Wall Street Journal: Elderly in U.S. Are Projected to Outnumber Children for First Time
Census Bureau predicts milestone will be hit within 17 years
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Photo credit: Wall Street Journal, Matt Rouke/Associate Press
The growing elderly population will also put pressure on lawmakers to shift funding toward programs such as Medicare and Social Security, particularly because elderly Americans vote at high rates, said Kenneth M. Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire.
“The share of population that’s the working share is going to matter a lot,” said Steven Lugauer, assistant professor in the department of economics at the University of Kentucky. “If it’s going to be even fewer workers than previously thought, it’s going to weigh on growth even further.” However, advances in automation that allow robots to replace workers could help offset that, he said.
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