This is real money and youre the most important part of the show. Tell me whats on your mind by tweeting ali velshi or facebook. Com slash, yx. En. America is growing and getting grair. The number of people who call this home rose by 7. 3 million in the first half of the decade. U. S. Counted 360 million residents as of are 2014. Thats a 2. 4 bump from 2010. The median age of the population kicked up slightly to 37. 6 years old. Half were younger and half were older. The biggest driver, the age baby boom generation. The wave of americans born between 1946 and 1964. They now number 76 million. And the youngest are in their 50s, helping to push the median age upwards. Thats a national figure. When you drill down you see local and median ages fluctuate depending where you live. Mary snow explains. The then census study echoes the demographic of two booms. The great shale boom and the baby boom generation which is reflected in the country becoming older. Median age of the population declined in seven states including north dakota, montana, wyoming, south dakota, oklahoma, alaska and hawaii. Williams county north dakota which is the center of th of the bakken shale energy boom, median age is 35. 1. Down from the 2010 census. Madison, idaho had the youngest median age at 23. 1 and su sum ter sumpter at 61. 1. What area do you think has the highest percentage of women . It is the district of columbia. Meastle females, 66. 7 . The nations 65 and older population surged to 44. 7 million in 2013. Thats up 3. 6 from 2012. By comparison, the population younger than 65 gro grew by onl3 3 10 of 1 . 18. 7 follow ed by maine at 17. 7 . Nationwide, the population of people 6 85 and older grew to 67,000. Reached a 67,000. Marry 67,000 mary snow, al jazeera. 17 of americans are at least 65 years old. Thats a 14 increase in just three years and only expected to grow. The United Nations estimates the population will rise to 83. 7 Million People, or 21 of the total population. The u. N. Says this phenomenon is happening worldwide and it is, quote, without parallel in human history. As a larger share of the population raises, the percentage of the population in the workforce shrinks. The burden falls on fewer workers and Greater Society responsibility. Each person who is older than 65 in the year 2050 as you can see, the u. S. Will have just 2. 8 workers for every person over 65. Now thats an improvement over japan with just 1. 3 workers, germany with 1. 7 and even china, the most populace country in the world today. Only, aging populations in the developed world will lead to labor shortages and maybe even an economic slow down. Thats according to milton isradi, author of 30 tomorrow. Milton is chief economist at florida abbott. He says there are reasons to be worried. There are a lot of negative implications. Pension obligations, particularly social security, and a shortage of working hands and minds is going to make it harder for this economy to grow and produce. Theres a lot of doom saying connected to this. Its not all doom and gloom, a big part of your book, there are Solutions Identity there. Lets that are out there. Ibm is kind of a model for this. What are they doing . Well what we need to do is substitute for our shortage of working hands, minds, tax paying pension contributing people. One of the things, one of the ways nations can do this and the United States certainly has this opportunity is to try to generate longer careers for people. And a lot of individual firms have actually started to experiment with this. Ibm, you bring up, is a perfect example. What theyve done is they offer workers 60 years and over to leave the department theyre in and join an internal consulting group. Given a chance to work fewer hours at lower pay and they are actually very valuable to the firm. They do troubleshooting around the firm. They remain productive, they remain paid, they are not at thisitting on the porch lookingr their pension. Flexible years during child rearing are women, 70 participate in the workforce versus 90 for men. What are some of the strategies to get women in the workforce . I think getting rid of jernld gender differences will encourage women the come back. The difference in the Participation Rate is women still, despite all the modern things about dads who are helpful, is that women child most of the childcare responsibilities. What i anticipate is that firms and government will work separately and together to make childcare more available and cheaper and more attractive to women to bring them back to the workforce. What about long term unemployment . I mean that is something that has been plaguing the country for a long time. Is there a solution to bring some of the people from that, and how does that play into the aging population as well . Well, the tragedy is that we have a shortage of young people relative to our and then we have a group of people who are effectively unemployed. They are certainly not helping themselves. We need to turn to education and training. Im going to underscore the word training here. This is not a self fulfillment education, thats a wonderful thing. But its training the people to do the jobs of the future so they can have a lively being future to overcome the economy. Are you optimistic that we will overcome these challenges . I am. When i began this book i was pessimistic but people who are experimenting with niece things, firms these things, affirms had have onsite childcare, actually, encourage me to think of optimism in a really terrible situation. Thank you, so much for coming in. Up next, when it comes to hours worked some bosses swear that less is more. We have found a huge correlation between working less and being more efficient. Well have more on the drills of four Day Work Week coming up. Al jazeeras Investigative Unit has tonights exclusive report. From coast to coast. People selling fresh water for fracking. Stories that have impact. We lost lives. That make a difference. Senator, we were hoping we could ask you some questions about your legal problems. That open your world. It can be very dangerous. I hear gunshots. The bullet came right there through the widdow. It absolutely is a crisis. Real reporting. This. Is what we do. America tonight, next only on Al Jazeera America. America has a well deserved reputation for being a nation of workaholics. We work more hours than canadian, british and french workers and get this we work a whopping 42 days more than germans each year. While americans are among most productive workers, more days working doesnt mean more productivity. Thats why some companies are experimenting with a four Day Work Week. More loyalty and productivity, which has them saying, thank god its thursday. Its thursday at the on Line Technology company tree house in portland, oregon. For most companies this doesnt mean anything special but here, thursdays are really fridays. Tree house has a four Day Work Week. Wednesday comes around and you start to panic a little bit. You know, tomorrow is the end of the week. Ive got to get things done. Ceo ryan carson and his wife jill decided to work a four Day Work Week when starting a tech company in 2004. In 2006 carson started to keep the tradition. Everyone said you couldnt work less. Lets see if thats possible. Turns out it is. We have found a huge correlation between working less and being more efficient. If i constrain myself to what i need to get done we feel its a huge increase in productivity. We do know that a workforce that is on shorter hours and with flexible arrangements tendings to be happier tends to be happier more loyal and stable and all those things tend to be good for the business bottom line if you like. Worldwide, countries that work shorter hours tending to have higher productivity. Take for example the g7 countries. Germans are one of the most productive. With an average gdp, among the hardest working countries in the g7. What that tells you is you cannot predict that an economy is going to be stronger because workers are working longer hours. And its likely that the economy will be either just the same, or stronger, if workers are working shorter hours on average. Cool, that would be really useful. Carson says there have been some unexpected benefits to the four Day Work Weeks. Taking fewer sick days, leaving doctor appointments for fridays. I get angry ceos accusing us of stealing their people. What they dont realize is we treat people like humans here. 36 of workers nationwide are allowed to have a four Day Work Week, icial that allows Flexible Work weeks, in summers and fridays. Ceo,s trouble is a lot of those folks like working. Several u. S. Cities are experimenting with the four Day Work Week in hopes it will save money in the long term, as well as gm and chrysler plants. More are likely to work a four day, ten hour days, unlike tree house. We work four, eight hour days. Stakes at tree house are high. Sometimes i spend sunday evening to figure out my schedule for the week to make sure i have everything. Yvette jack has worked at tree house for three years. Employees are held accountable how they spend their days and their productivity is tracked daily. We look at whos producing projects, whos completing those projects within a certain period of time, there are red flags that will be pulled out if you arent pulling your weight. We have had to let people go. You have to pull your weight here. Full Competitive Salary plus benefits. His bottom line employees are efficient and happy. Even if the Company Grows more slowly as a result. I think short term we probably have been hurt a little bit. But were still growing at more than 100 per year in revenue so im okay with that. It seems good enough. Carson is doing Something Else pretty revolutionary. Last year, the company got rid of all its own managers. They set their own projects, create their own deadlines and keep themselves on track. Some companies allow their employees to work a form of a four Day Work Week. Can it work as well as tree house . I posed that to an organizer at Brigham Young university. When we surveyed employees and their supervisors we get the same story that it tends to work out pretty well, supervisors tend to think their employees are more protec productive arrangements. Not quite as well as the one in portland. It looks great. They is he the said they didnt actually work longer. Are you looking at extended shifts or people just working an eight hour day . Most of the time that they implement these kinds of alternative schedules theyre compressed work weeks, where theyre working the same number of hours, 40 hours, but doing it in fewer days. The most common is the 410 or working ten hours a day for four days a week, where you have one day a week off. Now, in some places thats a consistent day off. Like they did in the state of utah when it went to a mandatory four Day Work Week for state employees, everybody had friday off. But a lot of organizations have a rotating day. One employee might have it off on monday, some tuesday, some alternatively, it can really vary. Besides employees being happy which i can get with this, what are the other pros in the company, what other kind of pros can you expect to have . Most organizations find that they have higher levels of employee productivity. So theyre actually getting more done. You also find that, as was mentioned in the portland case, that they have fewer sick days that theyre taking. Some of that he mentioned from scheduling their doctors appointments on different days but its also that theyre just not getting sick on the day that theyre not in the office. So if youre not in the office on friday then when they get sick on a friday that doesnt affect the organization. That just affects the individual. Are there any down sides to this . Sure. One of the major down sides is a coordination issue. If you dont have everybody working the same schedule its much more difficult to coordinate, and managers that have employees working multiple variants of alternative schedules they find they actually have to work a lot more. So if i have half my employees that are there on friday and half that are there on monday, as the manager ive got to be there monday through friday. And now instead of working say an extra hour a day, you know, for four days, now im working an extra two hours a day over five days. In addition to whatever my were. That is obig down side. How many days a week do you work, or do you think that works for only sort of niche companies . As an academic, i often work six days a week, thats not uncommon. Plus i work all kinds of odd hours when youre traveling and whatnot. But i have worked a four Day Work Week but that was many, many years ago when i was a young undergraduate. And i did find it very attractive. But i think the kind of issue that organizations ask, should we do a four Day Work Week my response is, what do you want to accomplish . And you should structure your schedule based on what the goals of the organization are. If your goals are, as was talked about in the portland case, to attract employees, to provide better workfamily balance, to have a kind of more productive environment, then that might be really attractive. But if your job has to have coverage 247 then a fourDay Work Week might be a more difficult strategy to follow. Rex stracer, thank you so much. Up next, taking the pulse of Americas Health care cost. Well tell you what trend is about to change. And tell your kids to stop playing outside and Start Playing video games. Wait until you hear about the university thats recruiting gamers with scholarships. Now inroducing, the new al jazeea america mobile news app. Get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. A global perspective wherever you are. The major headlines in context. Mashable says. Youll never miss the latest news they will continue looking for suvivors. The potential for Energy Production is huge. No noise, no clutter, just real reporting. The new Al Jazeera America mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. Download it now it leads all the way to you. Al jazeera america, take a new look at news. Were following the storiesve desert the borderland marathon no ones prepared for this journey experience Al Jazeera Americas critically acclaimed original series from the beginning experiencing it has changed me completely follow the journey as six americans face the immigration debate up close and personal. Its heartbreaking. Im the enemy. Im really pissed off. All of these people shouldnt be dead. Its insane. The borderland marathon only at Al Jazeera America real reporting that brings you the world. Giving you a real global perspective like no other can. Real reporting from around the world. This is what we do. Al jazeera america. Health care is quickly changing in america. Family doctors are bafnedding banding together with hospitals and millions are getting coverage for the first time. Thats the hallmark of the Affordable Care act, also known as obamacare. U. S. Spending will rise to levels lasting before the recession hit and higher spending likely means hire premiums for hundreds of thousands of people. David arioso explains. For decades u. S. Health care spending has been on a tear. 1 5 of americas gdp. But that growth has slowed. Between 2009 and 2012, total Health Care Spending grew at just 3. 7 . Thats the lowest great of growth since the federal government started keeping track back in 1960. We were in a pretty serious recession, holding down all kinds of spending including medical spending. But according to a report from price, waterhouse coopers. Medical spending is expected to inch back to those prerecession levels, within that growth, pwc says about 350 million americans should see their Health Care Spending go up by 3. 6 . More spending means higher deductibles. Theres no question, both employers and employees have been steadily sharing a larger portion of Overall Health care cost increases. Nearly, only insurance option for their employees while 44 are considering stwoichg those high cost switching to those higher cost plans. What is happening . Hospitals and physicians groups as theyre coming together and getting bigger and stronger and negotiating price increases, i believe thats the factor increasing medical spending. They basically say the Insurance Companies you want your patients in my hospital then this is what youll pay. But analysts say this is what is happening under obamacare. The taxes on Insurance Companies on medical device makers on medical Drug Companies and frankly the individual mandate. While the new law has a series of cost containing measures millions of people were mandated to get coverage. Now those people are able to use those health plans to get treatment and that costs money. But americans have long spent most on their health care. Its a 2. 3 trillion industry, nearly twice as much as residents in countries like france and germany. Regardless what we feel about our Health Care System, the costs of our Health Care System are absolutely unsustainable. If we go forward into the year 2050, the debt to gdp ratios that will exist as a result of a Health Care Spending were doing will make the u. S. Look like greece. Six of americas ten Fastest Growing occupations are related to he