If you’re under age 55, even quite a bit under, today’s column is about you.
Demographer William Frey charts migration patterns in the United States and he thinks Baby Boomers, who, yes, receive an inordinate amount of attention but still make up the largest number of people in any single age group, will fall into two categories as they become senior citizens.
Frey says the “yuppie elderly”–those with money in the bank, a pension and lots of equity in a house that can be sold–will move in droves, following in the footsteps of their well-heeled senior predecessors.
This privileged group will move, usually as a couple, to a warm place, more often than not, Florida. But other parts of the South and Southeast, including states such as North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, will also get a fair share of the prosperous class.
“This will be an important group for communities that want to retain a good stable population and tax base without draining public services,” said Frey, a professor at State University of New York in Albany.
Frey predicts the West will continue to grow in popularity among old yuppies, too. Nevada and Oregon already get a good number of pre-elders, those who can afford to work just part-time or people with portable jobs, such as consultants.
“An early move gives them the chance to try out a retirement community,” Frey said.
California, of course, deserves its own place in the migration mix. Always the prize of mobility dreams, the Golden State still exerts a strong pull, according to Frey, who’s also a fellow at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica.
For his part, Frey admits he wouldn’t mind spending more time in California, especially now, as he speaks by phone from the upper reaches of New York State on a drab wintry day. Anyway, he says, California has the biggest density of parents with working age children of the states. That means the kids are following Mom and Dad to California.
On the flip side, Frey says a big portion of Baby Boomers–those who haven’t done all that well financially–will age in place. This means they will stay in the cities and inner suburbs where they have lived for years and raised their families.
“The bad news is that there will be more demand for services to help these people than these places had before,” Frey said.
Curiously, Frey thinks outlying suburbs, especially those in Sun Belt states, could face some of the same issues that will challenge big cities with aging populations.
“People are aging in place in suburban counties around cities like Atlanta and Dallas,” said Frey, referring to his most recent research which focused on counties with the highest growth rates of the elderly between 1980 and 1997.
“The Boomers were in the vanguard of suburbanization, but now those towns have a fast-growing elderly population which raises all kinds of issues,” he said.
In particular, one such issue is who will pay for schools. In my community, for instance, a recent tax referendum to increase funding for local schools barely passed. One theory attributed the close vote to a large elderly population without school-age children.
“These are the local issues that will arise,” Frey said.
He thinks growing numbers of elderly–who tend to vote more than other groups and therefore have the political clout that comes with attendance at the polls–will alter local politics, raising all kinds of questions, such as, “How will property values fare in suburbs where schools are second to the need for public funding for the elderly’s health care?”
Or, “Might a community that supports its elderly see a rise in property values because it’s such a desirable place for seniors to live?”
Here’s another kink: While the new-old yuppies are moving to Florida, the old-old are moving back North. Frey says in one recent five-year period, about 13,000 Illinois residents age 65 to 74 moved to Florida. Some 3,500 people from 74 to 84 moved there too. Of those 85 or older, about 900 moved to Florida–but about the same number moved back to Illinois from Florida.
“This is the kind of movement that’s important,” said Frey, adding that the truly old tend to return to places where they have family and friends. “It’s not a big group yet, but people are living longer and more people are easing into that group.”
Reverse migration has its own special effects. Towns lose their elders when they are still productive and using few services, only to get them back when they are more infirm and more reliant on the city and state for help.
It all comes back to you because if you’re a Boomer, you’ve probably already moved a few times yourself, which proves Frey’s last point: Migration will continue, and continue to increase, as we age: “People are used to mobility.”
Resources
– The North Shore Senior Center offers a nursing home selection guide and another booklet with information on retirement homes and communities. The guides cover more ground than you’d expect, with entries from Chicago and the west and northwest suburbs.
Each guide includes a property-by-property review with details on entry fees, rates, requirements and church affiliations. For a free copy, call 847-446-8751.
– The Senior Citizen Homestead Exemption entitles Cook County property owners, age 65 and over, to a reduction in property taxes. Most seniors can expect to have their property taxes reduced by about $250. To qualify you must be 65 years of age or older, and own the property, which must be your primary residence.
For more information, call the Chicago Department on Aging at 312-744-4016.
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Jane Adler is a Chicago-area freelance writer. If you have questions or information to share regarding housing for senior citizens, write to Senior Housing c/o Chicago Tribune Real Estate Section, 435 N. Michigan Ave., 60611. Or e-mail adler@megsinet.net
