Older Americans delay, defy retirement for better life

washington — 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.”

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.

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 labour force jumped to 8.3 per cent in 2017 from 5.3 per cent in 2000.

At the same time, for those over 80, the rate doubled to six per cent, 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. —