To grossly paraphrase Kim Kardashian, nobody stops working anymore. Just look at who’s in the running for the top job in the nation: a 77-year-old against an 81-year-old, both vying to keep working for another four years. Yet they’re in lockstep with a national trend — older Americans are working longer, into their 60s and even their 70s and beyond. Among Americans 65 and older, 19 percent were still working last year, which is almost a twofold increase from the late 1980s.
Last year, the average retirement age was 62, according to a Gallup survey, up from 59 in the early 2000s. Older people aren’t just delaying retirement, but working longer hours: On average, this group’s annual work hours are almost 30 percent higher than they were in 1987.
The question of why is hard to answer. People keep working because they want to and because they have to, and sometimes a mix of both. “You can think of it as both a reflection of empowered preferences to go work more and longer — versus curtailed savings that force you into the labor force. They’re both happening,” says economist Kathryn Edwards.
Joan Madden-Ceballos, a 65-year-old health care administrator in California, has no plans to retire. She enjoys her job; it’s flexible and fulfilling. She’s not sure what she’d do with herself if she didn’t work. “I’m a baby boomer, so work is sort of ingrained in our lives,” she says. “My daughter gets so mad at me. ‘You need boundaries!’ I’m like, that’s not something baby boomers know.” She’s also making the most money she’s ever made in her career, and that’s not a non-zero factor. “Five years ago, I got a divorce. At that point, my house was paid off — but now it’s only half paid off.”
Lori Hvizda Ward, 64, recently returned to teaching part-time after 27 years. “I was bored after pandemic restrictions were lifted, and my kids returned to college and high school full time,” she tells Vox. Her local school district needed more substitute teachers, and the flexibility of the schedule was a perk. But for her, too, it’s not only about personal fulfillment, but that pricey tuition too. “I thought it would be beneficial to have the extra income,” she says.
We have a tight labor market right now, which means there are a lot of open jobs desperate for workers — so college-educated workers who have good, interesting jobs can more easily choose to keep working. There’s also less of a social norm to retire at a certain age than before. But what’s also undeniable is that retirement security has gotten a lot less attainable, thanks to decades of stagnant wages, recessions, an intense few years of high inflation, and the disappearance of pensions.
Around the world, as people live longer — and face future shortfalls in government retirement funds — the age at which people get full retirement benefits keeps going up. Last year, French people staged massive, incendiary protests against a government proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64; the law passed anyway. In the US, anyone born after 1960 doesn’t get full retirement benefits until they turn 67. You can retire at age 62, but you’ll get less money, which is a good incentive to keep working. Congress has continued to debate whether full retirement age should be nudged even higher.
Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, says that not being financially secure is likely the bigger factor in why we’re seeing more older people work for longer. In 2022, according to the Survey of Consumer Finances, almost 43 percent of people between 55 and 64 didn’t have a retirement savings account. In just the past few years, there has been a spate of viral headlines about older Americans continuing to work difficult jobs out of necessity — like an 82-year-old man working as a Walmart cashier until a GoFundMe raised $100,000, or the 89-year-old man who delivered pizza to pay his bills until he, too, received $20,000 thanks to a fundraising campaign.
