It's called the Silver Tsunami, Agequake, Longevity Economy and Age Wave. But no matter the moniker, unprecedented global aging is a wide-open door for innovation, and Minnesota is uniquely positioned to forge partnerships that deliver it.
We're all aging consumers. Local companies such as Healthsense and Anser Innovation are inventing in this space, but nearly every business works in aging, even if they don't yet know it. The world's only growing demographic is people 60-plus. And in the United States, the 60-plus cohort is the fastest growing.
By 2047, we'll have 2 billion mature consumers worldwide, up from 800 million in 2010. There were nearly 6 million people over 85 in 2010. By 2050 we'll have more than 19 million people 85-plus. Older adults will outnumber children.
Disposable income of Americans age 50 or older equals $3 trillion, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And an A.T. Kearney study found that people over 50 hold 80 percent of U.S. financial assets.
While rosy for some, many older Americans' only income source is Social Security. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 43 percent of workers 55-plus say they had less than $25,000 saved for retirement and 60 percent indicated they had retirement savings of less than $100,000.
Innovation for aging is essential, whether you're a multimillionaire or you're on Medicaid, especially when you consider there aren't enough government dollars, housing or care professionals to help with the disabilities many of us will experience.
So how could human ingenuity, skill and compassion link with technology, make lives better and create new economic growth opportunities?
Have you ever left the hospital, returned home and forgotten care or medication instructions because you were too weak to comprehend what the discharge person was telling you?
