You know that saying it's not how old you are, it's how old you feel?

For the economy, it kind of is how old you are.

From American public media.

This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle.

It is Tuesday.

It's the day the 28th of January.

It is always to have you along, everybody.

This job, as I believe I've said before, takes one to some unexpected places.

She keeps going faster and faster and faster and faster, man. This is hard. I would totally get lost.

We start today in the middle of a line dancing class, because silly as it might seem, the people in this class are the driving force behind a changing economy.

We kicked off our new series yesterday, the age of work it's called, about how the demographic shifts happening here in the United States and abroad are shaking up the global economy. And we started in Cumberland County, Tennessee.

This project, we should tell you, is in partnership with ADP research. They crunched the numbers

for us. And they found that Cumberland County has one of the oldest workforces in the United

States.

And what we found there is a story about what happens to a place as the working age population

becomes more and more outnumbered by retirees with time on their hands and money to spend.

And if demographics or destiny, as economists like to say, what's happening in Cumberland County is eventually going to play out in every part of this economy.

Line dancing at 9.30 on a Thursday morning. I don't know. I just don't know.

Suffice it to say, I will not be line dancing.

ADP chief economist Neela Richardson and I are outside a library in Fairfield Glade.

The median age here is about 70.

The library is home to that line dancing class that we started with.

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