• Personal trainer Harry King is 82 and said lifting weights has helped him manage arthritis pain.
• King works out five days a week doing bench presses, leg presses, and cardio on the elliptical.
• He said exercise allowed him to get back to an active lifestyle and makes everyday tasks easier.

When Harry King was in his 50s, a doctor told him the arthritis in his knees had gotten so bad, he needed to stop taking the stairs, and even limit walking whenever possible.

Now 82, King is not only walking, hiking, and working out regularly — he works at his local Planet Fitness as a personal trainer, leading others through their workouts.

"Weight training is the best thing I can do for my arthritis," he told Business Insider. "By exercising and weight training I've built up the muscles around the knee to strengthen it."

King said strength training has helped him get back to an active lifestyle. Over the years, he's earned a second-degree black belt and won two championships in karate, as well as kayaked and hiked across his home state of South Carolina.

"I realize I do more than most 82-year-olds," he said. "It's just a way of life for me. To get into it, you just have to take the first step and go to the gym."

He works out up to five days a week

King spent most of his younger years being active in sports. He started basketball in high school and kept up with it until about age 50,

It wasn't until he was diagnosed with arthritis that he slowed down and started to feel out of shape. But being sedentary worsened his aches and pains and started to limit what he could do. King said he knew it was time for a change when he had an opportunity to hike the Matterhorn in the Alps, but wasn't physically ready.

"I vowed to let that never happen again, to let being out of shape stop me from doing things," he said.

King found a new doctor who could help him get back to physical activity, and found going to the gym helped him feel stronger and more capable in everyday life.

When King saw an opening for a personal trainer a few years ago, he applied, hoping to pass on his enthusiasm for strength training to help other people get stronger and live longer.

He said his approach isn't necessary about seeking out intense challenges (although he'll take them, when the opportunity arises), but making sure he can keep moving.

"I don't need to push through pain to be at the level I want to be. I just want to be fit enough to do something everyday," he said.

His workouts include bench presses, leg presses, and low-impact cardio

King said his exercise routine aims to include heart-healthy cardio as well as strength training for both upper and lower body.

For cardio, King prefers the elliptical or a bike for a low-impact workout that's easier on the joints.

"I used to run a lot but my feet can't take the pounding anymore," he said.

His weightlifting workouts include lower body movements like leg presses or modified squats to protect his knees, and upper body exercises like lat pull-downs and bench presses.

King isn't lifting light weight, either. While he doesn't try to max out his weight, a typical session might involve three sets of 12 reps. On the bench press, he could be hitting as much as 140 pounds.

The goal is progressive overload, gradually increasing the challenge to continue building muscle and strength while preventing injury.

"I don't try to lift as heavy a weight as I used to, just as heavy as I need to improve my strength," he said.

• Alisa Wolfson's family lost their home in the Pacific Palisades to the LA wildfires.
• They have been staying in hotels while they figure out their next steps.
• The impact of climate change and insurance issues are prompting them to consider leaving California.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alisa Wolfson, a journalist who lived in the Pacific Palisades with her husband and two daughters, ages 7 and 10. They evacuated on January 7 and subsequently lost their home in the LA fires that swept through Southern California. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up in the Palisades, and I've seen countless fires in surrounding areas. Usually, when fires start in the Santa Monica mountains and head toward the Palisades, they're always able to extinguish them.

On Tuesday when I was leaving my house, I thought we'd be back that night, so I didn't grab anything other than my laptop and our passports. If I'd thought that there was any chance something like this could happen, I would've grabbed as much as I could, even strapping things to the roof of my car.

Two days later, when I found out our house was gone, I was in complete shock. I keep closing my eyes and going room by room through my house, picturing how everything was. To think that none of it exists anymore is… I haven't found a profound enough word. "Devastating" and "unfathomable" don't do it justice.

Everything we own is gone

I felt like our house was a fortress; it was so well-built and sturdy. Before we found out, my husband had even said, "I wouldn't be surprised if our house was the only one still standing."

One of our neighbors was able to bike to our street and sent pictures and videos to the group text. Miraculously, two homes across the street from me are still standing. They're the only ones left on the block, and their hedges are still green.

I recognized our driveway, our lime tree — still with limes on it — and a white cement wall in front of our house that had turned brown with soot. Everything else was unrecognizable. We had two vintage cars in our garage — a '57 Chevy that was built like a tank and a '69 Jaguar — and there's no more evidence of them. They're just dust.

Every single possession that I have — that I had, rather — is gone, and I wasn't able to save any of it. Our entire lives that were in that house are gone. The magnitude of what that means and its permanence feels so unexpected and unfair.

I'm so sad that I didn't bring a basket of old home videos of my dad, who passed away when our oldest was only 10 months old. My mom's house also burned down, so we have no family heirlooms left. People say, "You still have plenty of years left to start collecting," but it's not the same as having your grandmother's silver that was used at all of the family get-togethers and celebrations.

We're fortunate to have the means to stay in a hotel

People online have been saying things [about Palisades] like, "They're rich. They'll rebuild and don't need any assistance." I don't take it personally. Unless it's happened to you, it's virtually impossible to relate to.

We're fortunate to have the means to stay in a hotel right now — first the Beverly Hilton, and we moved to the Fairmont Century Plaza on Wednesday, as it's across the street from my husband's office and around the corner from the Westfield Century City Shopping Centre.

Just about every other hotel guest I've seen is in the same boat. There's something strangely comforting about knowing we're not the only ones, that there's a larger community that's all grieving the same type of loss.

We're taking it an hour at a time

There's a long road ahead. The rental market is already insane. There are a limited number of rentals, and everyone's in line for the same properties. I'm sure there will be price-gouging and greedy people who want to get as much money as they can when they lease their homes out.

We've had friends and family from all over the country reach out and offer to have us stay with them. One offered us their condo in Sun Valley — an incredible offer, but uprooting ourselves feels like it'd be too much change so quickly.

Family friends have a horse property in the Palisades and have graciously offered us one of their little guest cottages. We're waiting to see if it survived. If so, we'll go there temporarily because it's somewhere our daughters are familiar with.

Otherwise, we're looking into potential long-term hotel stay-type places. Really, we're just taking things day by day. We're booked at this hotel through the weekend on Monday as of now. We could extend here, but we might benefit from having a little more space, especially with the dog.

My husband and I both grew up in the Palisades and bought our home there in 2018. We love our neighborhood and its strong sense of community. Now, moving away from California is on the table.

Climate change is real. Fires are becoming more frequent and more intense, and nobody wants to insure homes in California anymore. Ironically, just last month, State Farm sent us a notice that they wouldn't be renewing our fire insurance policy. Fortunately, we're covered through April. We've filed a claim with our insurance and are waiting to have a subsequent call with an adjuster.

I want to incorporate as much normalcy as possible

I've only cried once so far today. I don't know if things are settling in and becoming more real; perhaps we're falling into our own little routine at the hotel.

A family that we know happens to be staying in the room next door, and our daughters are very happy at the thought of doing cartwheels up and down the hallway together because that's what makes them feel normal right now. All I can hope for is that my girls continue to have those brief moments and glimmers of hope.

I'm trying to incorporate as much normalcy as possible where I can, not that there's really much to be had. I have a hard time accepting things from people because I'd rather be helping, but I've had to do away with that mindset and just accept the help.

Last night, I sent my daughters home with one of my best friends. She made them dinner and tasked them with some babysitting duties to make them feel like they were needed. She took them to get ice cream afterward and even brought me a scoop when she dropped them off.

It's those kinds of things that are really keeping us going.

• Vail Resorts was in the hot seat this month when a Park City ski patrol strike disrupted holidays.
• For years, Vail's rapid acquisitions and high costs have sparked criticism from skiers and locals.
• Here's how the company grew to be the biggest in skiing — and the enemy of some ski bums.

If you want to know just how loathed Vail Resorts is, just look at the lyrics of Grammy-nominated artist Noah Kahan's "Paul Revere."

"This place had a heartbeat in its day," the native Vermonter sings. "Vail bought the mountains, and nothing was the same."

Or look around the parking lots at the ski behemoth's various properties, which include Park City, Beaver Creek, and Stowe, where cars are frequently adorned with "Vail Sucks" stickers.

Gripes that the company has made skiing less accessible and more corporate were amplified this month after a ski patrol strike shut down much of Park City, causing chaos for vacationers over the holidays.

The company's stock dropped 6% amid news of the strike. But while the work stoppage has ended, the company's challenges are far from over. Since reaching a peak in 2021, Vail's share price is now down more than 50%.

After two decades of acquisitions and partnerships, Vail Resorts owns or operates 42 ski resorts around the world. The company is now facing decreased margins after a 2021 reduction in the price of its Epic Pass, which provides access to Vail's network of mountains, and the lack of cheap acquisitions available, Chris Woronka, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, told Business Insider.

"The stock had gotten ahead of itself valuation-wise," Woronka said. "The days of easily created growth are kind of behind the company."

Meanwhile, it's earned a reputation among passionate skiers as a place where crowds clutter the trails and lift lines and where grabbing a burger on the mountain could cost you $25.

A spokesperson for Vail Resorts told BI the company continuously invests in its properties to improve the guest experience and make skiing more accessible.

"Vail Resorts has transformed the industry through unprecedented investments in employees and guests, made the sport more accessible to more people, and created stability for our resorts, employees and communities in the face of climate change," the spokesperson said.

A skiing behemoth

Vail Resorts is the largest ski company in the world, granting its pass-holders unlimited access to dozens of resorts worldwide, including its upscale flagship, Vail, located in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. During its 2024 fiscal year, which ended in July, 17.6 million skiers visited its mountains.

Those visitors pay big bucks for the privilege of skiing at some of the most popular destinations: The Epic Pass had a starting price of $982 for the 2024-2025 season. A lift ticket at Park City alone can get up to about $300 per day.

A spokesperson for Vail Resorts said the company now has over 2 million pass-holders.

Luke, a former Vail Resorts employee who asked to go by his first name to avoid professional repercussions, told BI there were two main reasons Vail Resorts gets so much hate. First, it's buying up resorts at an "alarming" rate. Second, as a result of that strategy, many skiers do not believe the company invests enough in the quality and operations of each individual resort, instead relying on their "cash cow" properties.

"It feels like the end game is not necessarily to make any one area successful, but to eventually own the ski world," Luke said. "So then it's like if you're skiing anywhere, you're skiing Vail" properties.

Jaimie Nichols, a 35-year-old accountant from Florida who now lives in Denver, has been skiing with her family in Crested Butte, Colorado, since the early 2000s, when the resort was family-owned. She remembered lift tickets for kids cost as much as their age — $8 for an 8-year-old — and a large base lodge where families could find affordable food options or use a microwave to heat up packed lunches. Crested Butte itself is lovingly called "Colorado's Last Great Ski Town" due to its authentic mountain town vibe.

But Nichols said since Vail Resorts acquired Crested Butte Ski Resort in 2018, it just hasn't been the same.

The resort's "persona changed," she said. "It's a completely different place."

The Mueller family, which owned Crested Butte, previously said selling to Vail was a difficult decision.

"When you start to look 10, 20, 30 years down the road and what that means for a small ski company like us, and not being as heavily financed like Vail, it's only getting tougher," Erica Mueller told Powder magazine in 2018.

When Vail takes over

Now, most of Vail Resorts' properties are in the US, spanning from California, Utah, and Colorado, through Midwest states like Wisconsin and Michigan, and all the way to the Northeast in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Its many acquisitions have turned the company, which was taken public by Apollo in the 1990s after the private equity shop bought it out of bankruptcy, into a financial behemoth in the hospitality space. It has a market cap of $6.7 billion and generated $2.9 billion in revenue and $230 million in profit in its 2024 fiscal year. Investors were rewarded with $8.56 in dividends per share.

A common complaint from skiers and snowboarders when Vail takes over a resort is a more crowded mountain and long lift lines. The problem, Nichols said, is that when a resort gets added to Vail's Epic Pass, it becomes a destination. Epic pass-holders who previously wouldn't have driven four-plus hours from Denver to Crested Butte now make the trip, as do pass-holders from other states who make a vacation out of it.

As a result, Nichols said the locals of the area have fewer opportunities to ski on their home mountain, and, for families who aren't season pass-holders but would like to ski once or twice a season, day passes get too expensive and out of reach.

Some of these problems are compounded by factors that are affecting many towns in the West that don't even have a ski resort: an increase in short-term rentals and transplants from cities moving to small towns in the age of remote work, both of which have contributed to higher home prices and costs of living.

Vail has said it is committed to reinvesting in the resorts it acquires, estimating its capital investments in the 2024 fiscal year to be between $189 million to $194 million. For instance, at Whistler Blackcomb, the company said it was replacing a four-person lift with a six-person high-speed lift. At Park City, the company said it was replacing a lift with a 10-person gondola. It also said it planned to invest in snowmaking capabilities at Park City and Hunter Mountain.

A spokesperson for Vail Resorts said the Epic Pass has also added stability to an industry that was previously "ruled by weather."

"That means in a good snow year, the industry would prosper, but in a year with low snow, skiers and snowboarders would opt not to visit, and ski resorts would suffer, along with the employees who worked there and the surrounding communities," the spokesperson said. "This meant that resorts couldn't predict their business — thus were not investing in infrastructure or their employees."

When Vail introduced the Epic Pass in 2008, it was cheaper than many season passes offered at individual resorts.

The spokesperson also said the company's Epic Day Passes, which offer more flexibility than traditional lift tickets, are significantly discounted if they are purchased before the season begins.

"By incentivizing guests to buy their skiing and riding ahead of the season, we lock in revenue before the snow falls, which has allowed us to continually invest back into our resorts, our employees, and our communities, and the environment, no matter the weather," the spokesperson said.

Many Vail critics still buy Epic Passes

The company's biggest competitor is Alterra Mountain Company, which owns mountains like Steamboat and Deer Valley and is owned by private equity shop KSL and investment firm Henry Crown. Alterra runs the Ikon Pass, which is even more expensive than the Epic Pass, starting at $1,249.

The Epic and Ikon passes' value depends on how much one uses them. It can be a good deal for folks who ski frequently and would like to visit different mountains — which is part of the argument the companies use when they increase the pricing on nearly everything else, including day passes, ski school, rentals, and on-mountain dining and amenities.

In addition to offering a good deal with the Epic Pass, Woronka, the Deutsche Bank analyst, said Vail also still has a strong brand name going for it and great assets.

"These are really terrific mountains. It's some of the best terrain out there," he said. "They have this big, nice, wide portfolio across the country."

The problem is, "trying to cater to everyone and do it profitably can be a difficult proposition," Woronka said.

With the luxury experience that Vail is selling, the increase in crowds on the mountain can make the guests feel a little less special, he said.

Still, Vail's dominance means that many who complain about the company still buy Epic Passes. It often makes the most financial sense for those who plan to ski most weekends, and if all their friends are doing the Epic Pass, they don't want to miss out.

Luke, the former Vail employee, said running a ski operation is costly and complicated. And, he added, there's no denying that some of the resorts bought up by Vail may not have survived otherwise. But he said part of the reason for that is the relatively low cost of the Epic Pass has drawn many away from their local mountains.

"These mountains wouldn't have survived," Luke said.

But he also said he thinks having to compete with a large company like Vail is part of the reason some family-run resorts were struggling in the first place.

• Micro-trends that circulate on social media can trigger some to make too many online purchases.
• Buy-now-pay-later can make the true costs of buying items seem lower.
• These payments add up over time, leading to a debt spiral that's difficult to escape.

Buy-now-pay-later services (BNPL), such as Klarna and Affirm, have made it easier than ever to keep up with influencer micro-trends — but young people say such services are increasingly trapping them into a vicious debt cycle.

Jess Riley, a 31-year-old content creator who has shared her debt journey on TikTok, said that BNPL, combined with micro-fashion trends, almost led her to financial ruin.

"I was definitely one of those people that was very susceptible to influencers," she said. "When someone put out a new necklace, I instantly wanted that necklace … I would put it on Klarna just so I could have it."

This impulse buying was just that, though. Sometimes Riley would forget what she ordered almost immediately.

Riley is far from alone. Consumers and commentators who spoke to Business Insider say BNPL tempts people to make impulsive purchases and rack up debt by making it seem like costs are less than they actually are.

It makes shopping online so easy that it almost becomes mindless, particularly on social media.

Simon Trevethick, head of communications at StepChange, a UK debt charity, told BI that the lack of regulation of BNPL apps means people can accumulate multiple debts across various providers "often without proper affordability assessments."

"If repayments become unaffordable, these debts can then incur late fees and interest charges that place people in financial difficulty," he said.

In the US, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took steps last year to increase regulation of BNPL providers, Reuters reported. Lenders will be required to refund returned products, and provide assistance with billing disputes. However, they are not required to assess whether a customer can afford the loan and repayments.

The affordability illusion

The exact amount owed to BNPL services is unknown, but between 2019 and 2021, the number of such loans in the US increased by 1,100%, according to the CFPB.

In the 2024 holiday season, Americans were expected to spend $18.5 billion using BNPL services, Reuters reported.

"If you are unable to afford your purchase today, you can explain away not having the money by making multiple payments over time," Traci Williams, a certified clinical psychologist and financial therapist, told BI.

"Unfortunately, what you don't consider is that not being able to afford it today likely means just that — you cannot afford it."

Toni-Ann, who posts content on TikTok about paying off her debt under the handle @financeaccountingdiaries, told BI that social media, with the power of influencers and algorithms, plays a role in the debt spiral.

"It pressures you to want to buy what everybody else has got or whatever you keep seeing advertised. Then Klarna is an option, so you're just like, 'oh, I just can spread the payments'," she said.

These services make it feel like you only owe a small amount, but in reality, the sums add up.

Beth Fuller shared her story on TikTok, where she has reduced her $8,000 of credit card debt to almost nothing by cutting back on needless spending.

Fuller told BI she felt the pressure to keep up with the latest fashion she saw influencers share on social media. She said she realized that once she'd bought something, her brain would move on to the next thing.

"Things were feeling outdated so quickly," she said. "I was like, surely I can't need more stuff. But an event would come around, and I just wouldn't feel on trend for the event, even though I'd bought clothes last month."

Curbing the habit

People typically don't like waiting to buy things, Williams told BI, which makes BNPL so tempting. It also hurts less to stretch the payments out.

"Our pain receptors in the brain are more likely to be activated by larger purchases," she said. "Mentally, it seems easier to pay small amounts over time than in one lump sum."

Williams recommended asking yourself if the purchase is something you want or need and then considering saving up to pay for it outright: "Focus on stopping the bleeding by no longer using these services."

A Klarna spokesperson told BI the company offers "a fairer and more sustainable alternative" to traditional credit.

"We conduct strict eligibility checks on each purchase using real-time data, constantly reassess our lending criteria and spending limits to ensure we only lend to those who can afford to repay, and we restrict the use of our services after missed payments to stop debt accumulating," they said.

An Afterpay spokesperson told BI it did not conduct hard inquiries or report account activity to credit bureaus. They said the company also capped late-payment fees at 25% of the order value.

Customers are offered small spending limits when they first join, the spokesperson said, and 95% of installments in the third quarter of 2024 were paid on time, and 98% incurred no late fees.

Getting out of the hole

An Affirm spokesperson told BI there were no late fees or hidden charges, and if a customer did not repay their loan, they could no longer use the service.

However, the influencers BI spoke to said BNPL helped maintain their shopping addictions. Toni-Ann has almost paid off all her debt. She said it was hard to get out of the hole, but it started with changing her habits.

When she spoke to BI last year, Riley only owed another $800 and expected to be debt-free within weeks.

She has relapsed and used BNPL a couple of times but doesn't beat herself up about it. Overall, she's mostly changed the way she thinks about spending and doesn't let herself be tempted by the micro-trends influencers are promoting: "It's a marathon, not a sprint."

Jyoti Mann contributed reporting.

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• Microsoft Edge is an internet browser installed by default on all new Windows computers.
• Edge was made to replace Internet Explorer, and runs faster and with more features.
• Edge now works with Microsoft's new AI-powered features like Copilot.

There was once an old joke among Windows users: "Internet Explorer is the best browser to download a better browser with."

In other words, Internet Explorer — Microsoft's old flagship internet browser — was been around for years, and few people actually liked it. That's a big reason why in 2015 Microsoft released Edge, their new and improved browser.

Edge gradually replaced Internet Explorer and became increasingly popular over the years, until the latter browser finally shuttered in 2022.

Though Edge was created with the Windows user in mind, iOS users can download it on their Macs, iPhones, or iPads, too. Edge can even be used on Linux and on Xbox.

Microsoft has made a big effort with Edge to improve the browsing experience, and it's paid off. Microsoft Edge has enough features and benefits that it's actually a real alternative to more popular browsers like Chrome or Firefox.

This is especially true with the Edge's most recent update, which now features Copilot, Microsoft's AI tool that can assist users with research and summarize pages and content. Edge also features Microsoft's AI-powered search engine Bing right in the browser's sidebar for easy access.

Here's everything you need to know about Microsoft Edge, including what it offers, and how to download it on your PC, Mac, iPhone, or Android device.

Microsoft Edge, explained

The current version of Edge was built on what's called a "Chromium" browser. This means that it can run hundreds of extensions that were originally meant for Google Chrome users. This includes screen readers, in-browser games, productivity tools, and more.

This is in addition to the extensions already in the Microsoft Store, which you can also use. If you can think of a feature you'd like the browser to have, there's probably an extension for it.

If you sign up for a free Microsoft account, you can sync your bookmarks, history, passwords, and more. This means that if you use Edge on a different computer, you'll have all of your browsing data available in moments.

Reviews have also said that this new version of Edge runs faster than previous versions, putting it about on par with Chrome and Firefox.

If you'd like to give Microsoft Edge a try, you can download it from Microsoft's website.

The page should automatically detect whether you're using a Mac, PC, iPhone, or Android device. If you think the page has gotten it wrong, click the arrow next to the "Download" button to see all the available versions.

• Gen Xers are moving to retirement hot spots in Florida and Texas.
• Meanwhile, they're leaving behind big coastal cities in New York and California.
• Lower interest rates, remote work, and a strong economy might be driving Gen X migration patterns.

Gen Xers are living like they're 20 years older — or at least moving to the favored locales of their retiree counterparts.

An exclusive analysis of Census data for BI from the University of Virginia demographer Hamilton Lombard reveals the areas in the US that Gen Xers have left behind and where they went.

Between 2020 and 2023, counties in Florida and Texas, many of which are retirement havens, experienced the largest increases in their Gen X populations — defined as those who were between 45 and 54 years old in 2023 — per the analysis.

The analysis also found that the population of that demographic in "retirement destination" counties rose by 5.1% between 2020 and 2023, over three times as fast as the country's 1.6% growth rate in the same period. The USDA defined those counties as having at least a 15% increase in their populations age 60 and up from net migration between 2000 and 2010.

Lombard said it's likely that many Gen Xers were lured to retirement destinations by a strong stock market amplifying retirement savings, remote work options, and a robust housing market. During the first two years of the pandemic, before the Fed began its interest-rate hikes to fight inflation, low mortgage rates could have been another incentive to move.

Gen Xers weren't necessarily retiring early — although some may have been — but instead potentially seizing the moment of a strong economy, Lombard said. It echoes a similar migration in the 2000s housing boom, per Lombard, which also came amid a long stretch of economic growth.

"People felt like they had more options where they could live," he said. "And with interest rates where they were, that was a lot easier to do."

Lombard said that the Gen Xers who moved into retirement areas might fall into three buckets: People who actually retired, flexible Gen X workers who wanted to move in early before fully retiring, and Gen Xers who moved to cater to the first two groups.

He gave the example of a hypothetical Gen X dentist who moved from New York to Florida after their clients relocated or retired.

Lee County, Florida, home to Fort Myers and Cape Coral, saw the largest change between 2020 and 2023, with a net increase of over 10,500 Gen Xers. Meanwhile, over 9,700 net residents moved to Polk County, in central Florida, to the east of Tampa. Another nearly 8,500 net residents relocated to Pasco County on Florida's western coast.

Three Texas counties were in the top six destinations for Gen X movers. Montgomery County, north of Houston, had a net gain of about 7,500 residents, while Collin County, north of Dallas, grew by nearly 7,400. Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston, attracted over 6,900 net residents.

Seventeen of the top 25 counties for Gen X movers were in Florida, while six were in Texas. South Carolina's Horry County, home to Myrtle Beach, and Arizona's Pinal County, home to Florence, rounded out the top 25.

Another popular destination for Gen Xers: The Villages in Florida, often thought of as the Disney World of retirement. Sumter County, Florida, which contains The Villages, gained nearly 2,000 members of that generation from 2020 to 2023, bringing the population to about 9,800.

Gen Xers may have been drawn to the ample amenities — and unique golf cart culture — that the area offers. The median age in Sumter County has fallen slightly from 68.9 in 2019 to 68.2 in 2023, per the Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

Gen X is leaving behind LA and NYC

Counties experiencing the largest net declines in this demographic included Los Angeles County, with nearly 66,000 members leaving; Cook County, the home of Chicago, with about 33,000; Kings County, or Brooklyn, at 29,800; and Queens County, with nearly 22,600. Other major urban counties in California, New York, and Texas lost thousands of net residents.

Many of the areas that Gen Xers are leaving behind have high costs of living. The generation has faced its own economic headwinds, and has already been struggling to pay bills and taking on additional jobs to cope financially. Lombard also said that some of that exodus could come from Gen Xers who were already considering moving and saw how willing people were to pay a premium for their homes.

The Gen Xers who opted to move might also be part of the group still clinging to remote work. From September to December, 12.4% of 40 to 49-year-olds were fully working from home, per the latest figures from the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitude, slightly up from the same period a year prior.

A Gen X influx in retiree-heavy areas has meant more age diversity, and median ages coming down, Lombard said. It can also be an economic boon: The new population has wealth, and is ready to spend it.

"That's really invigorating some of these local economies and that's causing a lot of business growth," he said.

Are you a Gen Xer who moved in the 2020s? Contact these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected].