Chapter 1. Older workers

1A. Labor force participation rate of older Americans, by gender and age, 1982–2022

1B. Labor force participation rate of older Americans, by race/ethnicity, gender, and age, 2022

1C. Share of older workers in physically demanding jobs, by educational attainment and age, 2018

1D. Share of older workers in physically demanding jobs, by race/ethnicity, gender, and age, 2018

1E. Share of workers represented by a union, by age, 1983–2021

1F. Share of retired older workers who retired involuntarily, by union representation and age (2014–2018 pooled data)

1G. Share of retired older workers who retired involuntarily, by educational attainment and age (2014–2018 pooled data)

1H. Share of retired older workers who retired involuntarily, by gender and age (2014–2018 pooled data)

1I. Share of retired older workers who retired involuntarily, by race/ethnicity and age (2014–2018 pooled data)

1J. Workers’ average self-assessed probability of not getting rehired at the same level if they lost their job, by age, 2002–2018

1K. Workers’ average self-assessed probability of not getting rehired at the same level if they lost their job, by gender and age, 2018

Chapter 2. Retirement

2A. Share of workers who participate in a retirement plan at a current job, by age, 1992–2019

2B. Share of workers who have access to and participate in a retirement plan at a current job, by age, 2019

2C. Share of older workers who have access to and participate in a retirement plan at a current job, by educational attainment and age, 2019

2D. Share of older workers who have access to and participate in a retirement plan at a current job, by gender and age, 2019

2E. Share of workers age 55 and older who have access to and participate in a retirement plan at a current job, by race/ethnicity, 2019

2F. Share of older workers who have access to and participate in a retirement plan at a current job, by earnings group and age, 2019

2G. Share of older workers who participate in a retirement plan at a current job, by race/ethnicity and plan type, 2019

2H. Median and mean retirement account savings, by age, 2019

2I. Share of households with retirement account savings, and median account balance, by age, 2019

2J. Share of older households with retirement account savings, and median account balance, by educational attainment and age, 2019

2K. Share of older households with retirement account savings, and median account balance, by gender/marital or domestic partnership status and age, 2019

2L. Share of older households with retirement account savings, and median account balance, by race/ethnicity and age, 2019

Chapter 3. Risk

3A. Medical expenses by age and expenditure percentile, 2021

3B. Poverty rates by age, with and without medical expenses, 2021

3C. Poverty rates by age and race/ethnicity, with and without medical expenses, 2021

3D. Percentage of adults who enroll in Medicaid after age 65, by number of years they receive long-term services and supports (LTSS)

3E. Share of adults receiving two or more years of long-term services and supports after age 65, by lifetime earnings quintile

3F. Share of working households ages 55–64 that are financially fragile, by income group, 1992–2018

3G. Share of working households ages 55–64 that are financially fragile, by race/ethnicity, 1992–2018

3H. Percentage of households ages 55–64 with education loan debt, by race/ethnicity, 1992 and 2019

3I. Percentage point difference in average unemployment rate between older workers (age 55+) and mid-career workers (ages 35–54), 1975–2020 recessions

3J. Percentage changes in employment rates from pre-pandemic peaks, by age group, February 2020–August 2022

3K. Percentage changes in employment rates by age and education, February–April 2020

Many workers are forced to retire earlier than planned because of poor health, job loss, difficult working conditions, or caregiving responsibilities. Workers who lose their jobs at an older age have a much harder time reentering the workforce than those who lose jobs earlier in their careers; many become discouraged and retire earlier than planned. Despite some health improvements at older ages and a shift from manufacturing to office jobs, many older workers are in poor health or have physically demanding and onerous jobs they cannot reasonably be expected to perform in old age. Those who do manage to keep working into their late 60s and 70s are often just trying to make ends meet by supplementing Social Security benefits with earnings but without accruing retirement benefits or savings.

Black, Hispanic, women, disabled, and LGBTQ workers are at greater risk of financial hardship at older ages. The root cause of this risk is not poor planning. Rather, retirement insecurity is a systemic problem. Lack of access to employer-sponsored retirement plans explains most of the coverage gap between white workers and Black and Hispanic workers. When Black and Hispanic workers do have access to such plans, the plans are less generous on average than the plans white workers have access to. Meanwhile, lower incomes on average make it harder for Black, Hispanic, women, and disabled workers to contribute to a retirement plan or otherwise save for retirement. Black workers offset some of these disadvantages by gravitating toward public-sector jobs with lower pay but secure pension benefits. While women have caught up with men in retirement plan coverage, their lower lifetime earnings, greater caregiving burdens, and longer life spans put them at higher risk of old-age poverty. LGBTQ seniors face adverse effects of past and present discrimination, including less access to spousal benefits.

We need to address specific challenges facing older workers. Policies that help level the playing field for older workers include enforcing age discrimination laws, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to help more adults without dependent children, implementing policies that reduce the employer cost of providing health insurance to older workers, changing performance metrics used to evaluate worker training programs that lead those programs to favor enrolling younger workers, and creating a dedicated Older Workers Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor to help identify and address challenges faced by older workers.

Policies that improve working conditions for all workers can especially benefit vulnerable older workers. Though older workers can benefit from targeted policies, the impact of such policies is often limited. Leveling the playing field for all workers can be more effective in aiding older workers than implementing targeted policies. Broad-based policies that would have a big impact on older workers include: macroeconomic policies designed to produce full employment; protecting workers’ right to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions; ensuring access to affordable health care and caregiving help; enacting paid leave and scheduling policies to ensure workers can take time to care for themselves and their families; fixing a patchwork unemployment insurance system; and measures that better protect workers from injury and illness, including COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.

Everyone faces significant risks as they age. It is unrealistic to expect older workers to save enough to offset the financial fallout from unexpected job loss, retiring during a stock or housing market downturn, becoming widowed or divorced, or incurring expensive medical or long-term care needs. Even well-off Americans are easily impoverished by long-term care, and they are more likely to live long enough to develop cognitive disabilities and other conditions associated with advancing age, and thus to need long-term care.

Expanding social insurance programs will help contain costs and spread them over lifetimes and across risk pools. Some older workers will have the bad luck of losing their jobs or seeing their net worth plummet during financial market downturns as they approach retirement age. Many Americans will need expensive medical treatment or long-term care, and the likelihood of facing unaffordable costs tends to increase with age. Social insurance programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid can serve to lower costs and spread costs and risks over time and across populations, protecting the unluckiest while bringing peace of mind to all. However, these programs need to be expanded, as do safety net programs such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

There are many gaps in our knowledge. Household and employer surveys provide limited information on how older LGBTQ workers and retirees are faring, and small sample sizes and other data limitations pose challenges to studying other demographic groups, such as Asian Americans. Household and employer surveys are also subject to nonresponse bias and misreporting, problems that can be exacerbated by confusion over terms used to describe retirement benefits and sources of income. It is challenging to assess how much older households’ increase in indebtedness is due to expanded access to higher education and homeownership as opposed to the rising cost of college, housing, and health care. Survey data offer only a murky window onto what happened to older workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and related recession, many of whom appear to have exited the workforce without showing up in administrative or survey data as an increase in unemployed, retired, or disabled workers. And no one knows where COVID-19 is headed or how it will affect the workforce or disability programs in the long run.

While there is always room for more research, this is not a reason not to act on what we already know.