AHC: Smallest possible US Population without any change in Superpower status

AHC: Smallest possible US Population without any change in Superpower status

How small can the population of USA get without any change in its political, military and economic strength throughout the 20th century and early 21st century (up till 2020)?

EDIT: OK, going off into ASB territory here but no other change in world events:WW2, Pearl Harbour, atomic bombs, Cold War, Vietnam War and Korean War. World events in OTL remain the same, technology remains the same, everything remains the same, except US population size. Quite ASB but let's discuss here :)
 
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Couldn't the US lose most of its population in a nuclear war and yet remain a superpower if other countries lost most of their population, too?
 
Escalate Cuban Missile Crisis as WW3. United States loses much of people but can still remain as superpower. Soviets weren't yet able destroy the country.
 
I was thinking of a scenario of a US with zero (completely zero) immigration immediately after World War 2.
 
I was thinking of a scenario of a US with zero (completely zero) immigration immediately after World War 2.

Not sure how USA is going get absolutely zero immigration after WW2. Would USA be willingful take "no immigration politics"? Speciality after the country noticed how bad idea was stop persecuted Jews from seeking refugee place from USA. It might adopt quiet strict immigration politics but absolutely zero immigration seems unlikely.
 
Not sure how USA is going get absolutely zero immigration after WW2. Would USA be willingful take "no immigration politics"? Speciality after the country noticed how bad idea was stop persecuted Jews from seeking refugee place from USA. It might adopt quiet strict immigration politics but absolutely zero immigration seems unlikely.

Both parties I think could at least be anti-hispanic immigration (especially if the war on drugs starts earlier).
 
Outside of immigration, if the US does a better job at addressing poverty it should have lower birthrates.

I noticed many nations like South Korea, Japan, Singapore hit super-low birthrates once they became fully developed.

But US had the Baby Boom (aka baby boomers) after World War 2.
 
I think this could be accomplished without a nuclear holocaust or other sort of gruesome mass-death scenario. Just look at the demographics of the US from 1920 through the 1940's - The Immigration Act of 1924 had cut the flood of immigrants into the US to a trickle, the rate of natural increase fell through the 1930's due to the Depression, the Dust Bowls depopulated a good bit of the southern midwest (some counties in western States have NEVER recovered, to this day), and then you had misguided policies like "Operation Wetback" (yes, they really called it that!) cutting deep into the Latino population, deporting even some that were native-born.
How about this - no Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and no US entry into WWII (or better yet, butterfly away WWII in its entirety). The Great Depression turns into the Long Recession, as the US economy never really rebounded until the US became the Arsenal of Democracy - the rate of natural increase remains low or even falls. Keep the immigration quotas in place or even reduce them further. Prospective immigrants see Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil as more attractive, and those few who do immigrate find the US not to be a Land of Opporunity, but a place where dreams go to die. They leave for greener pastures, and eventually even older immigrants and native-born Americans begin to emigrate too. The persistently-lousy economy keeps Latino migrant labor low, as there's little work for them to do. Eventually you could see not only a declining rate of increase, but a genuine population decrease.
The US would still be considered a world power, so long as it retains its impressive Navy - but a world power that has had its "exceptional" shine tarnished off.
 
So I did some check, and got this exact statistics from the US Department of Homeland Security:

From the Year 1946 to 2017, exactly 45,400,397 people were granted the following status to reside in the United States:
lawful permanent residence (i.e., immigrants who receive a “green card”)
 
The US would still be considered a world power, so long as it retains its impressive Navy - but a world power that has had its "exceptional" shine tarnished off.

How do you think it will affect US military and scientific development, i.e space race, fighter jet programs?
Or the impact on Hollywood?
 

Emperor_Coz

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Purge all Americans who aren't useful.This includes all homeless and unemployed americans.Thats roughly 22 Million Americans,and there we go.We could have a massive industrial technological advance in the 2000s,and suddenly a whole bunch more americans are unemployed,but that would only bring the previous number up to 30 Million.
With both of these,we have only 298 million americans.Can you find another way to improve on this?
 
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Emperor_Coz

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Oh yeah and stopping immigrants isnt gonna do anything,it will destroy the Superpower status because of the large amount of underpaid immigrants in the US that are the backbone of the economy
 

CalBear

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Purge all Americans who aren't useful.This includes all homeless and unemployed americans.Thats roughly 22 Million Americans,and there we go.We could have a massive industrial technological advance in the 2000s,and suddenly a whole bunch more americans are unemployed,but that would only bring the previous number up to 30 Million.
With both of these,we have only 298 million americans.Can you find another way to improve on this?
"Purge" the homeless? And anyone who isn't "useful? To reduce population?

You haven't been here long enough for me to determine if this is or isn't a simple brain cramp, so I will have to accept it as face value. Recommending as a solution the liquidation of more people than the Reich managed.

To Coventry with you.
 
You could institute population density limits (such as 50 people per square mile) in order to reduce the US population while at the same time retaining the nation's status as a world superpower.
 
Okay, I did some further work. Basically, for the US to remain at a arbitrary population figure of 140 million at the year 2020, it would be very difficult unless I am able to go back into the 1920s at least (at least the POD is still after 1900 AD).

So I came up with 2 different scenarios:

1st scenario: POD is from 1910 onwards. Instead of the original population of 92.2 million at 1910 in OTL, the US government imposes a much earlier lock down on immigration. No immigration occurs at all, plus the Great Depression hits much earlier, which shatters the economy and drives down the population rate.

Here is the original population figures from OTL:

1790: 3,929,214

1800: 5,236,631

1810: 7,239,881

1820: 9,638,453

1830: 12,866,020

1840: 17,069,453

1850: 23,191,876

1860: 31,443,321

1870: 38,558,371

1880: 49,371,340

1890: 62,979,766

1900: 76,212,168

1910: 92,228,531

1920: 106,021,568

1930: 123,202,660

1940: 132,165,129

1950: 151,325,798

1960: 179,323,175

1970: 203,211,926

1980: 226,545,805

1990: 248,709,873

2000: 281,421,906

2010: 308,745,538

2020: 330,047,526
 
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