.
“They just have a different asset to give and they’re going to give the most appreciated asset they can,” Lawrence said.
Of the more than 1.5 million nonprofits registered with the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S., Lawrence estimated that only four or five thousand could receive cryptocurrency donations directly.
“That’s a huge market that still doesn’t,” he said. He also has observed that many giving large donations in cryptocurrency (they facilitated one donation of $10 million in cryptocurrency assets) are the same types of people who give large donations in general, and not necessarily the younger demographics that are more likely to invest in cryptocurrency.
“Many of the largest gifts we’ve processed have been from an older demographic who have a tradition of giving large gifts in multiple asset classes,” he said.
Another organization, Endaoment, also facilitates cryptocurrency donations to nonprofit organizations as well as hosting pooled funds to benefit certain types of nonprofits. Robbie Heeger, the organization’s president and CEO, said besides that fact that nonprofits may receive donations from cryptocurrency donors that they wouldn’t otherwise, cryptocurrency proponents are also eager to draw in new users.
“This is a leapfrog opportunity for nonprofit organizations to move from paper checks” to cryptocurrency Heeger said. “And the crypto space is very focused on adoption flywheels, on ways to incentivize or encourage the traditional economy to migrate into the crypto economy.”
He encouraged newcomers to the cryptocurrency space to carefully research projects they might get involved with and to look for ones that have gotten outside audits from professional auditors.
Pirozzolo argued that the Fidelity Charitable promotion using NFTs is separate from the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
“This is really about the blockchain and having a fun way to celebrate with digital art the generosity of giving,” she said.
The company is paying for the cost of creating the NFTs, which includes a “gas” fee that pays for the creation and registration of the item, and also said that it has compensated the artists who made the images.
People who claim the NFTs will need to sign up for a cryptocurrency wallet that has access to the Polygon blockchain. The Fidelity Charitable NFTs will be hosted on the platform OpenSea.
Participants will see the NFT in their wallet when they sign up, but the art itself and the winners of the $1,000 tickets won’t be revealed until Giving Tuesday, Nov, 29.
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Yoo Young Yi’s grandmother gave birth to six children. Her mother birthed two. Yoo doesn’t want any.
“My husband and I like babies so much … but there are things that we’d have to sacrifice if we raised kids,” said Yoo, a 30-year-old Seoul financial company employee. “So it’s become a matter of choice between two things, and we’ve agreed to focus more on ourselves.”
There are many like Yoo in South Korea who have chosen either not to have children or not to marry. Other advanced countries have similar trends, but South Korea’s demographic crisis is much worse.
South Korea’s statistics agency announced in September that the total fertility rate — the average number of babies born to each woman in their reproductive years — was 0.81 last year. That’s the world’s lowest for the third consecutive year.
The population shrank for the first time in 2021, stoking worry that a declining population could severely damage the economy — the world’s 10th largest — because of labor shortages and greater welfare spending as the number of older people increases and the number of taxpayers shrinks.
President Yoon Suk Yeol has ordered policymakers to find more effective steps to deal with the problem. The fertility rate, he said, is plunging even though South Korea spent 280 trillion won ($210 billion) over the past 16 years to try to turn the tide.
Many young South Koreans say that, unlike their parents and grandparents, they don’t feel an obligation to have a family. They cite the uncertainty of a bleak job market, expensive housing, gender and social inequality, low levels of social mobility and the huge expense of raising children in a brutally competitive society. Women also complain of a persistent patriarchal culture that forces them to do much of the childcare while enduring discrimination at work.
“In a nutshell, people think our country isn’t an easy place to live,” said Lee So-Young, a population policy expert at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. “They believe their children can’t have better lives than them, and so question why they should bother to have babies.”
Many people who fail to enter good schools and land decent jobs feel they’ve become “dropouts” who “cannot be happy” even if they marry and have kids because South Korea lacks advanced social safety nets, said Choi Yoon Kyung, an expert at the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education. She said South Korea failed to establish such welfare programs during its explosive economic growth in the 1960 to ’80s.
Yoo, the Seoul financial worker, said that until she went to college, she strongly wanted a baby. But she changed her mind when she saw female office colleagues calling their kids from the company toilet to check on them or leaving early when their children were sick. She said her male coworkers didn’t have to do this.
“After seeing this, I realized my concentration at work would be greatly diminished if I had babies,” Yoo said.
Her 34-year-old husband, Jo Jun Hwi, said he doesn’t think having kids is necessary. An interpreter at an information technology company, Jo said he wants to enjoy his life after years of exhaustive job-hunting that made him “feel like I was standing on the edge of a cliff.”
There are no official figures on how many South Koreans have chosen not to marry or have kids. But records from the national statistics agency show there were about 193,000 marriages in South Korea last year, down from a peak of 430,000 in 1996. The agency data also show about 260,600 babies were born in South Korea last year, down from 691,200 in 1996, and a peak of 1 million in 1971. The recent figures were the lowest since the statistics agency began compiling such data in 1970.
Kang Han Byeol, a 33-year-old graphic designer who’s decided to remain single, believes South Korea isn’t a sound place to raise children. She cited frustration with gender inequalities, widespread digital sex crimes targeting women such as spy cams hidden in public restrooms, and a culture that ignores those pushing for social justice.
“I can consider marriage when our society becomes healthier and gives more equal status to both women and men,” Kang said.
Kang’s 26-year-old roommate Ha Hyunji also decided to stay single after her married female friends advised her not to marry because most of the housework and child care falls to them. Ha worries about the huge amount of money she would spend for any future children’s private tutoring to prevent them from falling behind in an education-obsessed nation.
“I can have a fun life without marriage and enjoy my life with my friends,” said Ha, who runs a cocktail bar in Seoul.
Until the mid-1990s, South Korea maintained birth control programs, which were initially launched to slow the country’s post-war population explosion. The nation distributed contraceptive pills and condoms for free at public medical centers and offered exemptions on military reserve training for men if they had a vasectomy.
United Nations figures show a South Korean woman on average gave birth to about four to six children in the 1950s and ’60s, three to four in the 1970s, and less than two in the mid-1980s.
South Korea has been offering a variety of incentives and other support programs for those who give birth to many children. But Choi, the expert, said the fertility rate has been falling too fast to see any tangible effects. During a government task force meeting last month, officials said they would soon formulate comprehensive measures to cope with demographic challenges.
South Korean society still frowns on those who remain childfree or single.
In 2021 when Yoo and Jo posted their decision to live without children on their YouTube channel, “You Young You Young,” some posted messages calling them “selfish” and asking them to pay more taxes. The messages also called Jo “sterile” and accused Yoo of “gaslighting” her husband.
Lee Sung-jai, a 75-year-old Seoul resident, said it’s “the order of nature” for humankind to marry and give birth to children.
“These days, I see some (unmarried) young women walking with dogs in strollers and saying they are their moms. Did they give birth to those dogs? They are really crazy,” he said.
Seo Ji Seong, 38, said that she’s often called a patriot by older people for having many babies, though she didn’t give birth to them for the national interest. She’s expecting a fifth baby in January.
Seo’s family recently moved to a rent-free apartment in the city of Anyang, which was jointly provided by the state-run Korea Land and Housing Corporation and the city for families with at least four children. Seo and her husband, Kim Dong Uk, 33, receive other state support, though it’s still tough economically to raise four kids.
Kim said he enjoys seeing each of his children growing up with different personalities and talents, while Seo feels their kids’ social skills are helped while playing and competing with one another at home.
“They are all so cute. That’s why I’ve kept giving birth to babies even though it’s difficult,” Seo said.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — When officials unfurled a 25-foot rainbow flag in front of Colorado Springs City Hall this week, people gathered to mourn the victims of a mass shooting at a popular gay club couldn’t help but reflect on how such a display of support would have been unthinkable just days earlier.
With a growing and diversifying population, the city nestled at the foothills of the Rockies is a patchwork of disparate social and cultural fabrics. It’s a place full of art shops and breweries; megachurches and military bases; a liberal arts college and the Air Force Academy. For years it’s marketed itself as an outdoorsy boomtown with a population set to top Denver’s by 2050.
But last weekend’s shooting has raised uneasy questions about the lasting legacy of cultural conflicts that caught fire decades ago and gave Colorado Springs a reputation as a cauldron of religion-infused conservatism, where LGBTQ people didn’t fit in with the most vocal community leaders’ idea of family values.
For some, merely seeing police being careful to refer to the victims using their correct pronouns this week signaled a seismic change. For others, the shocking act of violence in a space considered an LGBTQ refuge shattered a sense of optimism pervading everywhere from the city’s revitalized downtown to the sprawling subdivisions on its outskirts.
“It feels like the city is kind of at this tipping point,” said Candace Woods, a queer minister and chaplain who has called Colorado Springs home for 18 years. “It feels interesting and strange, like there’s this tension: How are we going to decide how we want to move forward as a community?”
Five people were killed in the attack last weekend. Eight victims remained hospitalized Friday, officials said.
In recent decades the population has almost doubled to 480,000 people. More than one-third of residents are nonwhite — twice as many as in 1980. The median age is 35. Politics here lean more conservative than in comparable-size cities. City council debates revolve around issues familiar throughout the Mountain West, such as water, housing and the threat of wildfires.
Residents take pride in describing Colorado Springs as a place defined by reinvention. In the early 20th century, newcomers sought to establish a resort town in the shadow of Pikes Peak. In the 1940s, military bases arrived. In the 1990s it became known as a home base for evangelical nonprofits and Christian ministries including broadcast ministry Focus on the Family and the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys.
“I have been thinking for years, we’re in the middle of a transition about what Colorado Springs is, who we are, and what we’ve become,” said Matt Mayberry, a historian at Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.
The idea of latching onto a city with a bright future is partly what drew Michael Anderson, a Club Q bartender who survived last weekend’s shooting.
Two friends, Derrick Rump and Daniel Aston, helped Anderson land the Club Q job and find his “queer family” in his new hometown. It was more welcoming than rural Florida where he grew up.
Still, he noted signs the city was more culturally conservative than others of similar size and much of Colorado: “Colorado Springs is kind of an outlier,” he said.
Now he’s grieving the deaths of Rump and Aston in the club shooting.
Leslie Herod followed an opposite trajectory. After growing up in Colorado Springs in a military family — like many others in the city — she left to study at the University of Colorado in liberal Boulder. In 2016 she became the first openly LGBTQ and Black person elected to Colorado’s General Assembly, representing part of Denver. She is now running to become Denver’s mayor.
“Colorado Springs is a community that is full of love. But I will also acknowledge that I chose to leave the Springs because I felt like when it came to … the elected leadership, the vocal leadership in this community, it wasn’t supportive of all people, wasn’t supportive of Black people, wasn’t supportive of immigrants, not supportive of LGBTQ people,” Herod said at a memorial event downtown.
She said she found community at Club Q when she would return from college. But she didn’t forget people and groups with a history of anti-LGBTQ stances and rhetoric maintained influence in city politics.
“This community, just like any other community in the country, is complex,” she said.
Club Q’s co-owner, Nic Grzecka, told The Associated Press he’s hoping to use the tragedy to rebuild a “loving culture” in the city. Even though general acceptance the LGBTQ community has grown, Grzecka said false assertions that members of the community are “grooming” children has incited hatred.
Those who have been around long enough are remembering this week how in the 1990s, at the height of the religious right’s influence, the Colorado Springs-based group Colorado for Family Values spearheaded a statewide push to pass Amendment 2 and make it illegal for communities to pass ordinances protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination.
Colorado Springs voted 3 to 1 in favor of Amendment 2, helping make its narrow statewide victory possible. Though it was later ruled unconstitutional, the campaign cemented the city’s reputation, drawing more like-minded groups and galvanizing progressive activists in response.
The influx of evangelical groups decades ago was at least in part spurred by efforts from the city’s economic development arm to offer financial incentives to lure nonprofits. Newcomers began lobbying for policies like getting rid of school Halloween celebrations due to suspicions about the holiday’s pagan origins.
Yemi Mobolade, an entrepreneur running for mayor as an independent, didn’t understand how strong Colorado Springs’ stigma as a “hate city” was until he moved here 12 years ago. But since then, he said, it has risen from recession-era struggles and become culturally and economically vibrant for all kinds of people.
There has been a concerted push to shed the city’s reputation as “Jesus Springs” and remake it yet again, highlighting its elite Olympic Training Center and branding itself as Olympic City USA.
Much like in the 1990s, Focus on the Family and New Life Church remain prominent in town. After the shooting, Focus on the Family’s president, Jim Daly, said that like the rest of the community he was mourning the tragedy. With the city under the national spotlight, he said the organization wanted to make it clear it stands against hate.
Daly noted a generational shift among Christian leaders away from the rhetorical style of his predecessor, Dr. James Dobson. Whereas Focus on the Family published literature in decades past assailing what it called the “Homosexual Agenda,” its messaging now emphasizes tolerance, ensuring those who believe marriage should be between one man and one woman have the right to act accordingly.
“I think in a pluralistic culture now, the idea is: How do we all live without treading on each other?” Daly said.
After a sign in front of the group’s headquarters was vandalized with graffiti reading “their blood is on your hands” and “five lives taken,” Daly said in a statement Friday it was time for “prayer, grieving and healing, not vandalism and the spreading of hate.”
The memorials this week attracted a wave of visitors: crowds of mourners clutching flowers, throngs of television crews and a church group whose volunteers set up a tent and passed out cookies, coffee and water. To some in the LGBTQ community, the scene was less about solidarity and more a cause for consternation.
Colorado Springs native Ashlyn May, who grew up in a Christian church but left when it didn’t accept her queer identity, said one woman from the group in the tent asked if she could pray for her and a friend who accompanied her to the memorial.
She said yes. It reminded May of her beloved great-grandparents, who were religious. But as the praying carried on and the woman urged May and her friend to turn to God, she felt as if praying had turned into preying. It unearthed memories of hearing things about LGBTQ people she saw as hateful and inciting.
“It felt very conflicting,” May said.
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Metz reported from Salt Lake City. AP writers Brittany Peterson and Jesse Bedayn in Colorado Springs contributed.
DOHA, Qatar — Given the level of focus on the Qatari regime, its attitudes toward human rights, immigrant workers, the LGBTQ community — and beer — the World Cup host’s soccer team has slipped under the radar.
Qatar opens the tournament against Ecuador on Sunday, but even the buildup to that match has been overshadowed by Friday’s announcement that the sale of beer will be banned inside the stadium grounds.
The World Cup is a source of immense national pride for Qatar in its attempt to raise its profile on the global stage and drive toward modernization. But what about the team?
Qatar has never before appeared in a World Cup and faces a major challenge just to emerge from Group A, which also includes Senegal and the Netherlands. South Africa in 2010 is the only host nation to fail to get beyond the group stage, so to avoid sharing that distinction would be success in itself.
Sunday may be Qatar’s best hope for a victory against an Ecuador team that is only five places above it at No. 44 in the FIFA rankings.
Qatar’s preparation for this tournament has been going on for several years, including involvement in the 2019 Copa America and 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup. But it was victory in the 2019 Asian Cup that provided evidence of the country’s potential to provide a shock over the next few weeks.
That continental title was masterminded by coach Felix Sanchez, who has been in the position since 2017 and before that was in charge of the under-19 team. The 46-year-old Spaniard learned his trade at Barcelona’s famed academy and his impact has been remarkable, with the Asian Cup success his standout moment.
But the World Cup is another level entirely.
“We try to maintain normality,” Sanchez told Spanish sports newspaper Marca. “We already know that there is that pressure, and we don’t have to add to it. We have our routine. We try to isolate ourselves from the noise around us and focus on getting our best performance.
“It’s difficult because then you go onto the pitch, you see 60,000 people. It’s the first World Cup match and there’s so much expectation that it’s hard, but that experience will help them.”
Ecuador will hope to spoil the party — and has been talked about as a potential surprise package. But the team heads to the World Cup on the back of doubts about whether it would even be allowed to compete after claims it fielded an ineligible player during qualifying.
Chile and Peru argued that defender Byron Castillo was actually Colombian and illegally played in qualifying matches. That claim was rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Ecuador kept its place at the World Cup, but will be deducted three points before the start of qualifying for the 2026 competition because of the use of false information on Castillo’s birthday and birthplace in its proceedings to grant him a passport.
Castillo was then left out of coach Gustavo Alfaro’s 26-man squad for Qatar.
With so much focus away from the field for both teams, Sunday’s opener will bring the conversation back to soccer.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports
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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson
LAGOS, Nigeria — The world’s population is projected to hit an estimated 8 billion people on Tuesday, according to a United Nations projection, with much of the growth coming from developing nations in Africa.
Among them is Nigeria, where resources are already stretched to the limit. More than 15 million people in Lagos compete for everything from electricity to light their homes to spots on crowded buses, often for two-hour commutes each way in this sprawling megacity. Some Nigerian children set off for school as early as 5 a.m.
And over the next three decades, the West African nation’s population is expected to soar even more: from 216 million this year to 375 million, the U.N. says. That will make Nigeria the fourth-most populous country in the world after India, China and the United States.
“We are already overstretching what we have — the housing, roads, the hospitals, schools. Everything is overstretched,” said Gyang Dalyop, an urban planning and development consultant in Nigeria.
The U.N.’s Day of 8 Billion milestone Tuesday is more symbolic than precise, officials are careful to note in a wide-ranging report released over the summer that makes some staggering projections.
The upward trend threatens to leave even more people in developing countries further behind, as governments struggle to provide enough classrooms and jobs for a rapidly growing number of youth, and food insecurity becomes an even more urgent problem.
Nigeria is among eight countries the U.N says will account for more than half the world’s population growth between now and 2050 — along with fellow African nations Congo, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
“The population in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double between 2022 and 2050, putting additional pressure on already strained resources and challenging policies aimed to reduce poverty and inequalities,” the U.N. report said.
It projected the world’s population will reach around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion in 2100.
Other countries rounding out the list with the fastest growing populations are Egypt, Pakistan, the Philippines and India, which is set to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation next year.
In Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, where more than 12 million people live, many families struggle to find affordable housing and pay school fees. While elementary pupils attend for free, older children’s chances depend on their parents’ incomes.
“My children took turns” going to school, said Luc Kyungu, a Kinshasa truck driver who has six children. “Two studied while others waited because of money. If I didn’t have so many children, they would have finished their studies on time.”
Rapid population growth also means more people vying for scarce water resources and leaves more families facing hunger as climate change increasingly impacts crop production in many parts of the world.
“There is also a greater pressure on the environment, increasing the challenges to food security that is also compounded by climate change,” said Dr. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. “Reducing inequality while focusing on adapting and mitigating climate change should be where our policy makers’ focus should be.”
Still, experts say the bigger threat to the environment is consumption, which is highest in developed countries not undergoing big population increases.
“Global evidence shows that a small portion of the world’s people use most of the Earth’s resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions,” said Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the Population Foundation of India. “Over the past 25 years, the richest 10% of the global population has been responsible for more than half of all carbon emissions.”
According to the U.N., the population in sub-Saharan Africa is growing at 2.5% per year — more than three times the global average. Some of that can be attributed to people living longer, but family size remains the driving factor. Women in sub-Saharan Africa on average have 4.6 births, twice the current global average of 2.3.
Families become larger when women start having children early, and 4 out of 10 girls in Africa marry before they turn 18, according to U.N. figures. The rate of teen pregnancy on the continent is the highest in the world — about half of the children born last year to mothers under 20 worldwide were in sub-Saharan Africa.
Still, any effort to reduce family size now would come too late to significantly slow the 2050 growth projections, the U.N. said. About two-thirds of it “will be driven by the momentum of past growth.”
“Such growth would occur even if childbearing in today’s high-fertility countries were to fall immediately to around two births per woman,” the report found.
There are also important cultural reasons for large families. In sub-Saharan Africa, children are seen as a blessing and as a source of support for their elders — the more sons and daughters, the greater comfort in retirement.
Still, some large families “may not have what it takes to actually feed them,” says Eunice Azimi, an insurance broker in Lagos and mother of three.
“In Nigeria, we believe that it is God that gives children,” she said. “They see it as the more children you have, the more benefits. And you are actually overtaking your peers who cannot have as many children. It looks like a competition in villages.”
Politics also have played a role in Tanzania, where former President John Magufuli, who ruled the East African country from 2015 until his death in 2021, discouraged birth control, saying that a large population was good for the economy.
He opposed family planning programs promoted by outside groups, and in a 2019 speech urged women not to “block ovaries.” He even described users of contraceptives as “lazy” in a country he said was awash with cheap food. Under Magufuli, pregnant schoolgirls were even banned from returning to classrooms.
But his successor, Samia Suluhu Hassan, appeared to reverse government policy in comments last month when she said birth control was necessary in order not to overwhelm the country’s public infrastructure.
Even as populations soar in some countries, the U.N. says rates are expected to drop by 1% or more in 61 nations.
The U.S. population is now around 333 million, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The population growth rate in 2021 was just 0.1%, the lowest since the country was founded.
“Going forward, we’re going to have slower growth — the question is, how slow?” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “The real wild card for the U.S. and many other developed countries is immigration.”
Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, says environmental concerns surrounding the 8 billion mark should focus on consumption, particularly in developed countries.
“Population is not the problem, the way we consume is the problem — let’s change our consumption patterns,” he said.
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Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria. Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal; Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India; Wanjohi Kabukuru in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt; Christina Larson in Washington; Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, and Jean-Yves Kamale in Kinshasa, Congo, contributed.
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers says the passage of time has given him a greater appreciation of the seasons he spent playing for Mike McCarthy.
McCarthy, now with the Dallas Cowboys, will return to Lambeau Field on Sunday to face the team he coached to a 125-77-2 record from 2006-18.
“It’s probably normal in any relationship you have,” Rodgers said Wednesday. “When you’re able to take time away and you have that separation, it’s natural to look back and have a greater sense of appreciation and gratitude and thankfulness for that time.”
McCarthy coached Green Bay during the 2010 season when the Packers won their lone Super Bowl title during Rodgers’ playing career, but the relationship between the quarterback and coach eventually soured. McCarthy was fired late in the 2018 season.
Four years later, McCarthy is returning to Lambeau Field as the coach of the surging Dallas Cowboys (6-2) while the Packers (3-6) are on their first five-game skid since 2008.
If any hard feelings remain between McCarthy and Rodgers, they certainly aren’t letting it show. They’ve spent this week exchanging compliments.
“When I think of him, I think of the one-on-one conversations we used to have, especially in the younger days,” McCarthy said. “And it always ended with a hug and, ‘I love ya.’ So that’s what I think about our relationship. I think he made me a much better coach. You’re talking about a man that’s one of the premier professional athletes of his generation.”
Rodgers recalled those meetings as well during his weekly news conference. He said the two of them started meeting every Thursday after practice around 2009 or 2010.
“Those were always fun,” Rodgers said. “Those could go 30 minutes or four hours. You’d start getting to story time. It just bonded us over the years, those conversations. I always appreciated that.”
McCarthy and Rodgers helped the Packers win a Super Bowl as the sixth and final seed in the NFC playoffs during that 2010 season. Rodgers won MVP awards while playing for McCarthy in 2011 and 2014.
The Packers made eight straight playoff berths from 2009-16 under McCarthy, but slumped to 7-9 in 2017 and were 4-7-1 when he got fired.
During those latter seasons, Rodgers’ displeasure was occasionally apparent, whether he was occasionally criticizing the offense or complaining that he wasn’t consulted before the 2018 firing of quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt.
McCarthy said many of the issues between them could have stemmed from the generation gap. And the different ways in which they communicated. McCarthy turns 59 on Thursday, while Rodgers’ 39th birthday is Dec. 2.
“I think personal relationships are private, and you have to remember I was born in the 60s,” McCarthy said. “I’m being better at expressing myself publicly.”
Rodgers isn’t exactly heading into this reunion with momentum.
The Packers desperately need a victory and Rodgers is still dealing with an injured right thumb that kept him from practicing on Wednesday, which has happened four of the past five weeks. Rodgers says he expects to practice Thursday.
Rodgers threw three interceptions to match a career high in Green Bay’s 15-9 loss at Detroit on Sunday.
Perhaps the matchup with McCarthy’s team will help him bounce back, even though they apparently have patched up any differences they might have had at one time. Rodgers said they’d always stayed in touch, but have communicated a little more in the past year or so.
“I think as time goes by, the gratitude for that time as you look back on the journey of your career goes up a little bit,” Rodgers said. “I appreciate the little things a little bit more because really this game and life is about the journey. I’ll always be tied with him because of the connection that we had and the years we spent together.
“Obviously my longest-tenured coach, my longest-tenured play-caller. I’m thankful for those years and thankful maybe a little bit more now as the years go by.”
NOTES: The Packers have claimed DB Johnathan Abram off waivers from the Las Vegas Raiders. Abram was the 27th overall pick in the 2019 draft. … The Packers placed OLB Rashan Gary on injured reserve and signed wide receiver Jeff Cotton to the practice squad. Packers coach Matt LaFleur already had indicated Monday that Gary would miss the rest of the season. … The list of Packers who didn’t practice Wednesday included OT David Bakhtiari (knee), LB Krys Barnes (concussion), LB De’Vondre Campbell (knee), WR Romeo Doubs (ankle), CB Shemar Jean-Charles (ankle), OG/OT Elgton Jenkins (knee), CB Eric Stokes (ankle/knee) and WR Sammy Watkins (knee) as well as Rodgers.
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AP Pro Football Writer Schuyler Dixon contributed to this report.
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WARSAW, Poland — A women’s rights group in Poland on Monday urged people to demonstrate after the country’s ruling party leader claimed that Poland’s low birthrate is partly caused by young women drinking too much alcohol.
Opposition politicians, activists and celebrities accused Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a 73-year-old bachelor, of being out of touch. They also argue that Kaczynski, the most powerful politician in Poland since 2015, is himself partly responsible for the the low birthrate in the central European nation of 38 million people.
In particular, critics point to increased restrictions on abortion that have discouraged some women from seeking to get pregnant. Others note the difficulty that young people have in raising families amid inflation that is reaching nearly 18%.
A women’s rights group voiced fury at Kaczynski’s comment and urged people to protest in front of Kaczynski’s Warsaw home on Nov. 28, the 104th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in Poland.
“The cretinous words of an old geezer about Polish women that women do not give birth to children because they drink (and not because Poland is hell), this is only a fragment of our reality,” the Women’s Strike wrote Monday on Facebook.
The group said there were many reasons for country’s low birthrate, including Poland’s de facto prohibition of abortion, a lack of access to sexual education and in vitro procedures, inflation, a housing shortage and a lack of access to day care centers.
Kaczynski, leader of the populist ruling party, Law and Justice, spoke Saturday about the demographic challenges of “far too few children” being born as he rallied support for his party ahead of next year’s parliamentary election.
“And here it is sometimes necessary to say a little openly, some bitter things. If, for example, the situation remains such that, until the age of 25, girls, young women, drink the same amount as their peers, there will be no children,” Kaczynski said.
He claimed, without any medical proof, that to develop alcoholism, the average man “has to drink excessively for 20 years” but “a woman only two.”
“I am really a sincere supporter of women’s equality, but I am not a supporter of women pretending to be men, and men pretending to be women,” Kaczynski said.
The remark also triggered predictable jokes along the lines of alcohol being helpful to conception.
The traditionally Roman Catholic country already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, with abortions allowed in very few cases, before 2020. Then, a new ruling said that women may no long terminate pregnancies in cases where the fetus has serious abnormalities and is not viable after birth.
That sparked the largest protests in Poland in decades, which were led by Women’s Strike. There have since been cases of pregnant women dying even though a risk to the woman’s life remains a legal grounds for abortion under the current law. Women’s rights advocates say such cases occur because doctors are afraid to terminate pregnancies even when the woman’s life might be at risk, fearing legal consequences.
The number of births per woman in Poland has plummeted from 3 children per woman in 1960 to 1.2 in 2003, according to the World Bank.
It began rising again somewhat after 2003, and got a boost after Kaczynski’s government introduced a monthly cash benefit of 500 zlotys ($108) per child after winning power in 2015, hoping to encourage larger families.
But the birthrate is again declining and Kaczynski admitted last month the program isn’t working as intended. The birthrate stood at 1.32 children per woman in 2021, according to Polish state statistics.
MINGKAMAN, South Sudan — In a country where the maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, a small clinic dedicated to reproductive health care for more than 200,000 people is about to be shut down. The worried-looking mothers know too well what might happen next.
“If the hospital closes, we will die more because we are poor,” said one expectant mother who gave her name only as Chuti. She was attending a monthly checkup at the Mingkaman reproductive health clinic in this town on the White Nile River, and it might be her last.
The United Nations has said it intends to end the clinic’s operations by December because of a lack of funding from European and other supporters. It is just one casualty among many in developing countries as humanitarian donors have been stretched by one crisis after another, from COVID-19 to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.N. would not say how much it costs to run the clinic.
A loss like the clinic is of critical importance for people in places like Mingkaman, which along with the rest of South Sudan has struggled to cope with the aftermath of a five-year civil war, climate shocks like widespread flooding and lingering insecurity that includes shocking rates of sexual violence.
The U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan has said the war in Ukraine has led to a dramatic cut in funding for emergency medical care for people who have been sexually assaulted. “It’s not that sexual violence ebbs and flows, it’s going on all the time, largely unseen,” commissioner Barney Afako said. The commission also has asserted that the government has failed to invest in basic services like health care.
This reproductive health clinic in the capital of Awerial county in central South Sudan serves a community largely of people displaced by the civil war and the floods. It is where women who once gave birth at home now come to deliver their children. It is also where women who are assaulted come for care.
The maternal mortality rate in South Sudan was 789 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019, according to the World Health Organization. That’s more than double the rate in more developed neighboring Kenya, according to U.N. data, while the U.S. rate was 23 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At least 250 women give birth in the Mingkaman clinic every month, said Teresa Achuei, the site manager with the organization IMA World Health, which runs the facility. She said she knew of only three women who have died while giving birth in the community, all of them outside the clinic.
Now, she said, hundreds of women could be at risk. “Our aim, our mission, is to reduce maternal mortality rate. Every woman should deliver safely. If the facility closes, there will be many deaths in the community,” she told The Associated Press during a visit in mid-October.
The clinic was founded in 2014, the year after South Sudan’s civil war began. Set up in tents as a temporary way to serve people displaced by fighting, it remains makeshift but works around the clock.
It is a center of activity in Mingkaman, a community on one of South Sudan’s muddy main highways without reliable electricity and running water. The military is present to respond to flares of violence. Many women support their families by collecting firewood from the nearby forest to sell or work in modest local hotels.
Multiple women expressed concern about the clinic’s coming closure.
“It will be worsening for us because it was helping us,” said Akuany Bol, who delivered her three children there. She looked miserable while waiting for a midwife to examine her child.
Andrew Kuol, a clinical officer, said the facility receives an average of 70 to 80 patients per day. It often admits 20 patients a day, or twice the number of beds.
Some women must be treated on the ground.
Kuol said the clinic faces shortages of medicines including malaria drugs, post-rape drugs, antenatal drugs and others, again because of waning donor support.
The nearest hospital is in the city of Bor in the neighboring state of Jonglei, where the clinic’s more complicated cases are sent. Getting there is complicated, too. With no bridge between the states, it can take an hour for a boat to cross the Nile.
As in much of South Sudan, travel is challenging. And current circumstances mean few of the people here can easily relocate for health care or anything else.
“These (displaced people) are not going anywhere because there is still insecurity and also the flooding,” said James Manyiel Agup, the Awerial county director for health here in Lakes state. He urged the U.N. partners to continue supporting the facility to save lives.
