More Baby Boomers and Fewer Young People: More Dependents Among the U.S. Population

"The U.S. Census Bureau today released estimates showing the nation’s 65-and-older population has grown rapidly since 2010, driven by the aging of Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964," according to a press release from the U.S. Census Bureau.

"The 65-and-older population grew by over a third (34.2% or 13,787,044) during the past decade, and by 3.2% (1,688,924) from 2018 to 2019."

Also writing for the Census Bureau, Luke Rogers and Kristie Wilder follow up on the data with more insight about the implications of the aging of the U.S. population. Related to the increase in older Americans comes a decrease in Americans under the age of 14. "Over the last decade, the growth of the non-working-age (dependent) population – those aged 0 to 14 and 65 and older – has outpaced the growth of the working-age population," according to Rogers and Wilder. 

Those statistics, when combined, mean a higher dependency ratio—more people at dependent ages than the number of people at working ages.