Supporting Older Ages
As local government managers, it is not often that we are asked to give much thought to regional, national, or global demography. After all, those are the ways of economists or social scientists, and our job is to focus on the numerous local tasks at hand-or so goes conventional wisdom.
The United States and to a greater extent some of our peers among developed Western nations, however, are about to be overcome by a demographic tsunami that will greatly alter the way we do business. No, we’re not talking about the nowquaint Malthusian fears of overpopulation from an incoming wave of people.
Rather, by the early 2020s, we will experience, metaphorically, the wave’s retreat into the sea, drawing with it millions of older workers from a relatively younger, able-bodied, productive, and taxpaying workforce…Please click here to read Orland Park Village Manager Paul Grimes’ full commentary, published Sept. 15, 2013 in the International City Management Association’s PM. Public Management Magazine, and re-published in TMC News.