patrick.net

fwiw, here's the Japanese comparison, 2003 vs 2020:

It's kinda unclear but other than the seniors, only the 40-49 cohort is larger in 2020 than 2003.

The age 25-35 cohort is going to be missing ~8 million people!

I don't know if the Japanese pyramid is a lot worse or a lot better than ours.

The number of old people 80+ doubling from 5.5M to 11M is something, but I don't see why their unemployment problem won't go away later this decade.

Except for people in industries that cater to young adults I guess. That cohort is just disappearing.

Troy,

The charts are interesting.

When I look at it [and make the assumption that boomers will be retiring at "normal" ages], it appears that we will be removing far more people from the labor force than we are adding. (The yellow part of the 65-69 bar is much larger than the blue part of the 20-24 bar)....so, with time, our unemployment situation will get some help, I imagine. I think Japan is going to be hurting pretty bad over the next 3 decades or so -- especially if people just keep getting older instead of dying. :)