ORLANDO, Fla. — America is aging and of all the states, Maine is aging the fastest.

Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday show the median age in the U.S. increased by a year to 38.2 years from 2010 to 2018.

Maine had the greatest increase in median age, 2.2 years, going from 42.7 years to 44.9 years during that period.

It’s not all bad news for Maine.

State figures released last fall show more people are migrating to Maine than leaving overall, thanks in part to older millennials.

Maine had a net loss of roughly 1,000 young adults between the ages of 20 and 24 in 2017.

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But the state also had a net gain of 4,200 individuals between 25 and 34.

If there’s someone to blame for the nation’s overall aging, it’s the baby boomers. Many in that group of Americans born between the end of World War II and the Beatles’ American invasion in 1964 have been hitting the retirement mark in the past eight years.

“This aging is driven in large part by baby boomers crossing over the 65-year-old mark,” said Luke Rogers, chief of the Population Estimates Branch at the Census Bureau.

The gray hairs are showing up faster in some places than others, at least percentage-wise.

In Puerto Rico, the median age jumped by almost 6 years, from 36.9 years to 42.8 years. That was driven by younger people moving to the U.S. mainland after Hurricane Maria caused widespread destruction on the island in 2017.

The only state whose median age got younger was North Dakota, which has undergone a population boom driven by growth in the energy sector. The median age went from 37 years in 2010 to 35.2 years in 2018.


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