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The current economic crisis is having major impacts on the work, retirement, and residential arrangements of today's retirees as well as on current and future prospects of older workers and their families. Losses in the value of pensions, savings and home equity, and, for many Americans, jobs accompanied by employer health and pension benefits, are taking their toll on workers in their 40s and 50s, baby boomers on the cusp of retirement and those already retired. Older Workers and the Current Job Scene Labor-force patterns for older workers have changed. Elimination of the retirement earnings test for those age 65 and older and of mandatory retirement, as well as increased part-time work availability, have made it easier to continue working. Other changes in Social Security- for example, gradually raising to 67 the normal age for full benefits, larger reductions and retention of the earnings test for retirees 62 to 64, and higher benefits for delaying retirement- have served to encourage longer work lives, apparently with some effect. As the economist Joseph Quinn (1999) observed a decade ago, well before the current recession, the half-century-long trend toward early retirement seemed to be reversing itself. Among men ages 55 to 64, labor-force participation dropped from about 90 percent in 1950 to a low of 67 percent in 2000, before beginning to edge its way up to 70 percent in 2009. The mid 1990s seem to mark a gradual increase in participation of men age 65 and older, from about 16 percent in 1995 to 22 percent in 2009. Older women's labor-force participation shows significant increase since 1950, with the rate of increase accelerating in the past ten years, standing in 2009 at 60 percent for those ages 55 to 64 and at 13 to 14 percent for women age 65 and older (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009). surprise then that, as of early 2009, 6.4 million age 65 and older were still in the labor force (Zielenziger, 2009a). However, the recent economic downturn has made it more difficult for workers ages 45 to 64 and older to remain working. A recent AARP poll (Zielenziger, 2009b) reported a drop in hours worked by 25 percent of this age group; nearly one-third have experienced unpaid furlough days; nearly one-fourth ages 55 to 64 have taken pay cuts; and 16 percent have lost their jobs. Unemployment is now at a twenty-five-year high, with the jobless rate among workers over age 55 having doubled to 6.2 percent (Toedtman, 2009). Historically, laid-off workers age 55 and older have had a hard time finding new jobs, despite the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. On average, older job seekers are more likely than their younger counterparts to be among the long-term unemployed (Rix, 2001) and often find transition to new employment very difficult (Abraham and Houseman, 2004). Additionally, the advantages that older workers held over younger workers in previous recessions no longer pertain: Fewer workers are now covered by seniority provisions in union contracts, and older workers have fewer job skills in a workforce that changes jobs frequently and requires rapid acquisition of new skills. Several strategies have been employed to counteract this problem. Community colleges are being called upon to mount intensive training programs. Delta College in Saginaw, Michigan, is one example. Delta's Fast Start program, part of a statewide No Worker Left Behind initiative, is retraining automotive workers for jobs in solar energy, biotechnology, and healthcare (Altaian, 2009; Zielenziger, 2009b). President Obama's plan for two-year colleges as a way for America to dig itself out of its current economic hole (Fitzpatrick, 2009) may help over the long term, but currently state fiscal straits are decimating community college resources, and with the ongoing credit crisis continuing to hamstring many companies, the necessary jobs may not be available. Other initiatives include Microsoft's funding of AARP Foundation efforts to help address the technology skill gap among older workers and the Department of Labor's Aging Worker Initiative (AWI), to train workers age 55 and older for high-demand jobs, sponsored in concert with Atlantic Philanthropies. …
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