This project will create, for the first time, a comprehensive set of long-term forecasts for older Americans in all United States counties. The basic data will be demographic; age by sex information extending through age 85 and over. The extended contextual data will cover living arrangements, race, income, poverty, and home ownership by age. The older population is quite heterogeneous at the national level, and even more so at the local level. After a period of rapid growth in the recent past, the future portends increasing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity as well as increases in the oldest old. Their needs and preferences for commercial products and government services reflect that diversity. Future trends will therefore not simply repeat the recent past, and policy makers interviewed during Phase I of this project expressed strong need for forecast data. A unique and innovative alliance of basic and applied research will be brought to bear on these forecasts by the Decision Demographics and University of Wisconsin team. The result will be the creation of the first nationally-consistent set of age-sex forecasts for counties that also includes the characteristics data that will help business and government cater to the unique and changing needs of older Americans.
