People ages 55 to 64 are obvious targets for retirement planners.
Most "near retirees" are still working and still earning a high level of income, and they have noticed that time happens.
They might want to know how Social Security works, how retirees tap ordinary savings, and what annuities are.
One challenge for financial professionals is finding them.
Everyone knows that retirees go to Florida and Arizona. So, where are the near retirees?
A look at the Census Bureau's new American Community Survey 1-year estimates for 2024 shows that, in the 50 U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest population, the percentage of residents ages 55 to 64 ranged from just 9.55% — in the Salt Lake City area — up to 13.65%, with a median of 12.03%.
For a look at the 15 big U.S. metro areas with the highest percentage of near retirees, along with a 2024 U.S. population pyramid chart, see the gallery accompanying this article.
What it means: Near retirees are a lot more evenly distributed than retirees. Only three of the metro areas in our top 15 gallery are in Florida. The rest are located in the Northeast, the Midwest and California.
The backdrop: In 1970, the structure of the U.S. population was like a pyramid, with a few people ages 65 and older, many working-age adults, and a huge number of children.
Today, the U.S. population pyramid looks more like an egg wearing a hat and a belt.
The belt pulls in the egg's waist around the years from 1965 through 1980, when the introduction of birth control pills and concern about overpopulation contributed to a sharp drop in the birth rate.
The data: We used the new Census data to calculate the share of the population of the 50 biggest metropolitan statistical areas in the 55-64 age group in 2024, the number of people in that age group in each of the big metro areas in 2024, and how the number of people in that age group changed between 2019 and 2024.
The Census Bureau has not yet published income figures for the 55-64 age group for 2024. To give readers a rough sense of how much income near retirees in a community in the gallery might have, we included the median 2024 income for households in each community that were headed by a "householder" in the 45-64 age group.
The "baby bust": One early name for Generation X was the "baby bust generation."
For retirement planners, the impact of the 1965-1980 baby bust means that the near-retiree population is shrinking.
The total number of Americans ages 55 to 64 was 41.8 million in 2024. That was 4.1% higher than in 2014 but 1.5% lower than in 2019.
The small drop in the number of people in the 55-64 age group hides another challenge for retirement planners: The people who were 60 to 64 years old in 2024 were baby boomers, and the people in the 55-59 age group were baby busters.
The size of the 60-64 age group increased 3.7% nationwide between 2014 and 2019, to 21.8 million.
The size of the 55-59 age group fell 6.6%, to 20 million.
In the 15 metro areas in our gallery, the size of the 55-59 age group fell 4.4%, to 4.9 million.
The takeaway: For retirement planners, annuity marketers and others courting people ages 55 to 59, the numbers mean that the size of the 55-59 market is about 5% smaller than it was just a few years ago.
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