Calculated Risk: U.S. Population Distribution by Age, 1950 through 2050 | Hacker News Reader

Calculated Risk: U.S. Population Distribution by Age, 1950 through 2050

calculatedriskblog.com

This would look far less odd, if the over 80 group was also split into 5 year groups. It's also looking 40 years into the future.

Agreed. It's pretty clear the 80+ group is picking up an integration of a longer tail. You can also clearly note the exponential death rate eating away the effect of the baby boomer impulse.

This is why social security scares me.

What is actually very misleading about this graph is that it doesn't separate out the effects of immigration.

The graph is constantly making the baby boom look less and less of a factor, but that is mostly because immigration is bringing in people at all age brackets, not because so many baby boomers are dying off.

What is scary is that for the first 5 to 10 years immigrants, especially illegal ones, are a net drain on social services. Depending on the country they come from they do, eventually become net contributors ((taxes from them - government overhead) - outflow to them) > 0, but not to long after that they become retirees draining SS, medicare, etc... The value that immigrants provide is usually through their children - possessing good social and technical skills after years of North American education.

How many of you have been driven in a taxi by a Pakistani (in Toronto, anyway) Licensed doctor or electrician?

for the first 5 to 10 years immigrants, especially illegal ones, are a net drain on social services.

Where do you get your data from?

"As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.htm...

Many more anti-immigrant myths debunked here:

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/03/immigration-irrationali...

I hope the retirement age (both legal and socially acceptable) won't remain the same for the next 30 years.

It can't, of course, so it's already gone up.

I'm 28. I'm dubious I'll ever be able to retire, especially if there's another slump/recession/depression in about 40 years.

My question is what are people going to do when they reach 65+ and can't retire? Walmart greeter?

I can't imagine that a lot of professions will allow someone to continue working past that age. I'm a software developer, and I figure -- right or wrong -- that by that age I might not be able to keep up. (Or maybe the industry would 'shove me out' for younger blood?)

Am I just completely wrong here?

Given the population shift, there might not be enough 'younger blood' to go around.

Perhaps. Or a security guard, bouncer, or taxi driver. Or if you're in Oregon, a gas pumper.

Unless you're already nearing 65, in 20 to 40 years software will be in everything. I'm sure you'll be able to find something to do with your skills.

I guess that's something to keep in mind. When I picture myself at 65, I usually am picturing myself in terms of the state of the world today (only with me being 65), and not in terms of what the rest of the world will be like in 38 years.

After 40 years, one can expect to have lived through 3-5 slumps/recessions.

"this graph does shows that health care expenses are almost three times higher for those over 65 than those under 65. So - in the first graph - as the baby boomers move into the last 4 columns, the health care expenses will rise sharply."

Health care expenses will always be higher when you're close to death. When life expectancy is 75 years, that's from ~ age 60-75 (15 yrs, 20% of lifetime). But when life expectancy is 120, the expensive-age window should also slide out to 105-120 (15 yrs, 12.5% of lifetime) or to 96-120 (24 yrs, 20% of lifetime).

Actually we can't tell how different phases of people's lifetime (especially productive time) will scale as people live longer, but there's no reason to believe the article's statement either.

I don't get why the 70-80 age group range seems to take a dive around 2035+, while the 80+ age range keeps growing and all of the other age ranges have pretty much leveled off.

If you broke the 80+ age range to 80-85, 85-90, 90-95, and 95+ each group would be progressively smaller than the 75-80 age group (I suspect anyways, I don't know the actual data).

I'm more curious why the 70-75 and 75-80 ranges take a significant hit starting around 2035 while all the previous age groups don't diminish that much. It's like around that time there are are less people making it out of the previous age ranges and into the 70-80 age ranges... It would make sense if there was a lump of people in the lower age ranges that made it's way into the 70-80, but at that point there doesn't seem to be. Unless I'm missing something.

2 words: baby boom

a few more words: invest in the health care industry

Where is the "baby-boomlet" reflected in this data? http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-16-baby-boomlet_...

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