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Show California Looms As Nation's Most- Populous State California is expected to add more than 6,000,000 inhabitants by 1970 and with a population exceeding 20 million will be the most populous state, according to statisticians of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Other states for which rapid population gains are predicted Nevada and Arizona, with increases in-creases of about two thirds to lead all the states in rate of population pop-ulation growth; Florida, an. increase in-crease of two fifths to bring its population to almost 6,000,000; and Maryland, Delaware and Michigan with increases of at least one third. For the nation as a whole,- including in-cluding the new states of Hawaii and Alaska the total population is expected to be over 208,000,-000 208,000,-000 by 1970, with the annual increment in-crement in the intervening years averaging 1.5 per cent. The statisticians stat-isticians base these predictions in part on estimates by the Bureau of the Census. Each of the three broad age components of the population will increase, Jbut not in equal measure. Persons at the principal productive ages 18 to 64 years will be the slowest growing group; their number is expected to rise only one fifth to about 115 million in 1970. The number num-ber of persons under 18 should increase by nearly one fourth to about 74 million. At the same time the over 65 population is expected to increase by a third to 19 million. "Of particular interest is the outlook for the new states of Alaska and Hawaii. Although it is difficult to foretell the effects of statehood, it is likely that the future rate of population growth for each will be well above that for the country as a whole. By 1970 there may be about 290,000 persons in Alaska and over 800,-000 800,-000 in Hawaii. Also noteworthy is the relative youthfulness of the population in both the areas. Currently only about five per cent of their residents are past 65, and even this low proportion is expected to decrease somewhat. some-what. On the other hand, persons aged 18-64 are expected to continue con-tinue to comprise almost 60 per cent of the population in Hawaii and about 70 per cent in Alaska. The Secretary is scheduled to testify August 13 before the Senate Sen-ate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, of which Senator Moss is a member. Subject of the hearing is a resolution res-olution which points out that further delay in mining industry recovery will endanger the economy econ-omy and the national security, and calls for a reveiw of existing programs "to provide for increased in-creased production and employment. employ-ment. Moss assailed the principle figure fig-ure relied on by the Secretary, the Federal Reserve Mining Production Pro-duction Index, which showed a drop of "only 8;6 per cent in 1958 from the peak year of 1957, calling it "an average that is misleading to the public and without meaning to individual mining operations." He stated that much of the problem of the mining industry could be traced to administration policy. "In the language of the resolution, 'Government purchases, pur-chases, contracts, loans, grants, technical assistance, barter . . . have resulted in the abnormal and artificial stimulation of foreign for-eign metal and mineral exploration explor-ation and development," he said. All that we in Congress are here proposing is a constructive examination of a depressed industry. in-dustry. For a healthy economy and for national security, we should have a clearly defined metals policy that will assure adequate stocks of needed materials ma-terials under all circumstances," he concluded. |