WILLMAR -- Willmar's example in dealing with changing demographics will be included in a two-part report by KARE 11 News on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to reporter Rick Kupchella.
The reports will be broadcast at 10 p.m. both days, and will be repeated the following Wednesday and Thursday mornings. The first report will discuss changing demographics across the state of Minnesota and how the trend will affect the housing market.
Beginning next year, the rate of retirement across the state will increase 30 percent and will grow for the next decade and a half, he said.
By 2018, the state will have more people over the age of 65 than there are in school, he said.
"That has never happened before,'' he said. "For the first time, the pool of people coming up behind (the retirees) is smaller. That is abnormal. Society is aging.''
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The second report will deal with the effect of the trend on education, employment and health care.
"When we asked the people at the state where can we go to get a sense of what Minnesota will look like as a state in the year 2020 generationally and culturally, they told us to go to Willmar,'' Kupchella said.
During the last couple of weeks, Kupchella conducted interviews with Mayor Les Heitke and at Kennedy Elementary School, Rice Memorial Hospital, Jennie-O Turkey Store and several downtown businesses.
He said the number of people 65 years and older account for about 16.4 percent of the population in Willmar.
"That's what will be the case throughout the state of Minnesota by 2020,'' he said.
But he said the population will increase with the addition of people from elsewhere.
"Your town has had to deal with this exact issue already and we were interested in how you've done it,'' Kupchella said.
"We were just interested in learning how what Willmar faced and how they dealt with it, because the whole state is going to face this exact same thing within about the next 15 years.''
