We are, collectively, getting older. The baby-boom generation is aging and by 2035, people older than 65 are projected to outnumber children for the first time in United States history. Cuyahoga County, it turns out, is on the leading edge of this national trend. Recent census estimates show that in 2017, there were more people living in Cuyahoga County older than 60 than there are younger than 20. From 2017 to 2018, new births in the county only outnumbered deaths by 629. By contrast, Franklin County, home to Columbus, had 8,881 more births than deaths in the same time period.
Along with a jump in the older demographic, our population loss is expected to continue. Last year’s official numbers haven’t been released, but early estimates say Cuyahoga County’s population drop in 2018 was the ninth worst in the country.
These changes will bring with them all kinds of challenges. Medical systems, local governments, nursing homes (and home care) and just plain everyday people will have to adapt to the coming gray tide. Care, both social and medical, will have to be expanded.
But beyond the policy shift, we also need to change our mentality to match the challenge. For decades, we Clevelanders were a hardworking, blue-collar, down-on-our-luck lot. We fought back, and it’s true that exciting things are happening here. But these statistics could be seen as signs of a needed cultural shift, one with existential consequences.
Younger generations need to realize we’re heading for a world where taking care of the elderly is going to be mandatory. And the older generations need to take responsibility for the declining Cleveland they are leaving us, with fewer resources available to provide care. If we want our aging population to survive and our younger citizens to want to stay, we need to, at the very least, find a way to thrive together.
For both poor and well-off seniors, the demand for care is already great, and will increase. But, especially in Cleveland, the poorest among the boomers will likely struggle the most. In a 2017 Plain Dealer column, John Corlett, president and executive director of the Center for Community Solutions, noted that despite the new development in neighborhoods like Ohio City, Detroit Shoreway and Tremont, 30 to 40% of older adults in those neighborhoods are living in poverty and forced to choose between paying for food, rent, utilities or medical care.
Furthermore, in June the Center for Community Solutions released a study called Cleveland’s Long-term Care Continuum: Capacity and Need. Despite the study’s findings that the vast majority of older adults in Cleveland — more than 90% of survey respondents — want to remain in their neighborhoods as they age, CCS’s research shows that due to Cleveland being a high-poverty city, most will be forced to move out in order to find appropriate and affordable long-term care as their needs continue to increase with age.
Around half of Cleveland’s seniors also feel undervalued. A survey of seniors conducted as part of CCS’s research found that 59% of respondents agreed that seniors are negatively stereotyped. Just 46% agreed that older people are valued in the community, and 52% said they did not feel connected to their communities.
Cleveland’s younger generations should step into that void. These are our parents and grandparents. We should be pushing resources toward programs that help seniors stay in their neighborhoods. And we millennials, especially, are having fewer children ourselves, giving us more space in our lives to offer love and care.
But for many young people, that isn’t going to be an easy sell. Much has been made of Cleveland’s post-recession millennial brain gain. But speak to enough of those young (and younger) people, as I do in my day job as a teaching artist for elementary- and middle school-aged kids, and it is evident that Cleveland’s inability to create a forward-thinking economy is pushing away a generation of young people whose fate is connected to that of Cleveland’s seniors.
e are, collectively, getting older. The baby-boom generation is aging and by 2035, people older than 65 are projected to outnumber children for the first time in United States history. Cuyahoga County, it turns out, is on the leading edge of this national trend. Recent census estimates show that in 2017, there were more people living in Cuyahoga County older than 60 than there are younger than 20. From 2017 to 2018, new births in the county only outnumbered deaths by 629. By contrast, Franklin County, home to Columbus, had 8,881 more births than deaths in the same time period.
Along with a jump in the older demographic, our population loss is expected to continue. Last year’s official numbers haven’t been released, but early estimates say Cuyahoga County’s population drop in 2018 was the ninth worst in the country.
These changes will bring with them all kinds of challenges. Medical systems, local governments, nursing homes (and home care) and just plain everyday people will have to adapt to the coming gray tide. Care, both social and medical, will have to be expanded.
But beyond the policy shift, we also need to change our mentality to match the challenge. For decades, we Clevelanders were a hardworking, blue-collar, down-on-our-luck lot. We fought back, and it’s true that exciting things are happening here. But these statistics could be seen as signs of a needed cultural shift, one with existential consequences.
Younger generations need to realize we’re heading for a world where taking care of the elderly is going to be mandatory. And the older generations need to take responsibility for the declining Cleveland they are leaving us, with fewer resources available to provide care. If we want our aging population to survive and our younger citizens to want to stay, we need to, at the very least, find a way to thrive together.
For both poor and well-off seniors, the demand for care is already great, and will increase. But, especially in Cleveland, the poorest among the boomers will likely struggle the most. In a 2017 Plain Dealer column, John Corlett, president and executive director of the Center for Community Solutions, noted that despite the new development in neighborhoods like Ohio City, Detroit Shoreway and Tremont, 30 to 40% of older adults in those neighborhoods are living in poverty and forced to choose between paying for food, rent, utilities or medical care.
Furthermore, in June the Center for Community Solutions released a study called Cleveland’s Long-term Care Continuum: Capacity and Need. Despite the study’s findings that the vast majority of older adults in Cleveland — more than 90% of survey respondents — want to remain in their neighborhoods as they age, CCS’s research shows that due to Cleveland being a high-poverty city, most will be forced to move out in order to find appropriate and affordable long-term care as their needs continue to increase with age.
Around half of Cleveland’s seniors also feel undervalued. A survey of seniors conducted as part of CCS’s research found that 59% of respondents agreed that seniors are negatively stereotyped. Just 46% agreed that older people are valued in the community, and 52% said they did not feel connected to their communities.
Cleveland’s younger generations should step into that void. These are our parents and grandparents. We should be pushing resources toward programs that help seniors stay in their neighborhoods. And we millennials, especially, are having fewer children ourselves, giving us more space in our lives to offer love and care.
But for many young people, that isn’t going to be an easy sell. Much has been made of Cleveland’s post-recession millennial brain gain. But speak to enough of those young (and younger) people, as I do in my day job as a teaching artist for elementary- and middle school-aged kids, and it is evident that Cleveland’s inability to create a forward-thinking economy is pushing away a generation of young people whose fate is connected to that of Cleveland’s seniors.
According to the United Van Lines 2018 National Movers Study, Ohio residents moved out of state for reasons such as retirement and family, but 60.75% of people who moved across state lines cited “job,” as their main reason for leaving. An economist quoted in the study said, “We’re also seeing young professionals migrating to vibrant, metropolitan economies, like Washington, D.C. and Seattle.” Ohio ranked sixth in the country for people moving to other states.It’s not just the so-so pay or the lackluster opportunities shoving young people away. For some in Cleveland, at least, it is the distinct lack of an exciting, messy marketplace of ideas and a freewheeling culture of innovation. An intellectual monoculture has developed along with the city’s decline, one dominated by the entrenched mentality, ideas and money of older generations. Young people can accomplish things here, but only within strict parameters set by their elders.
Contrarian ideas — about the limited benefits of government-subsidized “this one big project will save the city” development, about the stifling effect of one-party rule on the politics of the county and state, about how to get our economy going again for everyone — are shrugged off or squashed, unless the messenger is rich and well-connected. Cleveland’s public square has shrunk to a postage stamp. To use just one negative stereotype (sorry seniors), that’s because a generation of philatelists made it that way.
The departure of young people could have profound consequences, from a labor force draining bodies at both ends of the age spectrum to further population loss and economic downsloping. The burden of that decline would be carried by those who remain here. Young people can leave. Seniors can’t.
Here’s the tough part. We young people should help our elders, out of duty sure, but also out of a sense of community and personal good. But a lot of us are making ugly choices. Do we leave and secure our own future? Or do we stay, and help? Do we leave and lead, or stay and serve? That sucks. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice our chance at a better future on the altar of filial duty. No one should have to make that call.
Cleveland’s opportunities should be available to all, young or old. But these numbers suggest we are heading away from that future. So as a city, we too face a collective choice: foster an inspiring community for younger generations, who might channel their prosperity, in part, into taking care of our aging population, or turn into a glorified retirement home with some citizens struggling with desperate need.
If we are to secure a future for everyone, we need to find a way to work together, now, more than ever.
