As the world prepared to ring in the New Year with celebration, the U.S. Census Bureau seemed to be celebrating something else: the January 1, 2016 release of new U.S. and world population projections, which are at the highest levels in human history. Census estimates show the U.S. is presently growing by 1 person every 17 seconds.

Sadly, America’s shocking population count – nearly 323 million people – was marketed to the public with the celebratory image below, filled with colorful confetti and a smiling baby. Unsurprisingly, the story was reported with the same misguided positive spin. Newsday quoted demographer William H. Frey (a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution) as saying: “An upward population trend reflects the economy’s vigor and is critical to fuel it. I absolutely think this kind of growth is necessary for us to sustain the economy.”

That’s not the only bad news that arrived with 2016. As NPG has long held, along with U.S. population growth comes a deteriorating quality of life – and a strained economy. According to a recent article in The Atlantic: “Based on current rates of population growth and assuming no improvement on what is promised in Social Security benefits, there’s likely to be an increase in the numbers of elderly [in] poverty… to 25 million in 2050 – an increase of 180%.”

As if that weren’t bad enough… Following the tragic shootings in San Bernadino, CA last year, a new round of Congressional hearings was launched regarding U.S. immigration policy – with one hearing specifically focused on our nation’s Visa overstay problem. (NPG has stated for over 20 years that tracking Visa overstays is a vital key to reducing illegal immigration and the common abuse of our outdated system.) Yet even after decades of warning, a recent article in The New York Times noted: “The question from the congressman to the Obama administration was straightforward enough: How many foreign visitors overstay their visas every year?”