by Calculated Risk on 8/17/2009 10:45:00 PM

As I follow up to my post Sunday, Health Care Spending and PCE, here is an animation of the U.S population distribution, by age, from 1950 through 2050. The population data and estimates are from the Census Bureau.

Note: the third graph (link) is a Dynamic Population Pyramid of the same data from the Census Bureau.

Watch for the original baby bust preceding the baby boom. Those are the people currently in retirement. With the original baby bust now at the age of peak health care expenses, these are the best of times (from a demographics perspective) for health care.

Animation updates every 2 seconds.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

The second graph is from the Department of Health & Human Services.

Although it would be interesting to break down health care expense by more age groups - 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.

And from the Census Bureau: Dynamic Population Pyramid (1950 - 2050) (note: Iframe version removed - Census Bureau site was slowing down)

Super cool graph. The first graph is in percentages, the one from the Census Bureau is in actual numbers. For you Harold and Maude fans, there will be a lot of older women in 2050.