This is the Future of America
By 2050, your life will be completely unrecognizable. Your home, your job, even the cities you live in—everything will have changed dramatically. But what will it actually look like? And how did we get there? We’re going to dive into the changes already underway and explore what life will really look like in 2050. Let’s start with the six years between now and 2030. One of the biggest changes coming to the 2024 to 2030 period will be the rise of what some are dubbing megacities. These are massive cities that have populations above 10 million people,
combined with large surface areas enabling future growth and strong transport systems. The U.S already has two megacities: New York, with over 23 million people, and Los Angeles, with more than 18 million. And a couple more might join the list by 2030 since Chicago and Washington are both on the verge of breaking the 10 million barrier, with the takeaway being that cities are going to become more jam-packed than ever before. And they’ll only get bigger as we move closer to 2050. Your actual home is about
to look very different too, largely thanks to smart home adoption. Nearly 43 million Americans already had some form of smart home technology by 2019. By 2024, that number has risen to almost 70 million Americans, accounting for over a sixth of the population. And the trend will only grow from there – 2028 is projected to see over 103 million Americans living in homes that include some form of smart technology. Other technological changes will likely include restrictions being placed on social media platforms, something like what has happened to TikTok previously. Sam Adams, who’s a 24-year veteran at IBM, suggests that we’ll see the rise
of new platforms that place a greater focus on privacy – an issue about which 71% of American adults say they’re “very” or “somewhat” concerned. Going hand-in-hand with that will be the sheer scale of misinformation on these platforms and the web as a whole. Deepfake artificial intelligence, or AI, will continue to grow in popularity, going from a market size of $564 million in 2024 to more than $5 billion by 2030. This represents a compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, of 44.5% and it spells one thing for the immediate future of the U.S. – millions of fake images and videos trying to misinform you about social situations. But back to the megacities and the general
increase in urbanization of the U.S. between 2024 and 2030. That can’t spell good things for the environment, right? Sadly not. In January 2023, Stanford University published a report in which it claimed that we’re on track for global warming to reach 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial averages by the 2030s. Worse yet, it won’t matter how much we do to limit our greenhouse emissions between now and then – the temperature is going up regardless. For context, the world was 2 degrees Fahrenheit
warmer than it was before the industrial age in 2023, meaning temperatures are going to increase more. Expect to see more melting of polar ice sheets and an increasing prevalence of extreme weather events as we move closer to 2030. In sheer costs alone, the impact of climate change is expected to set the U.S. back by between $2 billion and $4 billion every year in healthcare alone. Agriculture, sanitation, and water sectors will be the ones worst
affected by these temperature changes. It’ll only get worse from there, so keep watching to see just how much the planet will have warmed by 2050. Still, there are some bright spots. The Solar Energy Industries Association, or SEIA, has a target to ensure solar power will be responsible for generating 30% of America’s annual electricity by 2030. That’s a target, mind you, rather than a guarantee. At the current rate of adoption, solar power will only account for 15%
of electricity generated by 2030. The United Nations has even more ambitious targets – it hopes to help create a world (and the U.S.) in which 65% of electricity comes from renewable sources. If nothing else, you’re likely to see a lot more solar panels and wind farms by 2030. It may not be enough to stop climate change, but it’s a start.
Of course, population growth could be the enemy of these attempts to combat climate change. And according to the Census Bureau, 2030 will mark some key demographic changes in the U.S. Starting with Baby Boomers, all will be above the age of 65 by this time, meaning a fifth of Americans will be in retirement age. Keep watching to see what impact that will have on the American population in the 2030s. Population growth will continue, hitting an average of 1.8 million people per year between 2017 and 2060. That average will be influenced by
2.3 million per year growth up to 2030, though it’s going to decline in the coming years to the point that 2030 will likely mark the first time in American history that net international migration will outpace natural increase through birth as the leading American population driver. That growing population will also experience some serious changes to work and society between 2024 and 2030. The rise of artificial intelligence, which is already well underway, will dictate most of those changes. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, 37% of people are
worried that the increased automation that comes from rising AI use will put them out of work. They may not be wrong. Dig Insights estimates that automation will replace 30% of American jobs by 2030. The organization suggests we’ll see a rush toward the increased use of robotics for jobs in meat processing, hospitality, and several other industries. But there are some
bright spots. 74% of Americans say they’re willing to learn new skills to ensure they’re employable in the future, with 73% saying they believe technology can never replace the human mind. The big question is simple: are those people right? You’ll learn the answer as we move deeper into the 2030s and toward 2050. What is certain is that 2024 to 2030 will lead to rising instability in the job market, with 60% of Americans believing that long-term stable employment will soon be a thing of the past. They may have a point. The Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, projects that the unemployment rate will rise continuously up to 2030, from its 2024 first quarter rate of 3.8% to 4% by 2025 and, finally, 4.5% by 2030.
There’s not a whole lot of encouraging information there. Still, things will start to improve as you reach the 2030s and move closer to 2040, right? Well, yes and no. On the technological front, Allianz Partners offers some interesting insights into what housing will look like. It suggests that the majority of homes will be 3D printed rather
than made using traditional construction methods, with the resulting homes being built by construction robots and designed to incorporate full network connections to make them “smart.” On the plus side for the average person, these new construction methods will result in the creation of “super-smart” homes that cost 60% less than equivalent homes in 2024 and can be built in a matter of weeks. Whether those savings would be passed on to homebuyers is another question entirely, and there’s no good precedent for that being the case.
Enhancements to medical care will also have a defined impact on American society, especially in relation to childbirth. Based on United Nations projections, Axios predicts that the average American child will be expected to live up to 83 years by 2040. For context, that’s five years more than 2024’s life expectancy. Infant death will also decline dramatically, with only three in every one thousand infants passing away, representing a halving of the current rate. So the average U.S. citizen will be “wealthier and healthier” than ever. But let’s dig deeper into the expected healthcare innovation we’re likely to see during the 2030s. Some predict that innovations in global healthcare, including
the adoption of new technologies, will reduce the total burden caused to the U.S. healthcare system by disease by between 6% and 10%. Such innovations include molecular technologies and the “omics” sciences, key components of the “Bio Revolution.” These technologies allow doctors to target specific molecules within cells, similar to how the COVID-19 vaccine targeted the S protein found on the surface of that virus. By 2040, this emerging approach will become widespread
to the point where it’s practically the standard. Regenerative medicine and cellular therapy will also become more widespread. CAR T-Cell therapy is a good example – the American Society of Hematology reported in March 2023 that a study relating to this technology saw 76% of patients enter remission from cancer. Look for this type of medical technology to improve
by leaps and bounds by the time we hit 2040. Other technological advancements are perhaps more speculative. For instance, we could see the full rollout of 7G wireless communication technology by 2040. This tech will provide internet connection speeds that are a staggering 100,000 times faster
than the peak speeds of 20 gigabits per second achieved by the 5G standard we have in 2024. Those faster speeds will make things like full virtual assistants, or VAs, possible. Your home will be equipped with a host of diagnostic sensors and systems that can conduct constant physical and medical checks on you, with your VA essentially being a repository of the data collected that you can quiz at any time. You may even have a small fleet of robots, drones, and other AI-powered tech in your home – and some experts think that up to 90% of your household chores will be completed by robots and drones by 2040. Don’t think we’ve forgotten about the emerging megacities either. By 2035, Dallas will crack a population of 10 million people, with Houston following soon after in 2043. San Francisco will also have become part of
the megacity phenomenon, suggesting American cities will continue a trend toward becoming more congested than they are in 2024. It’s amazing to see it happen in real time. But you can’t shake the feeling that you’re increasingly losing control of your life. It’ll only get worse from here. For now, let’s examine the impact that having more people who are more densely packed together will have on the environmental front.
To get an idea, we can look at the condition Florida will be in by 2040. By that year, global sea levels will have risen anywhere between seven inches in a moderate scenario and 16 inches in an extreme scenario. That spells potential catastrophe for people living in Florida’s coastal cities. Pensacola, for instance, faces a 17% chance of experiencing annual floods of three feet in the moderate scenario, with the percentage rising to 100% in the extreme scenario. St. Petersburg and Fernandina Beach fare even worse – the former’s
annual three-foot flood risk ranges from 19% to 100%, while the latter’s is between 20% and 100%. Mortality rates in the state will also increase as both extreme heat and cold affect the state’s older population. Right now, 20.5% of Florida’s population is aged 65 or above, which is higher than the overall U.S. average of 16%. By 2035, climate change will cause an annual
average of 1,000 additional deaths in the moderate scenario, rising to 1,400 per year in the extreme scenario. Floridian agricultural irrigation will also require 3.7 billion gallons of water annually in 2035—up from 3.2 billion in 2015—at a time when droughts are more frequent and widespread. But hey, at least there’s a minor plus – Florida’s changing temperatures will lead to cotton and soy yields increasing by between 5% and 6% in 2035. Still, that sliver of a silver lining doesn’t mean much for a state that’s likely to be devastated by climate change. And while Florida offers one
of the most extreme examples due to being a coastal state, the rest of the U.S. will be feeling the environmental pinch. It’ll only get worse, too – keep watching to see what state the U.S. will be in if climate change continues at its current rate up to 2050. Can anything be done to stop this sort of scenario? The U.S. will certainly be trying. It currently has a target to reach net zero emissions by 2050, with 2030 to 2040 seeing it deploy zero-carbon technologies at a rate of between 60 and 70 gigawatts per year. It won’t hit net zero by the end of 2040 – power consumption in the U.S. was over 3.6 million gigawatts in 2020 and it’s going to increase as the population
grows, but it’s at least a start. Granted, it’s a start that Climate Action Tracker classes as “insufficient.” According to that organization, America’s policies and actions are lacking compared to most other developed nations, with its financing for climate-related activities being “critically insufficient.” So, the U.S. will be making progress, but it’ll have fallen behind many other countries on the environmental front by 2040. And, as Floridians will be able to tell you by 2035, it’ll be paying a price that’s only going to grow larger as we move toward 2050.
But let’s switch focus for a moment. We’ve touched on America’s growing population, so how will the country’s demographics and population change between 2030 and 2040? Fairly substantially, as it turns out. Between 2030 and 2040, the number of people aged 65 or over in the United States will rise from 73.1 million to 80.8 million, with the latter figure representing 22% of the population. Florida’s current higher-than-average number of retirees won’t be an outlier anymore – it’ll be the new U.S. standard. That increase in older people will be matched—inversely—by a decrease in population growth. The 2.3 million per year average seen up to 2030 will take a sharp decline,
with the U.S. population only growing by 1.8 million people per year on average between 2030 and 2040. Remember that the Census Bureau predicts average population growth of this amount between 2017 and 2060 – that means more declines in growth are to come as we move toward 2050. Net international migration will also have fully overtaken births in the United States as the country’s main driver of population growth. In 2030, one million people will be born, versus
1.1 million people who arrive in the U.S. from other countries. Again, that’s a trend that will continue throughout the next decade and into the 2040s. By 2040, only 45% of 30-year-olds in the United States will be non-Hispanic white people. How much longer will it be, then, before America’s collection of minorities becomes the majority in the country? Interestingly, demographics will also be changing in terms of how you live and what religion you follow. On the religious side, published by the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures
Project reveals that the current Christian majority in the United States will still be in place. But it will be falling. By 2040, 30% of people aged between 30 and 44 will identify as being unaffiliated with any type of religion – almost double the 18% who said the same in 2010. As for where you’re living, the odds are that you’re going to be in a major urban area, such as one of the emerging megacities. The U.N. published data on world urbanization prospects back in 2018, suggesting that a staggering 87% of the American population will live in some form of urban area by 2040. Granted, this isn’t too far from the current figure, as 82.66% of Americans lived in urban areas in 2020. Still, there’s a trend away from rural and toward wealthier cities at play here, which will continue into 2050. Earlier, we mentioned the possibility of
the new smart homes being built between 2030 and 2040 being 3D printed. What does that mean for the construction industry? It could actually mean good things, at least from an industry standpoint, as the rise of 3D printing for homes could lead to productivity boosts that result in the realization of forecasts that global construction could be a $22 trillion industry by 2040. That would require a compound annual growth rate of 3.2%, though, which is a long way ahead of the 0.4% annual growth seen between 2000 and 2022. Looking toward the wider world of work,
AI and automation will have continued their unstoppable march through 2040, eliminating millions of jobs while placing many millions more at risk. Forecasts vary depending on the source, but there are predictions that 63 million jobs will be lost globally to automation by 2040, with the hardest hit sectors including agriculture and construction. So, while the construction industry will be booming between 2030 and 2040, it’ll come at the cost of people who are the bedrock of the industry right now, perhaps someone just like you. Other forecasts offer even more doom and gloom, especially seeing as AI exploded in popularity shortly after Forrester released its report. In March 2023, Goldman Sachs said it believes around 300 million jobs around the world could be lost to the rising tide of AI by 2040, noting that the technology will handle about a quarter of work tasks in the U.S. in the process. But it’s not all bad news. The rise of AI will lead to new jobs being created, as well as productivity increases that result in the total annual value of goods and services around the world increasing by 7%. Staying with the work front, unemployment will
stay stable at around the 4.5% mark reached in 2030 but a slowing demand for labor due to AI and automation brings us closer to wage stagnation. The Congressional Budget Office says wage growth started declining in 2024, dropping to 4% from the 2023 figure of 4.3%. By the 2030s, growth will
have slowed even further, tapering off to 2.7%. Other changes are more social. In a trend we’re already seeing in 2024, more and more of your relationships will be formed online. Up to 70% of them, in fact, if research published by the dating website eHarmony is accurate. The downside to this, assuming you don’t consider meeting online to be a downside in and of itself, is that these meetings will come at the cost of your data. Information about you will become a currency to major online businesses, which will use it to do everything from matching you up with people to advertising products based on every little action you take. Who knows? Your entire brain may be mapped to the internet by this point if technocrats like Elon Musk get their way. After all, he’s been saying for years that humanity must merge with machines.
So, the period between 2030 and 2040 is a mixed bag. The way you live will have transformed dramatically, with ever more intelligent smart homes becoming the norm and a higher possibility that you’ll be living in an urbanized area. Internet speeds will also feel like they’re lightning-fast. However, America’s current approach to climate issues will lead it on a slow march toward a full-blown crisis, and those who can’t adapt to automation and AI may find themselves being left in the dust. All of which brings us to the period between 2040 and 2050. On the technological front, you’re doing less and less for yourself. You’ll find that with self-driving cars. IDTechEx believes
that self-driving cars will have already reached the level where they match or exceed human safety levels by the end of 2024. From there follows constant growth and adoption of the technology. By 2046, there will be enough of these vehicles to meet the three trillion miles per year mobility demands of the United States, with self-driving cars reaching the point where they can handle the entire world’s transport needs by 2050. That’ll be good news on the accident front, too, according to the company – these cars will record less than one accident per year. Beyond that, practically everything you own will connect to the cloud (and the internet) by 2050. Internet of Things, or IoT, technology will be built into 95% of electronics products. And it’s not just your devices that are getting plugged into the cloud – your own brain might be able to “plug into” a device to the point where you’re able to fully immerse yourself in virtual reality from within your nervous system. Some, such as futurist Ray Kurzweil, even
predict that we’ll be able to upload ourselves so thoroughly to the cloud that AI will be capable of reincarnating us as digital beings once we die. That may seem a little “pie in the sky,” especially as Kurzweil predicts this could be a possibility by 2050, but it’s worth noting that 86% of the futurist’s predictions have come true. Speaking about getting away from the real world, space tourism will also be feasible thanks to the efforts of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. But don’t go ordering your spacesuit just yet – in 2050, the average price of a voyage will be around $132 million. Space will become a rich person’s playground.
And it’s no wonder that so many people will be trying to escape to space or virtual reality – the U.S. will be experiencing a climatological nightmare by the time 2050 rolls around. We’ll get the really bad news out of the way first – large portions of the United States will be underwater by 2050. In 2020, Climate Central released an interactive map showcasing what coastal communities will have to endure as a result of rising sea levels if the climate crisis continues unabated. Regular flooding will be seen in every coastal region, with Atlantic City in New Jersey and Ocean City in Delaware being among the hundreds of communities affected.
It gets worse. By 2050, entire segments of America’s coastal states will be below the 100-year flood level, essentially putting them underwater in the worst-case scenario. We might lose the likes of Newark Airport, Flushing Meadows, and many coastal regions. NASA says that average sea level rises will have reached the one-foot mark by 2050. Still, it’s not all bad news – 2050 will also mark the year that the U.S. achieves net zero carbon emissions, even if it’s potentially too little too late.
On the population and demographic fronts, the U.S. will have continued its march toward old age. An enormous 85.7 million people will be above 65 years old by 2050. Though this still accounts for 22% of the population, the same rate seen between 2030 and 2040, it’s part of an upward trend that sees the percentage tick up to 23% by 2060. The trend toward net international migration becoming the leading driver of population growth also continues. By 2040, 1.1 million of the 1.7 million new people added to the U.S. will be migrants. By 2050,
the numbers will be 1.1 million migrants versus a 400,000 natural increase. Speaking of increases, America’s population growth will have slowed substantially by 2050. It will plateau at a rate of 1.5 million people per year between 2040 and 2060 – a sharp decrease on the average of 2.3 million per year seen between 2020 and 2030. Oh, and do you remember that we mentioned that there’s a chance America’s minorities will actually become the majority in the country? That happens in 2045, according to Census projections, which will have an obvious impact on American culture. Coming back to the population as a whole,
we’ll all also be a little…chunkier…than we had been in the past. That’s according to a study conducted by researchers from MIT and Harvard. Using advanced models that treat obesity like an infectious disease, the team predicts that the American obesity rate in adults will be 42% by 2050, meaning an 8% increase over the rate in 2010.
Worse yet, this is a best-case scenario based on data from 2010 – it’s very possible that even more of America will be fatter. That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given that we’ll have created a world for ourselves in which we’ve automated so much of what we used to do. And that’s a world that many Americans believe is coming. In December 2018, Pew Research found that 82% of American adults believe that computers and robots will either probably or definitely do the majority of the work currently done by humans in 2050. Most are
also worried about this – 76% of people believe that the gap between the rich and the poor will increase as a result of this rise in automation versus 33% who believe the new automated economy will create new and better-paying jobs for humans. And so, we come to our final question – what will the world be like for the average person by 2050? There will be a lot of positives. Healthcare will have advanced incredibly to the point where doctors can target specific DNA strands to combat disease. You’ll also leave a much “smarter” life at home, with lightning-fast internet speeds, a home that can adapt itself based on your instructions, and access to virtual reality. Your entire self may be uploaded to the cloud, creating the possibility of AI-based reincarnation.
Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is up to your interpretation. But you will be doing less. Your car will be driving itself, your home will be telling you how you feel, and as for work… Well, you may not even have a job. Unless you’ve reskilled to the point where you can work in some capacity in the growing AI and automation industries, you may be facing up to a world where there are very few jobs available for you. As for what’s happening with the climate, the less said about that the better. But what do you think? Are you excited about what 2050 may hold for you and your family or are you worried about what the future will bring? Tell us all about it in the comments and as always, thanks for watching, and take care out there!
2024-11-03 01:59
