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Older
Americans Staying in Work Force
By Genaro C. Armas,
Newsday.com
May 21, 2003
WASHINGTON -
The number of Americans past retirement age and in the job market has
risen by half in the last two decades, the Census Bureau says.
Some want to keep working; others have no choice.
The number of people 65 and older who are working or looking for work
numbers almost 4.5 million, the bureau said in a report released Tuesday
-- a rise of almost 50 percent between 1980 and 2002.
It amounts to 13.2 percent of the 65-and-older population of 33.8 million
in March 2002, according to a Census Bureau report released Tuesday.
In 1980, about 3 million people -- 12.6 percent of the 24.2 million
residents 65 and older -- were in the labor force. The share of older
workers declined to 11.9 percent in 1990, but has risen steadily since
then.
Some work for a career change they couldn't pursue earlier in life, like
opening a small business.
Others return to the work force amid worries that stock market losses and
Social Security won't be able to cover prescription drug costs and other
needs.
With the economy still struggling, expect more workers to forego
retirement for a job, said Edward Coyle, executive director of the
Alliance for Retired Americans.
"People are more nervous now than they were a year ago," Coyle
said. "You have lots of folks approaching retirement age, scratching
their heads and wondering if they can do it."
The latest Census Bureau data comes from a nationwide survey of 70,000
homes in March 2002 that covered a range of socio-economic
characteristics, from income to education. Among other findings:
* About one-third of those 65 and older live alone. That's virtually
unchanged since 1980.
* Roughly 1 in 10 live in poverty.
* More than 8 of 10 homes headed by an older person are owned, a high
since 1982 but in line with the overall growth of homeownership in the
United States.
* About 18 percent of men 65 and over were in the labor force, almost
twice the rate for women.
While some seniors have simply delayed retirement and others have taken
the opportunity to open small businesses, others were forced back into the
labor market. Most of these people took low-level administrative or
service jobs, which were plentiful during the late 1990s, said Jared
Bernstein, an economist with Economic Policy Institute.
More than 15 percent of 65-and-over employees worked in sales in 2002, the
largest share of any occupation. It was followed by professional fields,
like architecture or medicine, and clerical jobs.
Congress voted in 1983 to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 by 2027.
The change may have encouraged some older workers in the 1980s and 1990s
to put off retirement even though the change didn't immediately affect
them, said John Haaga, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau,
a research group.
Other reasons cited by Haaga: People are living longer, healthier lives
and feel like working longer, and an increasing number of women have
returned to work after raising children.
Concerns over the solvency of Social Security, rising health care costs
and the faltering economy have played roles too, Bernstein said.
In March, government trustees said Medicare -- the health care program for
seniors -- would be insolvent by 2026, four years earlier than previously
predicted, as the massive Baby Boom generation hits retirement age. Social
Security's projected insolvency date is 2042.
The stock market swoon of recent years put a dent in many workers'
retirement reserves as well, forcing some to head back to work, Bernstein
said.
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