Population Slowdown

   The pandemic helped to slow population growth in America to its slowest ever, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

   This year, the population grew by 0.1 percent (that's one-tenth of 1 percent), the agency said, and it was the first time since 1937 that the population grew by fewer than one million people. That was the lowest number since the bureau began its annual estimates in 1900.

   Part of the slowdown was caused by a drop in international migration, the agency said. Only a quarter of a million people came to America in the past ten years. Part of the slowdown was attributed to the pandemic. Earlier, "the slowest rate of growth in the 20th Century was from 1918-1919, amid the influenza pandemic and World War I."

   Add all this to the shortage of workers as businesses try to hire workers for sometimes menial jobs, and the question becomes, why is there so much opposition to newcomers from other countries with differing cultures?

   The most likely answer: bigotry.