# How many people alive from a specific time period?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-alive-from-a-specific-time-period/755855>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 27, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-alive-from-a-specific-time-period/755855 "2016-05-27T22:27:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-alive-from-a-specific-time-period/755855/1 "2016-05-27T22:27:09Z")

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I’m trying to get a rough estimate of the number of people alive today in the US who were at least 14 years old in the years 1975-1980, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do it.

So I need:

–US population 14 & over in 1975  
–Plus everyone who turned 14 in each year of 1976-1980  
–minus everyone from that total who’ve died.

Help!

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**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-alive-from-a-specific-time-period/755855/3 "2016-05-27T22:59:33Z")

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The US Census doesn’t have a calculator that works like this, or any calculator at all that I could see.

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**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-alive-from-a-specific-time-period/755855/4 "2016-05-27T23:35:11Z")

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So what you’re asking is how many people are over the age of 50? Census data generally trails behind a bit since it takes some time to collect the data, but in 2014 there were 108.7 million Americans aged 50+. [http://blog.aarp.org/2014/05/14/top-10-demographics-interests-facts-about-americans-age-50/](http://blog.aarp.org/2014/05/14/top-10-demographics-interests-facts-about-americans-age-50/)

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**Author:** ![Kimble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimble/32/19185_2.png) [@Kimble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimble)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-alive-from-a-specific-time-period/755855/5 "2016-05-27T23:36:06Z")

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If I’m reading your question properly, you don’t need all that information to get your answer.

On July 1, 2015, everyone alive that’s 49 or older and roughly 1/2 of the 48-year-olds would have been 14+ at some point in 1975-1980. Open [this file](http://www.census.gov/popest/data/national/asrh/2015/files/NC-EST2015-AGESEX-RES.csv) in your favorite spreadsheet program; it’s got the most recent population estimates for the US (as of the aforementioned 7/1/15, column J) broken down by age (column A) and sex (column B: 0=all, 1=M, 2=F).

Half the 48-year-olds + everyone older = 117,164,384 people.

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**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-alive-from-a-specific-time-period/755855/6 "2016-05-28T18:00:38Z")

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Thanks guys–both for the answers and for giving me the simpler ways to think about it.