{"success":true,"data":{"id":"0c1aa5b8-b09f-47b4-95fe-953d47899c50","title":"California is aging fast — and socialism won’t make us younger","summary":"California, long associated with youth, is getting old — and twice as quickly as the national average. The walker seems likely to replace the surfboard as the state’s defining feature.","content":"California, long associated with youth, is getting old — and twice as quickly as the national average. The walker seems likely to replace the surfboard as the state’s defining feature.\n\n[California’s over-65 population](https://nypost.com/2026/07/16/us-news/socal-suburb-named-the-best-place-to-retire-in-california/), the [Stanford Center on Longevity](https://longevity.stanford.edu/californias-aging-population/) notes, will double in 20 years, while  the nationwide population this will take 30 years to double.\n\n[By 2060](https://lhc.ca.gov/report/issue-brief-californias-aging-population/), the state’s median age is projected to be over 45. In 1970, it was nearly 28.\n\nThe aging of California is made more difficult by the steady loss of working-age people, particularly in middle-aged families. Since 2000, more than 4 million net domestic migrants have moved to other parts of the nation from California, a pace that has accelerated in recent years.\n\n![Happy couple embracing and smiling while holding new house keys.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/133762585-1.jpg?w=1024)From 1980–2020, the share of 25-to-35-year-olds in California who owned their homes declined to just 15.5%. Dragana Gordic – stock.adobe.com\n\nEven immigrants seem to have stopped coming, and not only because of [President Donald Trump’s policies](https://nypost.com/2026/07/17/us-news/trump-administration-weighs-imposing-100k-bonds-on-green-card-applicants/).\n\n[LA’s foreign-born population actually declined](https://nypost.com/2026/03/30/us-news/los-angeles-suffered-a-massive-population-drop-last-year/) in the 2010s, as immigrants looked elsewhere for work. In the deindustrializing economy that is California outside of the high-tech sector, immigrants are propelling a poverty rate that is the highest of any state.\n\nCalifornia has stopped building schools and factories. Instead, we build hospitals to accommodate the old.\n\nRapid aging is also a natural byproduct of extremely high house prices. These lead young people, particularly those with children, to leave the state.\n\nThe gap between California homeownership rates and those in the nation at large is now at a record high, notes Berkeley’s Terner Center. Between 1980 and 2020, the share of 25-to-35-year-olds in California who owned their homes declined from 39.4% to just 15.5%.\n\nSo it is no surprise that people in their 30s and early 40s, according to [IRS numbers](https://www.newgeography.com/files/Feudalism_Web.pdf), are [precisely the group](https://nypost.com/2024/09/30/us-news/this-demographic-is-fleeing-both-california-and-new-york-by-the-thousands-report/) deserting the state most rapidly, including in Silicon Valley.\n\nPerhaps most revealing, California now [ranks last in per capita terms of attracting new residents](https://nypost.com/2026/07/09/real-estate/california-ranked-among-the-worst-states-to-move-to-in-2026/), a stunning reversal from its traditional role as a beacon to the rest of the country and the world.\n\n![Karen Bass speaks at a podium with the text \"Keeping Angelenos Housed\" on it, announcing affordable housing funding.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/300-million-affordable-housing-funding-125320271.jpg?w=1024)We could also encourage the building of senior housing, as was recently proposed by LA Mayor Karen Bass. David Buchan for CA Post\n\nThe precipitous decline in state’s total fertility rate is therefore no surprise. Long above the national average, California’s fertility rate is now the nation’s 10th lowest, far below that in key competitor states like Texas.\n\nIn LA County and Orange County, birth rates have plunged over 15% in the past decade. In LA County, the nation’s most populous, the under-25 population shrank by nearly three-quarters of a million. That’s three-quarters of a million people who would have joined the prime-age workforce over the next 25 years.\n\nIn contrast, Texas, Utah, Idaho and Arizona have enjoyed double digit growth in this same cohort over  the past two decades.\n\nGiven this worrisome trend we might consider some serious policy changes. Regulations make it  [extraordinarily difficult to build the single-family homes](https://nypost.com/2026/07/14/us-news/california-housing-overhaul-to-bring-wave-of-affordable-homes-across-state/) preferred by the vast majority of Californians. Dense, expensive urban areas are not ideal places to raise a family, except for the very affluent.\n\nRather than urban “infill” housing, we need more lower-density developments. Less-dense regions also tend to produce more children than larger, dense areas.","source_name":"New York Post","source_url":"https://nypost.com/2026/07/19/opinion/california-is-aging-fast-and-socialism-wont-help/","url":"https://nypost.com/2026/07/19/opinion/california-is-aging-fast-and-socialism-wont-help/","author":"Joel Kotkin","author_name":"Joel Kotkin","published_at":"2026-07-19T21:59:37.000Z","publication_date":"2026-07-19T21:59:37.000Z","image_url":"https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/crop-40031712.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200","category":"world","topic":"world","tags":[],"political_bias":null,"bias_score":null,"confidence_score":null,"credibility_score":null,"factual_quality":null,"reading_time":3,"word_count":563,"view_count":0,"breaking":false,"breaking_news":false,"ai_analysis":null,"fact_check_status":"unverified","archive_status":"hot","language":null}}