Latest news with #agingPopulation
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Texas is getting older, but its child population is growing
Texas is growing older faster than the rest of the nation, but the number of children in the state has grown while the country's population of young people has shrunk. The population of Texans age 65 and older grew faster than any other age group since the start of the decade, U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday show — including working-age adults and children under the age of 18. The number of elder Texans grew 3.8% from 2023 to 2024, faster than the rest of the nation as a whole. People are living longer than in past generations. As they age, older Texans will increasingly rely on those of working age, a population that isn't growing as quickly, for support, said Holly Heard, vice president of data and analytics at Texas 2036. Older Texans face increased pressure from the state's high housing costs. In a state with the highest levels of people without health insurance, a growing number of Texans will face ailments as they age. 'Texas is less equipped than many other states to take care of our aging population,' Heard said. The number of working-age Texans hasn't kept pace with growth in the senior population even as the state has boomed. Texas has seen fewer people move here from other parts of the country, but the state will have to lean on labor from outside its borders to keep its economic growth humming, said Lloyd Potter, the state demographer. 'If we're not producing our labor in Texas and if we can't import them, then that's going to potentially have an impact on the expansion of our economy,' Potter said. Texas remains fairly young. The median age ticked up slightly from 35.3 years old in 2020 to 35.8 last year, below the U.S. median of 39.1. As the rest of the country saw the number of minors decline since 2020, Texas' population of young'uns grew. The state's population of Asian Americans, African Americans and Latinos has taken off since 2020 — and those families have been the source of the state's relative baby boom compared with the rest of the country, Potter said. Still, their birth rates are declining. White Texans are having fewer kids, too, as that group's population has stagnated. Children outnumber seniors in Texas, which isn't the case in 11 states including Delaware, Oregon and Philadelphia. But 76 out of 254 counties have more elders than children — predominantly rural places young people left when they came of working age to seek job opportunities elsewhere, Potter said. Disclosure: Texas 2036 has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Big news: 20 more speakers join the TribFest lineup! New additions include Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Michael Curry, former presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church; Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. Representative, D-El Paso; Joe Lonsdale, entrepreneur, founder and managing partner at 8VC; and Katie Phang, journalist and trial lawyer. Get tickets. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Washington Post
23-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
The Social Security time bomb is near. No, really, this time.
One thing I've learned by getting old is that dates that sound very far-off will eventually arrive, and the bills payable on those dates will come due. The long-foretold tipping point of Social Security and Medicare into insolvency seemed like science fiction when I first tried to imagine the 2030s, but a new examination of the numbers confirms that the time is almost here.
CBS News
17-06-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Growing number of Americans 55 and older are experiencing homelessness. Health workers worry about the "most vulnerable."
Why is the homeless population getting so much older? Homelessness in America has been steadily ticking up in recent years. In 2024, the United States saw an 18% increase in the homeless population from the year before — and those providing essential services like health care and housing assistance say they're most concerned about the aging population. More than 140,000 Americans who are 55 or older are experiencing homelessness on any given day, and that number is estimated to nearly triple by 2030, according to a 2019 report. Rose Del Rosario is among the aging homeless population growing across the United States. The 65-year-old has high blood pressure and lifelong asthma. One morning, she received an atypical house call from Daniel Speller, a physician associate with Healthcare in Action, a nonprofit providing assistance to people like Del Rosario across California. Speller took her vitals inside a medical van parked across the street from her RV in San Pedro. Del Rosario doesn't have health insurance, so she would sometimes purchase inhalers from people or find them in the trash. While she said she doesn't feel safe using them, she had no money left after her husband died several years ago — and that's how she wound up on the streets. When asked how she feels about navigating homelessness at this age, she said it makes her feel older. "I feel like it's aging me. I feel like it's aging me a lot," Del Rosario told CBS News. "It's just hard to live like this." Rose Del Rosario, 65, of California is among the growing population of seniors across the U.S. who are experiencing homelessness. CBS News Approximately 20% of the more than 771,000 people who were unhoused in the U.S. as of January 2024 were 55 and older, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's data. Homelessness is often caused by the death of a spouse, divorce, joblessness, eviction or mounting medical issues, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness says. "These are folks entering the stage where they're starting to have multiple complex chronic medical conditions that need to be met, and they're just not being met," Speller told CBS News. "They're also the most vulnerable." Dennis Culhane, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose research focuses on homelessness and assisted housing policy, told CBS News that the aging trend in the homeless population has been going on for 30 years. The second half of the Baby Boomers generation — those born between 1955 and 1964 — have constituted the largest subsegment of the U.S. population since 1990, Culhane explained on "CBS Evening News." Because there are more of them, it puts them at higher risk of homelessness, Culhane said, but there are also other factors. "They came of age in the early 1980s at a time when there was very high unemployment and housing costs were rising," he said. "A lot of these folks were unable to get into the labor market by their mid-20s, so they've struggled for years trying to get a toehold in the workforce." When asked about the impact of the trend of public policy, Culhane said the major impact is on health care systems. "They end up hospitalized at very high rates. They often can't be discharged in a timely fashion because they have no place to go back to and no family to support them. So they often will end up in nursing homes, even though in those nursing homes they will often get discharged right back into homelessness," Culhane said. Healthcare in Action CEO Dr. Indu Subaiya said she fears the impact rising costs and potential cuts to government programs like Medicaid will have on seniors. "I don't believe we should be cutting Medicaid for those populations. We should leave those intact. And that will be so, so helpful to people not falling further into the hole," Subaiya told CBS News. At 65 years old, Del Rosario says she thought she'd be somewhere else for retirement. "On a nice comfortable rocking chair waiting for the casserole to come out of the oven," she said. "I didn't think it would be like this."
South China Morning Post
07-06-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Get elderly housing right and Hong Kong's silver economy can take off
Hong Kong's Deputy Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk Wing-hing has announced dozens of measures to promote the 'silver economy' and address the needs of the city's ageing population. These cover five main areas : boosting consumption, developing tailor-made products, promoting quality assurance of 'silver' products, strengthening financial and insurance protection, and encouraging older residents to re-enter the job market. These are all good intentions, but it also begs the question: where is the infrastructure needed to support the measures? An important part of this is suitable housing and a community that encourages ageing Hongkongers to live well and be productive for as long as they would like to be. In 2015, the Housing Society built The Tanner Hill development for aged living, offering world-class facilities. The flats are well-designed, with clever use of compact space, and come with safety measures like grab bars and anti-slip bathroom mats, plus access to user-supported cooking facilities. The premises include clinics offering both Western and Chinese medicines, a library, restaurant, swimming pool, gym and access to services like banking, plus seats in the common lifts. It would be a no-brainer to house outlets there to offer 'silver products' to this exclusive community. But what about those of less modest means? Perhaps we can consider a hybrid living model. Hong Kong could design such a housing estate in three parts. One section of flats could be fitted out with facilities aimed at independent living for senior residents. This would cater to those who want their privacy while maintaining access to medical support, including silver products and services as needed. NGOs could help.
Fox News
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Communist country dumps decades-old 2-child policy as birth rates plummet to alarming levels
Vietnam has ended its two-child policy in hopes of a resurgence of youth in an aging population. The communist country's National Assembly passed a new amendment that nullifies families from having a two-child limit, according to state media. Vietnamese families are giving birth to fewer children and the birth rate has declined to 1.91 children per woman in 2024, state media said, and this is a trend that is especially true in the urban areas like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, where there are higher living costs. Vietnam's two-child limit originated in the 1960s in Northern Vietnam to help prevent overpopulation, the Guardian reported. After the reunification of Northern and Southern Vietnam, the two-child policy was encouraged throughout the entire country to prevent overpopulation and bring about a "golden population." It wasn't until 1993 that the policy was formalized as a national policy with the goal of controlling overpopulation. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the proportion of citizens under 15 has declined dramatically from 43% to under 25% in comparison to the entire population. The study by the UNFPA shows that the population of citizens aged 15 to 64 years has increased from 53% to 69%. According to a study by birth rates continuously dropped until 2003, and then saw a steady rise until 2013, when the free fall began again. According to state media, Vietnam's "golden population" started in 2007, and is expected to continue between 2038 and 2040. Today, Vietnam's population is estimated to be more than 101 million people, making it the 16th-most populous country globally and third-largest in Southeast Asia. The Ministry of Health noted that gender-selective births have been one of the causes of the gender imbalance in Vietnam. The imbalance of male to female births grew from 103 boys per 100 girls in 2006 to 111 boys per 100 girls in 2024. To help counter this, the ministry has proposed raising the fine from 30 million to 100 million Vietnamese dong — roughly $1,150 to around $4,000 — for gender-selective practices. According to The Associated Press, China imposed a one-child policy in 1979 amid worries about overpopulation. As the country has faced growing concerns about an aging population, it has been slowly easing the policy to allow a second child and then a third child in 2021, but with little success in boosting birthrates.
