 |
| Businesses can be 120. Why not you? |
By 2050, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections, one-in-five Americans will be 65 or older, and at least 400,000 will be 100 or older. Some futurists think even more radical changes are coming that would allow humans to remain healthy and productive to the age of 120 or more.
According to Pew, many Americans do not look happily on the prospect of living much longer lives. (Just ask my mother-in-law who at 82, is in perfect health and on no medications. Every time I tell her she will live to 100, she shutters!) More think it would be a bad thing than a good thing for society if people lived decades longer than is possible today.
People don’t see it for themselves but think others would avail themselves of whatever is available to live longer. And interestingly, they also think such options would be available only to the wealthy.
The findings suggest that the U.S. public is not particularly worried about the gradual rise in the number of older Americans. Nearly nine-in-ten adults surveyed say that “having more elderly people in the population” is either a good thing for society (41%) or does not make much difference (47%). Just 10% see this trend as a bad thing.