Census: What America will look like in 2010

To some, the decennial census will always be the Man coming to get you. To Peter Francese, the US census is the greatest resource to country and corporations, a nearly novelistic depiction of the state and shape of the nation. He also uses it to predict the future.“The census does surveys every year that no private company could ever match,” says Francese, a demographic trends analyst at Oglivy & Mather who has been projecting future trends off the census since 1970. He is also the author of The White Paper, an in-depth depiction of what the 2010 US census will show — in other words, what the country will look and feel like next year. (It’s used by many in the ad industry and is available to anyone willing to pay $249.) “There are huge, huge implications to demographic changes, because there is a story behind every number.” Francese says that 2010 will see four major, emergent trends:

* First: What he calls “The Grandparent Economy.” This, Francese says, is the most fascinating development in recent memory, the morphing of America into a multi-generational society in which grandparents, their adult children, and their children’s children are all living in the same house, with the grandparents offering both economic and emotional support.

“I forecasted that by 2010 there would be very close to 70 million grandparents in this country,” he says. “There were 47 million in 1990 — that’s a huge leap. It grew five times faster than the population as a whole.” The recession is most responsible; the unemployment rate is highest among those 20-24 at 15.2%, and, at 6.9%, lowest among those 55-64.

This coincides with a staggering increase in births to single mothers; today, one in four children is born to an unmarried woman. And, as Francese puts it, “Who needs the help of grandparents more than a single mom?” The upshot, he says, is that Americans 50 years and older control the vast majority of assets and show the most economic growth; he thinks advertising dollars should shift from the current 10% spent on that demographic to 40%.

* Francese’s second most interesting finding is what he calls “the absolute rocketing ascendancy of women in America.” He predicts that, within six months to a year, women will comprise the majority of the workforce. A 2009 report by the Census Bureau showed that, for the first time ever, more women had graduated college than men, and Franscese sees that trend continuing. The dominance of women is also related to the recession; the two hardest-hit industries, construction and manufacturing, are male-dominated, while the least-hit, education and health care, are favored by women.

As for the economy, Francese predicts this Christmas will show a small but enouraging spike in consumer spending, with the recession ending in real estate in spring, construction in summer. “This recession will end differentially, and it will take longer because it’s national.” He predicts the earliest bounce-back in Texas and Florida, two states with young populations and thriving industries. (New York is tied with three other states as the 16th oldest in the nation; take that as you will.)

* Third: Though the nation’s dominant ethnicity remains white non-Hispanic (at 200 million), we have, Francese says, “truly become a multicultural nation,” and are on our way to becoming a minority-majority nation, probably within the next 40-50 years. “The fastest growing segment is the Hispanic population; since 2000 it’s jumped 42% nationwide, while white non-Hispanic has edged up 2%,” he says. “Virtually all the growth is with all other ethnicities [except white].”

* And fourth: The Midwest and Northeast are hemorrhaging jobs and residents, while the South and the West have seen a huge uptick in residents (and, California aside, are doing better economically).

“This migration pattern is truly breathtaking; it’s not just immigration,” he says. “The number one reason anyone moves is a job. There’s more job creation in the South and the West; manufacturing has gone South. It’s cheaper. Taxes are lower; there’s less unionization. New York laws tend to favor the employee over the employer.” A damaging side-effect: the migration of young workers who relocate their families mean that the left-behind states get older and older, and economic growth slows.

CLICK HERE TO SEE A GLIMPSE OF THE U.S. NEXT YEAR (PDF)