The Takeaway: Reaching Age 90 More Likely Than Ever; Supermodel Carmen Dell'Orefice Still Catwalking at 80

90+ Population Booms: My dad and I were talking this past weekend about perceptions of age: How when you're a teen, 30 is middle-aged and 50 is old; at 30, 50 is middle-aged and 70 is old; and at 50, well ... "I guess now I don't think you're old old until you're 80," my 57-year-old dad said. Will we soon up that age to 90? According to the most recent census bureau data, Americans are more likely to reach 90 than ever before. The number of 90-year-olds in this country has tripled since 1980, to 1.9 million. And this number is only expected to grow with the aging of the boomers and post-boomer generations: By midcentury, 8.7 million people-or one in 10 older Americans-could reach the age of 90. A century ago, fewer than 100,000 people reached this age!

Obviously, the 90+ population boom is going to present some challenges: Swelling the ranks of already-strained Medicare and Social Security programs; increasing the need for geriatric doctors and others who can cater to the health needs of the oldest old. And what kind of 90-year-olds will we all be? Unless we can slow the rates of dementia and disability in our oldest old population, more and more people living to age 90 seems like a kind of grim proposition.

Disability rates spike drastically around age 90, the NIA found. The share of people age 90-94 who report some kind of impairment-inability to do errands, visit a doctor's office, climb stairs, bathe themselves-stands at 82 percent, 13 percentage points higher than those 85-89 (69 percent). Among those 95 and older, the disability rate jumps to 91 percent.

This is also a group without a lot of resources. The median income in the 90+ population was $14,760, about half of which came from Social Security. And about 14.5 percent of the age group lived in poverty, compared to 9.6 percent of American ages 65-89.