VITAL AGING INITIATIVE -City of St. Peter

What is Vital Aging? I am not sure how to define it, but I know I want it. We all want to live in a vital or important way. The city of St. Peter seems to be a place that is liked by retired or older folks. Some of them come back to the city because they have good memories of attending school at Gustavus or Mankato State University. One family I know of wanted to be close to the airport – but not live in the metro area. Whatever the reason, the city seems to have many people who may fall into the category of older.

Recently leaders from the city of St. Peter gathered and talked about how to prepare and be a friendly community to a group of vitally aging population. What do we look like? In Minnesota, by the year 2020 there will be more people over the age of 65 than in elementary, middle and high schools put together. There will be more people over the age of 65 than young adults.

In addition to the baby boomer bump, people are living longer, life expectancy has doubled over the last 100 years, medical and technological advances have added to this trend. Information from the Minnesota River Area Agency on Aging tells us that the “increase of older adults will mean more reliance on the service structure of public entities.” These services are funded mostly through public dollars from taxes. Examining a person with an average income of $35,000, he or she generates about $2,018 in taxes annually. (This is what runs our schools, cities, townships and counties.) When he/she retires, this drops to $559 or 72% cut in revenue.
When workers need to leave their jobs to care for an aging parent, we suffer economic loss. Lost productivity due to the burdens of caring for an older parent is estimated at $11.4 billion annual in the United States.

It is an eye opening fact that since the beginning of time, we have not had a situation where large segments of the population live to such advanced years. Aging –this is not a natural phenomenon. It has never happened before – so we have no model to follow in how to deal with it. In 1988- 97% of the care giving was done by family, in 2005 –2%. A 1% decline in family care giving means a 30 million dollar cost to the tax payers.A snapshot picture of Nicollet County shows the population at 31,313 and the city of St. Peter at 10,864. 2006 data indicates 4,926 people or 17.5% are 60 plus; 1,775 or 5.7% are 75 plus; 567 or 1.8% are 85 plus. This is 2006 data. Also, the poverty level for 65 plus shows there are 239 people below the poverty level. The median family income is $40,443. The civic leaders will continue to talk about and come up with some recommendations regarding Aging Vitally in St. Peter. end