Examining Population Growth Trends for Younger and Older Working Populations, 2020-2025
Our Population Growth by Age Group rankings dashboard is updated, and it now covers 20 years – every county, metro and state in the country. Find your community on the map, pick an age group, and see how you've grown.
We did our own analysis of large and medium metros in two articles, one on younger workers (25-44) and one on older workers (45-64). Each article compares the last five years of growth through 2025 against the same stretch a decade earlier, because we wanted to know whether the places winning today are the same ones that were winning then.
Rankings for large metros have changed significantly for the 25-44 age group but stayed surprisingly similar for the older 45-64 age group. Medium metros have seen a lot of change in the rankings over the past 10 years.
Read both articles here:
Here’s what we learned:
Austin keeps leading large metros. It was the fastest-growing for both 25-44 and 45-64 year-olds in 2025 and 2015.
Large metros jumping into the Top 10 rankings for 25-44 year-olds include Raleigh, Dallas, Jacksonville, Charlotte, and Phoenix. Orlando, San Antonio and Houston maintained their high ranking for this age group.
Several rising stars for 25-44 year-olds from 10-years ago are now falling behind. Large metros Denver, Oklahoma City, Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland all saw big drops in their rankings from 2015 to 2025.
The two halves of the workforce are moving in opposite directions now. Nationally, the 25-44 population grew 5.8% over the last five years. But, the 45-64 population shrank 3.0% as Boomers aged out of this age group and fewer Gen Xers entered behind them.
As a result, forty of the 55 large metros lost 45-to-64-year-olds (only 15 large metros gained). The new reality is that the most experienced workforce is shrinking almost everywhere. Salt Lake City surprised us – it’s the only large metro with a 45-64 year-old population growing faster now than it was ten years ago.
The medium metro rankings for 25-44 year-olds show the most change over the last 10 years. Six out of the top 10 medium metros are in Florida, and their rankings jumped double-digits. Lakeland, Florida grew its 25-44 population 32% – comfortably past Austin's 21%, and past every other large metro in the country. Huntsville and Boise now appear in the medium metro Top 10 list for 25-44 year-olds. Also of note: medium metros overall are growing 50% faster than large metros.
Fayetteville-AR and Provo-UT maintained their high rankings in the medium metro list, but some leaders from 2015 have fallen (some significantly): Charleston (1>12), New Orleans (3>55), Colorado Springs (4>17), Ogden (6>27), Honolulu (7>52), and Durham (8>35).
Read the two articles above, or have a look for yourself at our dashboard:
Methodology and Source
Growth is measured by the 5-year percentage change in population 25-44 years old, which aligns mostly with the Millennial generation and the oldest of Generation Z. Headlight Data combines metropolitan areas and micropolitan areas into one list and ranks them by population growth according to size category: Large (1,000,000+ people), Medium (500k up to 1M) and Small (under 500k). Headlight uses the latest 2023 OMB definitions of metros and micros applied retroactively for all years. Metros (which we define as both metropolitan and micropolitan areas) account for 95% of the US population overall and 99% of US population change from 2020 to 2025.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program. Figures for 2020-2025 come from the Vintage 2025 estimates; the 2010-2015 comparison uses the estimates vintage published for those years, which is built on the 2010 census base.
The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program (PEP) is a modeled estimate of age, race, and sex down to the county level, built from administrative records — birth and death certificates, IRS tax returns, Medicare enrollment, and Social Security files — carried forward annually from the last census. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) is an annual statistical survey of U.S. households whose weights are calibrated to match PEP estimates, which makes PEP the authoritative source for population by age, race, and sex.