Work, Work, Work

Not everyone retires. Some don’t retire because they love the work they do. Others can’t afford to retire. Still others change professions, but keep working.  What will you do?

The Pew Research Center released a new FactTank report on June 20, 2016 about elders and work, More older Americans are working, and working more, than they used to. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Pew report explains

More older Americans – those ages 65 and older – are working than at any time since the turn of the century, and today’s older workers are spending more time on the job than did their peers in previous years … In May, 18.8% of Americans ages 65 and older, or nearly 9 million people, reported being employed full- or part-time, continuing a steady increase that dates to at least 2000 (which is as far back as we took our analysis). In May of that year, just 12.8% of 65-and-older Americans, or about 4 million people, said they were working.

The report shows that the increase in elders working is steady across the age ranges (65-69, 70-74, and 75+) but with a slightly greater percentage of elder men over women.   And when I say working, I mean they are working.  “Not only are more older Americans working, more of them are working full-time. In May 2000, 46.1% of workers ages 65 and older were working fewer than 35 hours a week (the BLS’ cutoff for full-time status). The part-time share has fallen steadily, so that by last month only 36.1% of 65-and-older workers were part-time.”

The jobs elders hold fall across a spectrum of mainly white-collar type jobs, “older workers are more likely to be in management, legal and community/social service occupations than the overall workforce, and less likely to be in computer and mathematical, food preparation, and construction-related occupations.”