(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s population is expected to lower by 3% from 2020 to 2050 but the population is also expected to grow older with the 75-and-older population growing by 40% by 2040.
That means there will be 60,000 more beds needed by 2040 in senior care facilities, Kevin Dospoy of Forward Analytics told the Wisconsin Counties Association on Tuesday.
There will be 14 counties that see a 20% or more population decline over that time, with the few growing counties including metropolitan areas such as Dane, Milwaukee and Brown counties and a few outlying rural counties like Trempealeau.
The workforce of those aged 25 to 64 will decline across the state and disrupt the economy, Forward Analytics’ Dale Knapp said. That means that local hardware stores and restaurants could struggle to staff their businesses, especially in rural areas, Knapp said.
“We should have started thinking about it 10 to 15 years ago,” Knapp said. “But we have to think about it now.”
The workforce overall could be 200,000 to 250,000 smaller by 2050 in the state. There will be eight counties seeing a workforce decline of 30% or more and a few will lose nearly 50% of its workforce.
“There’s going to be big disruptions but also those little disruptions,” Knapp said.
He added that these long-term estimates will be wrong to some degree but overall have been proven to be relatively accurate.
Knapp said that the Wisconsin Department of Administration did population estimates in 2000 and he did a report on those in 2004 that applied to 2015 and after, which has proven accurate showing that the population would peak and then begin its decline.
“That’s almost perfect timing in terms of what we have seen,” Knapp said.
The Department of Administration released numbers early this year showing that the state population will go from its current 5.96 million to 5.71 million by 2050.
The dip comes due to an aging population and fertility rates that are lower than the projected death rates in the state as that population ages.
