EDITORIAL: Pennsylvania must start to get younger
Oct. 12—In most parts of Pennsylvania, a look around is all that's necessary to know that the state needs more young people.
Now the state government's nonpartisan Independent Fiscal Office has examined that in a way that should prompt public policy to reverse the trend.
Pennsylvania lawmakers already know that, for the most part, they represent older people. State policy is skewed toward that demographic in many ways.
Pennsylvania is the only state to use lottery proceeds for senior citizen programs such as drug rebates and free public transportation, for example, rather than education. The state ranks 47th in the percentage of public education funded by the state government, even as politicians lament the inevitable result of higher local property taxes. Pennsylvania also lags in state government support for higher education relative to most other states.
The question that lawmakers will have to face is how to pay for those priorities.
According to the report, "the retiree cohort (65 to 79) increased 3.2% per annum from 2010 to 2020 and is projected to expand 2.8% per annum in the near term and 0.9% per annum in the long term," the report noted. But, the report noted, the state had 3.9 working-age residents for each retiree in 2010, which already was below the national average of 4.6. By 2030, it projected, the state will have just 2.4 working-aged residents per retiree.
The working-age population, 20 to 64, was flat between 2010 and 2020 but is expected to contract by 0.6% in the near term and 0.5% for the long term.
Those trends are not uniform in every region of the state, of course. They're more pronounced in rural areas and smaller former industrial areas, and far less pronounced in the southeast and many suburbs.
But if "demography is destiny," as philosopher Auguste Comte declared, Pennsylvania broadly faces a rough ride economically and in the state government's ability to fund vital services.
To smooth it, the government needs to reconsider its policies with an emphasis on nurturing and retaining young people. And it, like the nation, must recognize that immigration — as alway — remains a key to long-term economic vitality, rather than a burden.
