A new analysis by Pew Research Center finds that the share of older Americans who are working has nearly doubled since 1987.
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As she nears retirement age, 58-year-old Michelle Whiffen isn’t thinking about stopping work cold turkey. The director of client services at recruitment marketing firm HireClix says she’s reached the fun part of her career—a time when she feels more autonomous and valued—and appreciates a new program called “flextirement” that will let her work fewer hours while keeping her health benefits. “My age is just a number,” she says. “I can’t imagine walking out the door tomorrow.”
Though some Gen Xers are nearing retirement age and all Baby Boomers will do so before 2030, more and more are continuing to work well into their golden years. That’s the finding of a new report released Thursday by Pew Research Center, which shows that one in five Americans (19%) age 65 and older were employed this year, nearly double the percentage who were working in 1987.
Perhaps most startling: Workers age 75 and older are the fastest-growing group in the workforce, according to Pew’s analysis.
“It’s not just that we’ve got more older adults today; it’s that more of them are working than they used to,” says Richard Fry, a senior researcher at Pew Research Center and co-author of Thursday’s report.
Expanded employer benefits, such as perks aimed at older workers or phased retirement programs like the one at HireClix, are one reason more employees are working longer, experts say. Phased retirement programs let older workers cut back on their hours while still receiving some pay and benefits; about 36% of companies surveyed by human resources consulting firm Mercer in 2022 said they now offer them. Others are introducing perks like paid grandparent leave, which tech giant Cisco offers, or menopause perks such as access to women’s health specialists at companies like Microsoft.
Other major drivers behind the boom in older employees include that workers are healthier and less likely to have a disability, and face increasingly steeper financial challenges. Inflation, changes in pension systems and “less generous” Social Security benefits, Fry says, have workers feeling obligated to work longer.
Stephen Miggels, who at 72 is still working 10 to 20 hours a week as a medical product developer, says “there’s this widespread fear of running out of money in our later years because we’re all getting older and living longer. How long can your retirement funds haul out? That’s one of my main motivations to keep working.”
Some are still working to pay off student loans decades later or have to provide for their grandchildren, says Loretta Barr, an associate principal and career coach at Korn Ferry. Or, they’re making up for unforeseen circumstances. “When the pandemic hit, a lot of people lost their jobs suddenly, and they had to use up their retirement savings just to survive,” she says.
For Barr, who is also in her 60s, work is more of a means to stay engaged. “I like to keep busy, especially with a role that I really enjoy. I work remotely, and feel like I just have the best of all worlds.”
The share of older workers’ contribution to the labor force has more than tripled since 1987, accounting for 7% of all wages and salaries paid by U.S. employers this year, Pew’s analysis found.
Older workers are also earning more today, and the wage gap between older and younger workers has decreased. In 1964, workers age 65 and older were earning just 19% of 25-to-64-year-old workers’ average salary, Pew says, because they were working fewer hours or were less educated. Today, the average older worker makes 80% of younger workers’ pay. About 44% of older workers have at least a bachelor’s degree today, similar to workers age 25 to 64 and up from 18% in 1987, according to Pew’s research.
“That education disadvantage has disappeared,” Fry says, “and that’s partly contributing to why [older workers’] hourly wages have grown faster than younger workers, too.”
In a separate Pew Research Center survey from March, older workers reported the highest amount of job satisfaction compared to younger workers. Two-thirds of workers 65 and up reported they are extremely or very satisfied with their overall job—higher than the 55% between age 50 and 64, 51% between 30 and 49 and 44% between 18 and 29.
“If employers think through who would be the best fit for the job and not look at whether or not the person’s age is going to be a barrier, they would find there’s a whole workforce out there that would love to do the work,” Korn Ferry’s Barr says.
