For the fifth year in a row, birth rates in the US have declined says a recent report from the Agency for Health Research and Quality.

For the fifth year in a row, birth rates in the US have declined according to recent reports from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2007 about 70 women in 1000 had babies. That number has been dropping since then and in 2012 hit 63, making it the lowest since 1909, when the government started keeping track.

That equates to hundreds of thousands of babies a year.

Experts cite the economic downturn and its slow recovery pace as one of the primary reasons for the decline.

Unfortunately, many also say that because of the lowered number of people who will eventually be joining the work force, the shrinking numbers are bad news for the country’s financial state in the future.

Keeping up with the current number of jobs and people to fill them would require that women have an average of 2.1 children each.

According to the CDC, US women currently have just under 1.9 a piece.

The bright spot in the numbers is that fewer teens are giving birth.

Statistics show that birth rates in that group have also been shrinking for the past 5 years.