In a state known for youth, a recently released report unmasks the face of California and reveals we’re getting more wrinkled by the minute.

The number of people age 60 and older will jump 40 percent by 2030, says the federally mandated California State Plan on Aging.

Within the next 13 years, the number of people 85 and over will soar by 37 percent and hit the 1 million mark.

Forget the Golden State moniker. Call it the state of Golden Years.

By the end of the next decade, according to the new study, there will be 11.1 million Californians age 60 or older. In three decades, that number will skyrocket to 14 million.

Robert DeBerry, right, of Costa Mesa looks at his Medicare options with Council on Aging volunteer Judy Grant during an enrollment clinic at Lakeview Senior Center in Irvine on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Lisa Wright Jenkins, President & CEO, Council on Aging Ð Southern California says s her staff now supports seniors in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Yet her agency has been hit this year with a 10 percent cut in federal funds. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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David Escoe, volunteer with the Council on Aging, right, helps Kee Wong, left, at Council on Aging’s annual enrollment clinic at Lakeview Senior Center in Irvine on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

HICAP program manager Linda Cardoza, left, of the Southern California Council on Aging helps Jim Wheeler, right, of Irvine during a Medicare enrollment clinic at the Lakeview Senior Center in Irvine on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. Wheeler’s care manager at Lakeview Senior Center, Erin Nearhoof, is at center. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Linda Cardoza of the Southern California Council on Aging explains Medicare options to seniors at the Lakeview Senior Center in Irvine on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. Cardoza is the Council on Aging’s program manager for the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)



Kee Wong, second from right, attends a Medicare enrollment clinic for help from Council on Aging volunteer David Escoe, second from left, at the Lakeview Senior Center in Irvine on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Robert DeBerry of Costa Mesa, right, gets some help enrolling for Medicare from Council on Aging volunteer Judy Grant, left, at the Lakeview Senior Center in Irvine on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Kee Wong listens during a Medicare enrollment clinic organized by the Council on Aging at the Lakeview Senior Center in Irvine on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Lisa Wright Jenkins President & CEO, Council on Aging Ð Southern California in Irvine An organization called Orange County Healthier Together projects that by 2040 nearly one-fourth of local residents will be 65 or older. ÒImagine,Ó Jenkins suggests, Ò100,000 (more) seniors flooding the freeways.Ó (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

And this aging boom — a result of both a glut of aging baby boomers and the trend of people living longer — figures to touch everything from health care to fashion to food.

“The impact of an aging population, described by some as an age wave, and others as an aging tsunami,” says the report, “will be felt in every aspect of society.”

Making matters worse, the state must cope with the triple threat of reduced federal funds for seniors, higher costs of living and more people living on fixed incomes.

Consider county comparisons from the 2010 census for those 60 and older to 2030 projections:

Los Angeles — 2010: 915,572 people 60 and older; 2030: 1,647,708; a spike of 80 percent.

Orange — 2010: 491,040; 2030: 901,350; an increase of 84 percent.

Riverside — 2010: 353,225; 2030: 695,017; a hike of 97 percent.

San Bernardino — 2010: 265,699; 2030: 550,488; a jump of 107 percent.

When it comes to hip, happenin’ hair color, gray is the new black.

‘Silver tsunami’

During a visit this week to the Council on Aging of Southern California, a series of interviews found a range of programs running better than a well-oiled wheeled-walker.

Yet there are two things happening simultaneously that may slow the wheels of assistance: reduced federal funding combined with increases in senior needs.

Lisa Wright Jenkins, council president and CEO, explains her staff now supports seniors in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Yet her agency has been hit this year with a 10 percent cut in federal funds.

The state report echos Jenkins: “Over the past two decades federal funding has been stagnant, and California’s allocation has actually decreased by approximately $10 million annually due to the federal Sequestration (budget limit) cuts.”

As a commercial jet roars by her office window near John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Jenkins raises her voice to say this: “Washington affects us here.”

Paid staff and an army of volunteers are “resolved to meet necessary needs,” she assures, but without change, the future could be bleak.

“Most people don’t realize the sheer numbers of seniors that we are not prepared for,” Jenkins says.

The age wave, she adds, “will fundamentally change counties.”

Jenkins ticks off services, professions and businesses that will be dramatically affected, mentioning hospitals, urgent care facilities, dentist offices, grocery stores, clothing outlets and caregivers, among others.

An organization called Orange County Healthier Together projects that by 2040 nearly one-fourth of local residents will be 65 or older.

“Imagine,” Jenkins suggests, “100,000 (more) seniors flooding the freeways.”

Jenkins offers that an aging population affects entire families and especially baby boomers who are feeling their own effects while also caring for elderly parents.

I fit into the baby boomer bracket, people born between 1946 and 1964, and at least once a week I drive to Laguna Woods where my father has a round-the-clock caregiver. (Yes, we are fortunate his nest egg can cover such care.)

Generally, drivers are painstakingly polite. But to Jenkins’ point, freeways easily become a maze for many elderly drivers and some are just downright cranky.

The other week, one elderly woman even inexplicably flipped me off.

No rock n’ roll lifestyles

Way back when rock stars such as Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were newly dead, it was popular to proclaim, “Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse.”

Fortunately, that bit of misguided wisdom is no longer in vogue. Being alive, baby boomers realized, is far better than the alternative. Many either moderate unhealthy habits or have gone so far as to give up booze, drugs and tobacco.

That means a statistically significant percentage of boomers will live longer than their parents. Yet there is a downside to long life: For many, the longer they live, the more it will cost.

The report highlights some potentially expensive statistics: “Approximately 92 percent of older adults have at least one chronic condition and 77 percent have at least two.”

Currently, two-thirds of the state’s older population is concentrated in either the San Francisco Bay or Los Angeles areas. But in the next decade, experts predict, that concentration will spread to Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Along with health care, many aging adults will struggle with other basic necessities such as shelter, transportation, utilities.

The report suggests that’s already happening: “Twenty-six percent of the seniors face a housing cost burden (and) spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing expenses.”

Additionally, the report notes, many non-English speakers — Latinos and Asians in particular — currently require assistance in their native languages.

Los Angeles ranks near the top, statewide, with about 48 percent of seniors who speak little or no English, according to the report. That’s true of about 25 percent of the aging residents in Orange County, while the rates dip to between 13 and 22 percent in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Yet the biggest challenge for our already strained health care system will be caring for an increasingly large percentage of people who live beyond age 85.

That’s an age when health issues — and related expenses — kick in in a big way, the report notes.

And that’s coming, too. In Los Angeles and Orange counties, the number of the super-aged, 85-and-older residents will grow by roughly 70 to 75 percent over the next three decades. In Riverside and San Bernardino, the super-aged population will more than double.

The statistics are enough to give you worry lines. Yet there are no simple face cream fixes for our aging population.

Family, friendship and funding, however, could make a difference.