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🎧 Sounds like: "Old Habits Die Hard" by the Neville Brothers.

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📣 Programming note: Chelsea and Carlie are out of town for an Axios retreat.

• Today, we have a special edition looking at trends within America's aging population.

Today's newsletter is 920 words — a 3.5-minute read.

America has a missing-middle problem — and this one is demographic.

Why it matters: The shrinking 45-64 population could leave fewer experienced adults to run institutions, mentor younger workers and care for the fast-growing population behind them.

• This is the Gen X-ish squeeze: The age group includes most of Generation X, plus younger baby boomers.
• It also overlaps with the "sandwich generation" years, when many adults are juggling children, aging parents, careers and their own retirement worries.

By the numbers: The U.S. population ages 45-64 fell by 2.68 million from April 1, 2020, to July 1, 2025, according to new Census Bureau data.

• The South was the only region where the 45-64 population grew — barely — adding 18,749 people, or 0.1%.

State of play: The decline is happening as the country gets older overall.

• The U.S. median age rose to 39.4 in July 2025, up from 38.6 in April 2020.

Zoom in: The 45-64 group isn't vanishing so much as aging up. Younger boomers are moving into retirement age, and older Gen X cohorts are filling in behind them.

• High costs of living and housing shortages in the Northeast and West are driving this experienced cohort southward.

The impact on communities

As rents climb and older homeowners stay put, senior housemates are having a moment.

• Older adults are turning spare bedrooms into lifelines, for themselves and for renters priced out of the market, the New York Times reports.

The big picture: It's not charity. It's a trade: space for affordability, companionship and a hand around the house.

• The arrangement pays off socially and financially for homeowners and renters alike.

Zoom out: Around 55 home-share groups now play roommate matchmaker nationwide, vetting applicants and brokering the delicate stuff: pets, parking, chores and thermostat preferences.

• Several states are weighing "Golden Girls" bills to loosen rules on unrelated adults living together.
• Nonprofits like Sunshine Home Share Colorado make matches directly after interviews and background checks. Last year, Sunshine connected a record 31 shares.

The bottom line: Home-sharing won't fix a housing shortage. But it's a hopeful start — right down the hall.

Searches for gray hair salons and services have surged on Yelp, according to data shared with Axios.

Why it matters: America is getting older, and more people are embracing their grays rather than hiding them.

• Even some younger women are seeking out the look.

By the numbers: Yelp searches for salons offering gray blending — a coloring technique that uses highlights to incorporate gray strands — jumped 905% in 2025 from a year earlier.

• Inquiries for gray hair specialists rose 276%.

What they're saying: Many people now want to "showcase" their grays, Austin, Texas, hairstylist Cynthia Valdez says, "rather than always being obsessed about covering it, or being insecure about showing it."

• That's a big change. "It used to be like, 'Oh, you got one gray. Let's cover it right away so nobody can see it.'"

Zoom in: Many of her clients are millennials and Gen Z with "just a little bit" of gray. For them, Valdez says she adds highlights to enhance or brighten the grays that frame their face.

Go deeper

👋 Axios chief copy editor Sheryl Miller here.

• I'm turning 60 this year, and this milestone has me thinking about the value of aging beyond economic power or trendy hair. It's perspective.

The big picture: Like a lot of older Gen Xers, I have stories of buying an annual road atlas, talking for hours on a corded phone in the kitchen and witnessing the first Macintosh appear in my college computer lab.

• I remember looking at that "mouse thing" and feeling quite sure it would never catch on.

Between the lines: I've been wrong about so many things. And if 60 has taught me anything, it's that being wrong isn't the worst thing. Refusing to learn is.

Here's some advice — a few things I wish I'd known when I was younger.

✏️ Write it down. You think you'll remember everything, but you won't. You'll remember the big things, mostly.

• The small things — the funny thing your kid said, the long days at the pool — those have a way of slipping away.

💞 Your friends — your support system — are everything. In a family emergency, they were the ones who organized meals, picked up my daughter from college and showed up when I couldn't ask.

👥 Make the connection. In my 30s, a retired couple lived across the street from us. They were the neighbors who went out of their way to do kind things, like installing a tree swing in their yard for the neighborhood kids to use.

• Then life got busy. We rushed through school years, work deadlines, practices, dinners, all of it. Somewhere along the way, I lost that connection, and I will always regret that.

The bottom line: Maybe graying means you've lived long enough to be wrong about a few things — and lucky enough to keep learning.

🥲 Chelsea recently got her first grays.

🎉 Carlie has reached the age where "no plans this weekend" sounds less like a problem and more like winning the lottery.

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Thanks to our editor Jen Burkett.