https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmylucas/2023/12/14/the-fastest-growing-demographic-in-the-workforce-people-over-age-75/
A new analysis by Pew Research Center finds that the share of older Americans who are working has nearly doubled since 1987.
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.
Older workers "still being healthy" is survivorship bias. The ones who aren't still healthy aren't in the fucking workplace, they're either hospitalized or dead.
"Obligated." Nobody feels "obligated" to work. We feel like we will die on the fucking streets in our old age because we have a broken fucking system that discards us entirely once we are no longer able to produce economic output.
Obligated my ass, people just want to stay alive, Emmy Lucas of Forbes. Eat shit, Emmy.
They’re craving more money.
That's certainly many. I'm betting there are other craving meaning for their lives. When we define ourselves by our job, there I bet there is a percentage that find retirement uncomfortable and meaningless. They go back to work for meaning.
I’m going to be 60 this year (I’m officially a boomer, yay me) and I’m about to start a new job. I absolutely enjoy my work and there’s no way I want to retire yet. I think I’m good at it, I think I have something to give to society, I find it fulfilling and - yes - I have kids at university, so I need the cash to support them.
And before someone says ‘you can find fulfilment through volunteering’, yes - and I do plenty of that, but it doesn’t quite scratch the same itch for me.
And that's fine. But the person you see behind the counter at CVS who clearly should be enjoying retirement is not likely there because they absolutely enjoy working at CVS. That's the problem.
See, you're an example of someone older who SHOULD be working since you actually WANT to rather than HAVE to. More power to you and I hope you get to keep working for exactly as long as YOU want to!
Cases like yours isn't what's driving the increase though. A combination of economic desperation and pro-corporate gaslighting is forcing and/or coercing people who would prefer to retire to keep working many more years. THAT'S the majority situation.
This is terrible, old people need to retire and let the next generation take their jobs and pay.
This obviously means that old people need to be able to retire.
As it stands now, I doubt I'll ever experience the golden years for myself...
What are you doing to ensure your ability to retire at 65? Anything?
Once upon a time, the government ce up with a new deal, to force people to give up a big chunk of their paycheck, so that they'd have retirement income when they got old. They called it an individual retirement account. They mailed out statements. You could look at your statement every year and see what you put in, and what you'd get for it.
Now, they call it welfare... They call it a drain on your taxes (but you young people still pay that extra chunk to this very day... They've hoodwinked your asses into thinking SS deductions are just plain old taxes...). The sentiment is that those people should have planned for their retirement...
Thing is... They did plan for retirement... By letting the government take those deductions...
And again... If those people should have planned for themselves... What are YOU doing to ensure you can retire? Are you gonna rely on the ponzi scheme? You know damned well it's a ponzi scheme. You know it isn't going to be viable when you retire. So what are you doing?
Those old dudes can keep those jobs if they want as far as I'm concerned. I'm old enough to have received "individual account statements" from the SS office by mail, but not so old that I didn't make any other plans (old enough to have had the option to pursue a pension, which sadly is gone for pretty much anyone these days).
I personally feel like anyone born before 1965 has every right to have relied on SS alone, born 1965-1990, you should have seen the writing on the wall, but if you didn't, it's kinda excusable. Born after 1990, you absolutely should not be expecting much out of SS (and frankly, y'all should be pissed off at the SS deduction you pay every check...you're basically being told straight to your faces that it's an outright tax... That is NOT what your parents and grandparents were told...)
If those 70+ year olds had known that SS would devolve into being called a "welfare program", most wouldn't have relied on it (gen x and prior have a strong moral aversion to anything welfare...). They didn't cause this problem, they believed in the government, and government caused it.
Because Republicans have gutted Social Security and promoted the idea that it is "welfare" it's individuals fault for not bowing to the capitalist system and taking the big unlubed dick up their ass to work themselves to death, never take time off, never do anything nice for themselves, and basically only put money away for retirement?
What even is this pull yourself by your own bootstraps bullshit from someone lucky enough to have a pension?
Folks should have seen the writing on the walls?
Dude, pay has been stagnant for fifty fucking years or are you not familiar with this chart?
People aren't getting paid enough to save for fucking retirement, don't give us this "What are you doing to ensure your ability to retire at 65? Anything?"
Have you heard the joke "My retirement plan is to die in the Water Wars."
It's a dark joke borne of desperation because none of us has any money saved for fucking anything, and all of us fear a bleak future where we die in the fucking streets in our old age.
But sure, because we're not dumping the money we don't have into an actual ponzi scheme like a fucking 401K, we're at fault for instead of hoping that our Social Security payments can at least keep food in our bellies when we do inevitably end up on the fucking street. Like literally nobody I know thinks Social Security is enough to live off of and isn't planning on it, but it's not like a lot of these people have a lot of fucking options.
I appear to have misrepresented myself as someone who has actual money... That's not really the case bud, I've been fighting your silly chart for decades, tooth and nail.
Go be a nurse or a teacher if you want a pension, or shop around for a government job... They're still out there. They aren't as common as they used to be by a damned sight, especially in trades, but you can still find them. I'd stay the fuck away from the postal service, those pensions are wired tight, but working up that chain involves being someone's bitch until they retire basically (lots of "assistant" crap).
Expect to be paid less if your pension is union though. Sucks for decades, but you won't have to sit there praying SS holds up. Pensions aren't luck, they're a compromise, just like anything else.
As a nurse, "pension"
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, we don't get those, bud. From the corporations or the unions.
Also, this guy must be oblivious to how many "pensions" are now being bundled into the market and gambled.
"Pension" doesn't mean shit anymore when wall street fat cats can wheel and deal with it and you suddenly lose all the money you had in it through no fault of your own.
Especially at the State level, State's absolutely use their pension funds for "investment" to "ensure they grow."
All it takes is one bad move by the investor in charge.
Even pensions are a fucking racket at this point.
I work for the state. For the last decade or more, the pension has been a pittance (1% per year of service, takes 10 to vest). Better than absolutely nothing but still not enough even when you add it to SS. I put back what I can, but realistically I don't think I'll ever be able to afford to retire even with the pension.
The original Social Security never paid out until TWO YEARS BEYOND THE AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY.
It wasn’t a retirement plan.
It was a plan so the elderly poor could die with dignity.
Literally what the fuck are you even talking about
Look at this goddamn idiot, with his pension and secured retirement. This is how fucking stupid you could be and STILL retire, that’s how good these people had it.
My retirement plan is guns and ammo, and it’s not coming at 65.
Maybe for you it is.
What are you doing to ensure your ability to retire at 65? Anything?
Hope we'll be able to retire on my wife's money because I have not been successful in my life?
I save privately in funds for my retirenment.
In addition to that the Swedish government has several pension funds that they manage and I will get some money from that.
I honestly don’t know why you’re getting down voted. You’re basically just saying anyone born between a certain number of years should’ve seen the writing on the wall. And anyone born after a certain year should’ve seen and there’s really no excuse to not have seen the writing on the wall. You’re basically just saying don’t rely on the government to have that money because the government isn’t going to. Again I’m not sure why you’re getting down voted.
Because it sounds like I'm a stupid fucking Republican saying the bootstrap bullshit. Everything has to be pigeonholed into either Republican or Democrat these days, and I live in the middle as a (GASP!!!) centrist...
If what I say is Republican sounding, I must be a racist rednecky dude that drives a big ass diesel pickup and lemmy downvotes because lemmy is left biased AF, and if what I say sounds lefty, then I probably hate America and will vote for any sack of shit with a D next to it, and lemmy upvotes...
Reality is I kinda just hate everybody these days, because absolutely nobody gives a flying fuck about anybody except their tribe members...
Lemme guess, you're not in the US? Live in one of those other places where it's still socially acceptable to speak neutrally?
Don't sweat them votes man, I don't ;) you read it exactly the way I meant it.
Dude u obviously have no clue what an Overton window is.
People say you probably sound Republican because you are by your own definition. "Centrist" in America is right wing right leaning.
You're the last person to give advice on anything. You don't even know what you are on the political spectrum.
Actually I live in Minnesota.
But yeah I hear ya about everyone has to be putting everyone into either left or right and forgetting that there are other areas.
You have a good 2024.
Yeah Lemmy is just Reddit except it thinks it's cooler than Reddit because it's not Reddit.
So stop bitching and go back to fucking reddit.
None of us think Lemmy is "cool" we just prefer not having a corporation dictate how we interact with the internet because they're concerned about profits and an IPO.
We like Lemmy because it's run by volunteers who aren't here to make money off of our data. That's all.
Seriously, this simple minded thoughtless bullshit belongs on reddit so fuck off back there, please.
That would hurt a lot more if you had a fucking brain.
It's really hard to feel insulted by obvious idiots, you know.
They always say it like its a cute fun thing and not a matter of life or death for certain demographics
"upliftingnews": this 85 year old woman who is taking care of her orphaned great grandchildren had to get 6 jobs at mcdonalds to pay for rice and beans, but she works 21 hours a day with a smile!
And the picture is a broken person hiding behind a pained mask struggling to lift a paper bag to hand someone their oh-so-important happy meal.
At my job we got one guy who is 75+ and can barely move around. The CEO and a few others are also hitting their 65s. But it's just a handful. The other people are already dead so they can't work. So si totally agree with that sentiment.
And yet, the dominant narrative as their elders crowd them out of jobs, is that young people these days don't want to work
They just want more money. We need to wake up before they figure out how to make us work forever by keeping us alive longer.
Many of these old farts don't go back to work because they need the money. It's because their greed is unbound.