Tim Henderson | Stateline.org (TNS)
The median age rose in nearly each state final 12 months, census estimates present, persevering with a long-term development that’s pushing states to organize for growing old populations.
Seventeen states had median ages over 40 in 2022, in line with new U.S. Census Bureau estimates of the age at which half of residents are older and half are youthful. That’s up from 12 states in 2020 and simply seven in 2010.
Nationwide, the median age was beneath 30 till 1980, nevertheless it rose to 38.9 as of 2022, in line with the bureau estimates.
That leaves extra states planning for future well being and housing challenges for older residents. Some states have issued or are contemplating govt orders, company plans and laws to help state residents who want extra assist with well being crises, housing and long-term care as they dwell longer.
Millennials began turning 40 final 12 months, and the youngest child boomers are shortly approaching 60.
“As the nation’s median age creeps closer to 40, you can really see how the aging of baby boomers, and now their children — sometimes called echo boomers — is impacting the median age,” stated Kristie Wilder, a Census Bureau demographer, in a press release.
Lower start charges additionally play a task and can probably proceed to drive median age slowly however steadily greater, Wilder added. Some states have handed laws requiring that well being insurers cowl fertility therapies in response to decrease fertility charges, in line with a University of California, Irvine examine printed final 12 months. New York state’s 2020 regulation, for instance, requires protection of in vitro fertilization in some circumstances.
No states noticed a drop from 2021 to 2022, and states with unchanged medians have been Alabama, Maine, Tennessee and West Virginia, together with the District of Columbia. The largest improve in median age lately was in Delaware, the place it rose three years since 2010 to age 41.8.
The portion of Delaware residents over 60 will soar from 1 / 4 to greater than a 3rd of the state inhabitants by 2040, in line with a 2020 state report, creating new challenges for state companies. A Delaware Journal of Public Health report printed in 2021 stated a rising variety of Delaware’s older residents undergo from dementia, requiring dearer assist from the state and household caregivers.
Vermont held six public listening periods across the state final 12 months to assist put together suggestions this 12 months for Age Strong Vermont, its street map for an “age-friendly state.”
“Vermont had this older demographic for a long time but it’s taken a while for the state broadly to really reckon with that,” stated Angela Smith-Dieng, Vermont’s Adult Services Division director. Part of the problem is that older Vermont residents are inclined to dwell in massive rural homes and need assistance with in-home well being care, renovations for mobility and transportation on demand, she stated.
A New York govt order in November additionally requires a statewide plan on growing old.
Vermont and New York joined different states already planning complete methods for growing old populations: California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Texas, in line with a January report by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
California’s Master Plan for Aging, launched in 2021, goals to create an “age-friendly California” by 2030, together with housing and well being care methods. A invoice at present progressing within the state legislature would create a statewide system of respite suppliers by 2025 to assist in giving main caregivers of older adults enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program for low-income residents, a break.
Elsewhere, an Oregon invoice to review long-term care wants for older residents has handed each chambers of the legislature.
Only North Dakota is youthful now than it was in 2010, down 1.2 years from age 37 to 35.8. The state’s burgeoning oil business has drawn youthful staff to jobs that pay effectively and don’t require four-year school levels.
Energy counties in different states have seen related influxes of younger folks. Loving County, Texas, for instance, noticed its median age lower from 52.7 in 2010 to 35.3 in 2022, a distinction of greater than 17 years.
Skeet Lee Jones, county choose there, stated the tiny county has work camps for greater than 1,000 oil staff and a whole lot extra younger staff residing in leisure car camps, with good-paying jobs that create their very own challenges for county authorities.
“We’ve had to start paying our own county workers what we call ‘oil-field wages’ just to get things done, about four or five times minimum wage,” Jones stated.
The oldest state within the nation stays Maine at 44.8. It additionally was the oldest in 2010, at 42.7.
Other states with median ages at 40 or above in 2022: New Hampshire (43.3), Vermont (43.2), West Virginia (42.8), Florida (42.7), Delaware (41.8), Pennsylvania and Connecticut (40.9), Hawaii (40.7), Rhode Island (40.6), Wisconsin (40.4), New Jersey, Oregon and South Carolina (all 40.3), Montana and Michigan (40.2), and Massachusetts (40.1).
The youngest states and the one ones with median ages beneath 37 have been Utah (31.9), the District of Columbia (34.8), Texas (35.5), and Alaska and North Dakota (35.8).
On the county stage, the median age in 2022 was as little as 20.9 in Madison County, Idaho, residence of Brigham Young University-Idaho, the place many younger college students are additionally beginning households.
The median age was as excessive as 68.1 in Sumter County, Florida, a part of the sprawling The Villages retirement neighborhood. In 2010 Sumter County’s median age was 62.7, the one county with a median age of 60 or greater within the nation on the time.
In 2022 there have been six others: Catron County, New Mexico (62.1); Jeff Davis County, Texas (61.7); Harding County, New Mexico (60.5); Jefferson County, Washington (60.4); Charlotte County, Florida (60.2); and Highland County, Virginia (60.0).
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