The United States is ranked third in the world in regards to its present population, estimated to be 324,459,463 as listed by worldometer.info, the two countries that have a higher population than America, are China at #1, and India at #2, in which India will in the next few years surpass China as the most populous country in the world. To get a picture of how much larger, the population is in India as compared to the United States, India's populated as listed by worldometer.info is 1,339,180,127 peoples which is more than four times the population of the United States.
Not too surprisingly, both China and India are on GDP growth rates that are absolutely crushing America, of which, some of the reason why this is so, is because their population is so much greater than ours, in addition to a lower GDP point to spring off from, as well as the fact that their demographics are superior to America. That is to say, GDP growth is strongly correlated to both population growth as well as the actual demographics of the people that reside within that nation, especially in regards to their age as well as their educational achievements.
America, has not had an annual GDP growth rate greater than 3% since 2005, and doesn't appear to be on track to exceed 3% anytime soon, if ever, again. Whereas, back in the 1950s, America, had four years in that decade in which its growth rate was at least 6.9% or better. One of the biggest difference between now and then, is that the demographics of the median age in America was considerably younger in the 1950s so that in 1960 as listed by statista.org that median age was 29.5 years, whereas in 2016 it is now 37.9 years. In regards to India, their median age in 1960 as listed by statista.org was 20.3 years, and in 2015 was at 26.7 years, making India even younger than America was back in its heyday of real GDP growth of the 1950s and 1960s.
The significance of having a young population entering the workforce of India, is that these workers are just starting to begin their careers which puts a downward pressure on labor costs, as well as the fact that they are healthier and more energetic than older workers, along with the reality that younger workers consume more products and goods per capita than older people, because they want and have a need for more products and have a stronger desire to work hard to get them. Since 2009, India's slowest GDP growth rate was 5.5%, whereas its faster growth rate was an astonishing 10.3% in 2010.
The reason that GDP growth matters so much is that America has taken its national deficit which use to sit just under $1 trillion dollars in 1981 to over $20 trillion dollars in 2017. This national debt is so large, that it equates to an individual taxpayer debt of over $150,000 per taxpayer. That sort of debt can only successfully be discharged through real economic growth and America neither has the growth, nor the demographics to do so, therefore, America is on the path to discharge that debt only through any of the various forms of default, such as repudiation, inflation, or the re-pegging of its currency to some other medium, which would create civil unrest and strife at an unprecedented level, unless America, is somehow able to create the growth needed so as to enable a pathway to address their huge debt overload.
This pathway can only come through the growth and active encouragement of immigration, fortunately, America is a country, that the best and brightest young foreign minds have prominently as one of their top choices to immigrate to, if not the top choice of many, so that, in a country that is the third largest in land size, there is plenty of room to grow, plenty of food to eat, and plenty of higher educational facilities to attend, so that, it is time to lift up our lamp and to re-open our golden door to take in all those yearning for freedom and opportunity.