NYS Population Over 65 Years Old Increased 26 Percent Over Last Decade, While Overall Population Grew 3 Percent

From Center for Urban Future, Report - February 2019, "New York’s Older Adult Population Is Booming Statewide" by Christian González-Rivera, Jonathan Bowles, and Eli Dvorkin:

There are now more residents aged 65 and older in New York State—3.2 million—than the entire population of 21 states. Today, nearly one in six New Yorkers is 65 and above (16 percent), a larger share of the state’s population than ever before.

This data analysis provides a new level of detail about the aging of the population in cities and counties across New York State. Our analysis finds that older adults are the fastest-growing segment of the population statewide. Over the past decade, the number of New Yorkers ages 65 and over increased by 647,000, or 26 percent. During the same period, the state’s overall population grew by just 3 percent. There are now more New Yorkers ages 65 and older statewide than there are children under the age of 13.***Indeed, the growth of the older adult population is outpacing overall population growth in all of the state’s 20 largest cities and counties, including Rochester, Syracuse, Yonkers, Albany, and New York City. Today, New Yorkers ages 65 and above account for a whopping 19 percent of the population in Ulster and Sullivan Counties and 18 percent of the population in Erie, Nassau, Niagara, and Saratoga counties.

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Source: Center for an Urban Future