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Older Americans delay – or defy – retirement
WASHINGTON, Oct 21, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – They tidy the baggage carts in
airports, they sell clothes or work as cashiers in supermarkets at an age
when their peers have long ago retired.
Working after 75 is becoming less and less unusual in the United States.
Sandy Thorpe, 76, is part of this growing cohort of Americans who continue
to toil in their later years. By necessity, but by choice too.
“One of the main reasons I continue working is I have a very good medical
insurance,” she said.
Health care is a common concern in a country where medical costs can be in
the tens of thousands of dollars and quickly eat through a lifetime of
savings.
Thorpe started working 16 years ago. After a short time running a cleaning
service, she is now correspondence coordinator for a prison fellowship,
located in Virginia, near Washington.
When she divorced, she had to face facts: her modest pension was
insufficient to pay the bills or heal properly from an injury received
playing soccer. An active women’s soccer league in the Washington area
includes divisions for players over 50, and over 60.
“I am lucky,” she said. “I am in great health. I love my job. I work for a
nonprofit ministry, I help people who are in need.”
And in addition to the health benefits, “It keeps my mind sharp,” she
said, adding that she doesn’t even use all of her vacation days each year.
“I will stay as long they want to have me.”
– Good news for some, not others –
Thorpe, a mother of five and grandmother to 12, feels all the more
privileged since many other seniors are forced to accept grueling jobs,
packing parcels all day long or cleaning offices.
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The phenomenon of older Americans continuing to work “is slightly more a
bad news story than a good news story,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, an economist
at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
For people with advanced education, continuing to work until 80 or even
85 is associated with an increase in life expectancy.
With all their mental faculties, they can continue to work as teachers,
lawyers or doctors, adjusting their schedule as they see fit.
And with many businesses complaining they cannot fill open positions,
these older workers participate in the country’s economic expansion.
But “the problem is there is another group of Americans that continue to
work for purely financial reasons,” Kirkegaard said. “People forget that
close to half of Americans have no private retirement savings.”
The share of people aged 75 and over who are in the labor force jumped to
8.3 percent in 2017 from 5.3 percent in 2000.
At the same time, for those over 80, the rate doubled to six percent,
according to US Labor Department data.
Many are casualties of the 2008 financial crisis: the collapse of the
financial and real estate markets occurred as a large proportion of baby
boomers were approaching retirement.
Many counting on their mutual funds to support their old age, saw their
savings wiped out, and their homes worthless or forfeit.
“They don’t have other choice than continue to work. They simply cannot
retire,” Kirkegaard said, noting that the United States has the highest
income inequality among retirees in OECD, due to the lack of a sufficient
public pension system.
Allan Shedlin, 77, only recently left his job at a grocery store in the
suburbs of Washington, his second career.
His first was as a teacher in New York. “Nobody goes to this profession to
get wealthy,” he said. “And my retirement plan was not enough to retire.”
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He was 63 when he started working for Trader Joe’s.
“I must say for the first two months it was a little bit humiliating,”
Shedlin said, admitting he was not used to doing menial tasks like cleaning
up spills.
– More reliable –
The early days were also exhausting, since he had to adjust to shift work,
and help unload trucks carrying pallets of food.
But Trader Joe’s offers some benefits like good medical coverage and
discounts on store products. And later he was shifted to a role dealing more
with customers, where he excelled.
Shedlin, who is divorced and has three daughters, one son and eight
grandchildren, probably would have continued the job, but he received an
inheritance that allowed him to devote himself fully to other projects.
“I shopped there and it is a fun place to work,” he said.
Since the issues of health care costs or retirement savings is not likely
to go away, the trend of Americans working longer will continue, says
Kirkegaard.
And as companies continue to struggle to find enough workers, employers
will make increased use of this experienced workforce, that has the
reputation of being more reliable than their younger counterparts.
Some swimming pools have reportedly hired lifeguards even into their 80s,
eschewing the traditional teenage workers to fill the role.
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