As of July 2003, 36 million people in the United States were aged 65 and older, a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals.
That number amounted to 12% of the total population. Among this group, 18.3 million were aged 65 to 74, 12.9 million were aged 75 to 84, and 4.7 million were 85 and older.
The top 10 counties in numbers of this older population were:
Los Angeles: 926,673
Cook, Ill.: 630,265
Maricopa, Ariz.: 358,979
San Diego, Calif.: 313,750