According to new Census Bureau data, the US population has aged over the previous 20 years, with fewer children under the age of 5 and more aging people.
Baby boomers and millennials, the two largest age groups in the US in 2020, continued to mature from 2000 to 2020, while smaller cohorts of children were born from 2010 to 2020, according to information from the 2020 Census Demographic and Housing Characteristics, which was released Thursday.
The median age of the US population has increased overall, from 35.2 in 2000 to 37.2 in 2010, according to the latest data, reaching 38.8 in 2020. In 2020, Utah had the youngest median age (31.3) and Maine had the oldest median age (45.1).
Additionally, between 1920 and 2020, the Census data show that the population of individuals 65 and older increased about five times faster than the US population as a whole. In 2020, that age group made for 16.8% of the US population as a whole.
Concern about the public health requirements of an aging population is growing.
In spite of the fact that the US population is aging, we are ill-equipped to meet their expanding demands for community-based health, habilitative, and rehabilitative care. If we want to be able to preserve and maintain public health as our demographics change, we must make careful planning for this uneven demographic transformation.
According to the Census Bureau, even while the percentage of Americans 65 and older has climbed globally, the country is still “relatively young” when compared to many of its peer high-income countries. In peer countries, Japan had the highest percentage of adults 65 and older (28.5% of the population in 2020), followed by Italy (22.6%) and Greece (22.4%).
According to Census Academy program head Mary Leisenring, the US population got older between 2010 and 2020 as a result of both a decline in the number of children and an increase in the senior population.
The multiracial population of the country in 2020 was the youngest of any race group, according to the most current Census data. She was referring to the group of persons who claim to be at least two different races. In 2010, there were roughly 9 million persons who identified as multiracial, and their median age was just 19.9. However, when we choose the 2020 button, we can see that there are now approximately 34 million people in the country, with a median age of 29.5.