Slower growth forecasted in future decades

The Montana Department of Commerce’s Census and Economic Information Center recently released annual population projections for each of Montana’s 56 counties through 2060.

Flathead County’s population is projected to break the 100,000 mark in 2018 and top 127,000 by 2060. The county’s population in 2060 is expected to be 40 percent higher than in 2010, when the last U.S. census was conducted.

The demographic forecasts are available online for each county as a whole or by gender and age group. Due to uncertainty in the Bakken development, CEIC has provided two additional projection scenarios for 16 Eastern Montana counties impacted by the oil boom.

The baseline projections were produced by Amherst, Mass.-based Regional Economic Models Inc., which was founded in 1980 with the support of leading economists and Nobel Prize winner Laurence Klein.

REMI methodology has been used by clients across the U.S. and the world for more than 30 years. The University of Montana-Missoula is a client of REMI.

“These population projections are invaluable to our communities for the purpose of planning and developing policies as well as understanding regional growth,” Montana Department of Commerce director Meg O’Leary said. “Through this information, policy makers and planners will gain a better understanding of Montana’s regional growth and needs far into the future.”

Figures for both Montana and Flathead County from 1990 through 2060 show double-digit growth each decade through 2020 followed by declining single-digit growth per decade until 2060, when growth climbs back up to 6 percent per decade. The smallest figure for projected growth was for the decade 2030-2040, only 2 percent.

The figures also project a growing senior population. About 27 percent of the Flathead’s population is expected to be 65 or older by 2060. But by using the American Association of Retired Persons’ definition of a senior — people 55 or older — nearly 40 percent of the Flathead’s population will be seniors by 2060.

Currently, about 15 percent of the Flathead’s population is 65 or older. The figure was closer to 13 percent in 1993.

For more information, visit online at http://ceic.mt.gov/Population/PopProjections_StateTotalsPage.aspx.