---
type: source
title: "The Demographic Transition: An Overview of America's Aging Population"
author: "Bipartisan Policy Center"
url: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/BPC_LIT-Review.pdf
date: 2024-03-01
domain: health
secondary_domains: []
format: report
status: unprocessed
priority: medium
tags: [demographics, aging, dependency-ratio, medicare, baby-boomers, population-projections]
---

## Content

### Demographic Trajectory

- Baby boomers began turning 65 in 2011; ALL will be 65+ by **2030**
- US population 65+: 39.7M (2010) → **67.0M** (2030)
- By 2034: older adults projected to outnumber children for first time in US history

### Dependency Ratio Projections

- Working-age (25-64) to 65+ ratio:
  - 2025: **2.8 to 1**
  - 2055: **2.2 to 1** (CBO projection)
- OECD old-age dependency ratio (US):
  - 2000: 20.9%
  - 2023: **31.3%**
  - 2050: **40.4%** (projected)

### Medicare Fiscal Impact

- Medicare spending: highest-impact driver is size of elderly population (and most predictable)
- Hospital Insurance Trust Fund: exhausted by **2040** (CBO, Feb 2026 — accelerated 12 years from previous estimate)
- If exhausted: Medicare legally restricted to paying only what it takes in → benefit cuts of 8% (2040) rising to 10% (2056)

### Structural Implications

- Demographics are locked in — these are people already born, not projections about birth rates
- The caregiver-to-elderly ratio will decline regardless of policy changes
- Healthcare workforce (particularly geriatrics, home health) already insufficient for current demand
- Urban-rural divide: rural communities aging faster with fewer healthcare resources

## Agent Notes
**Why this matters:** These are not projections — they're demographics. The people turning 65 in 2030 are already 59. The dependency ratio shift from 2.8:1 to 2.2:1 is locked in. This provides the demographic foundation for every other source in this research session: MA enrollment growth, caregiver crisis, PACE scaling, Medicare solvency — all driven by this same demographic wave.
**What surprised me:** By 2034, more Americans over 65 than under 18. This has never happened in US history. The entire social infrastructure — education funding, workforce training, tax base — was designed for a younger-skewing population.
**KB connections:** [[Americas declining life expectancy is driven by deaths of despair concentrated in populations and regions most damaged by economic restructuring since the 1980s]]
**Extraction hints:** The demographic wave interacts with every other claim in the health KB. Not itself a single-claim source, but the contextual foundation that makes all the other claims urgent.

## Curator Notes
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[Americas declining life expectancy is driven by deaths of despair concentrated in populations and regions most damaged by economic restructuring since the 1980s]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Provides the demographic baseline that makes senior care claims time-bound and urgent rather than theoretical.
EXTRACTION HINT: The 2034 crossover (more elderly than children) is the most extractable milestone — it reframes the entire US social contract.
