One chart explains the economy’s terrible baby boomer hangover, Gen X’s invisibility, and millennial and Gen Z irrelevance

The Census Bureau is out with new data, documenting how America has grown over the past six years — or not. One takeaway is clear: the Baby Boomer generation is so massive and has such a stranglehold on the economy that essentially no part of the country is seeing any real population growth among younger people. The only, partial exception is in exurban areas in the Sun Belt, where regulations encourage affordability for young Americans starting out in their careers. Just consider one fact: 39.4 the age of the average American. That’s the median age as of July 2025, up from 38.6 just five years ago. Half the country is now on the far side of 40. And buried inside the Census Bureau’s freshly released Vintage 2025 population estimates is a map of how America got here. The data, released Thursday, tells a story about four generations and one fundamental imbalance: a country whose dominant demographic cohort is exiting productive economic life while retaining nearly all of its productive economic assets — and where every generation in its wake is either too small, too dispersed, or too financially constrained to fill the void. America has an economic boomer hangover — the data is plain to see. The pig in the python It’s well known that baby boomers dominate most of the traditional statistics of economic empowerment. The generation owns one third of the nation’s housing stock and are responsible for most homebuying activity. They remain largely in control of the country’s political machine, despite the cohort’s youngest now having aged well into their 60s. The sheer size of the demographic and its staying power has also reshaped labor markets—possibly for the foreseeable future, by distorting the need for workers junior to them. But the Census data make it overwhelmingly clear: In every region of the U.S., boomers have become more entrenched over the past few years while most other demographic groups have struggled to grow. And spare a thought for Gen X or an