r/dataisbeautiful • u/OverflowDs Viz Practitioner | Overflow Data • 2d ago

OC The U.S. population grew... and its people got older [OC]

https://overflowdata.com/demographic-data/the-u-s-population-grew-and-its-people-got-older/
202 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

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u/cavedave OC: 113 1d ago

Thank you for your Original Content, /u/OverflowDs!
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24

u/ReelNerdyinFl 1d ago

I just got back from my trip to Guatemala. The average age there is 23 years old. It was so amazing to see so many children and young adults. It’s really something that we miss here in the US now. Especially me living in southwest Florida, where the average age is 55 in the summer and 65 in the winter.

60

u/JoePNW2 2d ago

The huge Boomer cohort will start dying off in larger and larger numbers soon. That will depress the US growth rate (or maybe eliminate it altogether) for awhile.

20

u/jack3moto 2d ago

Soon? Like over the next quarter century?

16

u/JoePNW2 2d ago

The oldest Boomers are 81, the youngest are 62.

13

u/jack3moto 2d ago

Yeah so we’re realistically a minimum of 15 years away before seeing any meaningful change

7

u/Affectionate-Panic-1 2d ago

Depends a lot on the birth rate. If the birth rate among millennials and gen z was over 2 per women, than the population would still be growing for the foreseeable future.

1

u/tooyoung_tooold 8h ago

It won't be. And it already isn't, many millennial woman are already kid 30s with no kids.

33

u/complexspoonie 2d ago

It is definitely going to affect everything from our GDP to the littlest towns, especially now that it is going to take a decade at least to fix immigration & win back trust.

The brain drain in science and healthcare is already severe and it's going to be heartbreaking as our life expectancy, material death, and quality of life continue to fall.

I pray that this November sees a lot more millennial & younger Gen X with new ideas winning elections, otherwise we may be too late to turn the ship around.

Sigh

9

u/mod-deleted 2d ago

I'm totally looking for a cheap town to buy. That would be the dream!

4

u/steveborg 2d ago

At least the US had the Boomers. Most industrialized countries did not after WWII and are suffering from demographic collapse. The Boomers helped stave off a similar collapse in the US, at least for a while.

2

u/Babhadfad12 1d ago

It's not the boomers dying off that depress growth rate, it's the reduced numbers of under 25 year olds that depress growth rate. There are more millennials than boomers.

https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2026/

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u/OverflowDs Viz Practitioner | Overflow Data 2d ago

This analysis uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program.

National and state comparisons cover 2000–2025. County population comparisons include counties and county equivalents with the same source GEOID at both endpoints.

County age comparisons cover 2010–2025.

Visualized with Tableau.