Many want nothing to do with ‘R’ word
NEW YORK — On most mornings, Jack Weinstein rises at 5:30 to exercise.
At 7, a car takes him from his home in Great Neck to Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn, where he is a senior U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of New York.
Once at the courthouse, Weinstein has coffee and gossips with colleagues. By 9, he’s at work hearing motions, reviewing filings, sentencing defendants. In the afternoon, he tries criminal cases.
None of that is so unusual. But Weinstein is 96 — decades past the age when most Americans choose to stop working.
“Retire? I’ve never thought of retiring,” he declares. Weinstein was appointed to the bench more than 50 years ago and is still in the thick of hot-button issues in the criminal courts. “I’m a better judge, in some respects, than when I was younger. I don’t remember names. But I listen more. And I’m more compassionate. I see things from more angles. If you are doing interesting work, you want to continue.”
Weinstein is one of the more than 1.5 million Americans older than 75 who are still in the paid workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Though the study does not list their specific jobs, many work at occupations in which skill and brainpower count more than brawn and endurance. Some are self-employed and aren’t subject to mandatory retirement rules. Others are stars in their fields — no one has ever suggested that Warren Buffett, 87, quit investing. And there are others, a growing cohort, who remain at their posts because of financial necessity.
“The crash of 2008, debt burdens, decreasing income replacement rates and the demise of employer pensions are a few of the trends” that have pushed the number of non-retirees to record levels, said Susan Weinstock, vice president for financial resilience at AARP.
Weinstock said she expects this trend to continue into the next decade. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the labor force participation rate for those 75 and older rose from 6.4 percent in 2006 to 8.4 percent in 2016 and is likely to reach 10.8 percent by 2026.
For Adolfo Calovini, 82, a New York City high school teacher, the need to earn income is part of his motivation.
Calovini married late in life and has a son, 14, and a daughter, 20. The approximately $110,000 annual salary he earns as an English as a Second Language instructor at Park West High School in Manhattan is a necessity. For additional income, he teaches in the summer.
His job isn’t easy — nor is his daily commute from New Hyde Park on Long Island. At school, his assignment is to instruct teenagers from countries including Haiti and Mexico in English literature and composition and prepare them for college. Each day, he teaches four classes — and then spends two hours on individual coaching.
As a self-taught linguist who can converse in six languages, Calovini has skills that make him an asset to his school. When an immigrant registers at Park West, Calovini is usually able to connect with the student in his or her native tongue.
“I’m an immigrant myself,” the Italian-born teacher said. “In class, I try to make them understand that they are as good as anyone else and have a good life if they’ll improve their English. I say, ‘If I can teach myself all these languages, you can learn English and get into college!’ ”
Occasionally, one of Calovini’s younger colleagues will ask if he’s ready to retire.
He shakes his head: “To me, teaching is about life. This is what I do. I can’t see a time when I wouldn’t.”
Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel agrees — he works for the sheer joy of it.
At 88, Kandel heads his own research laboratory at Columbia University.
“I like what I do,” he said. “Keeping engaged keeps you intellectually alive. I wouldn’t be surprised if it enhanced longevity.”
Every day, Kandel interacts with much younger scientists, supervising their investigations, teaching and mentoring them. At the laboratory, he says, “people don’t ever speak to me about my age. I think they are surprised that I am 88.”
As Kandel has grown older, his research has focused on the neuroscience of aging.
In one project, he’s been trying to determine if aged-related memory loss might be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease.
“We have very compelling evidence that it is an independent entity,” he said.
Kandel, a trained psychiatrist, offers this advice to other nonretirees: “If you are healthy and enjoy your work, continue. At the very least, it gives you additional income. Even if you don’t need it, the money can be for your kids and grandchildren.”
Dr. Laura Popper, 71, a Manhattan pediatrician, works because her profession is central to her identity.
“I wanted to be a doctor since I was 4 — why would I give that up?” she said. “If you’re a surgeon and you reach a certain age, you have to stop. With pediatricians, as long as you have your marbles, there’s no reason to.”
In fact, there’s something about Popper’s specialization — tending to the health of children — that invigorates her.
“The wonderful thing about pediatrics,” she said, “is that it’s always about renewal and the future. I hang out with babies, toddlers, young parents and they are always looking forward. Getting old is about a shrinking future, but I don’t spend my days thinking about that because I’m in a different place.”
Popper has been able to continue well beyond the age when most of her peers have retired, partly because she’s self-employed. Popper is the co-owner of her medical practice and owns her office space. That autonomy gives her the freedom to adjust her working conditions when necessary.
Over time she’s allowed her patient load to contract. Instead of examining 35 patients in a day, she now sees 10 to 20. Her practice partner, who is 25 years younger, has taken up the slack.
Still, even with the lighter load, Popper puts in a full week, phoning patients in the evenings and being on call for emergencies one weekend a month.
All of that earns her about $200,000 a year, which, she said, was “less than what it used to be. But my kids are grown. I don’t need as much.”
Popper’s husband of 46 years, Edward Shain, 73, retired from his sales and marketing consultancy three years ago. He spends joyful hours exercising their Doberman pinscher, Elizabeth Bennett, in Central Park and blogging. She claims he’d like her to join him.
However, whenever he raises the subject, “I tell him, ‘You’d have to take me to a psychiatric hospital the next day.’ There’s no part of me that wants to retire. If you have something you love, there’s nothing else.”