A Record Number Of 85-Year-Old Americans Are Still Working
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Fri, 07/06/2018
As we saw with Friday’s jobs report, the booming US economy has continued to draw in workers from “the sidelines” – ie people who weren’t actively looking for work and were considered to be “out” of the workforce – as the participation rate has ticked higher in recent months (though it remains well below its pre-crisis levels). Still, economists have been largely unable to explain how wages have remained stagnant in a supposedly “tight” labor market. But a recent story in the Washington Post might hold a few clues...
According to Census data analyzed by WaPo, the number of Americans aged 85 and older who are still working has risen to record highs in recent years.
Meanwhile, the number of workers between the ages of 18 and 30 who are out of the workforce hasn’t been this high since the 1970s, before large numbers of women entered the workforce.
At last count, there were 255,000 Americans aged 85 and older who had been working or looking for work in the past 12 months. That’s approximately 4.4% of Americans that age – up from 2.6% in 2006. Indeed, it appears Ruth Bader Ginsburg (85) and Warren Buffett (87) are not alone.
Overall, 255,000 Americans, 85-years-old and over, were working over the past 12 months. That’s 4.4 percent of Americans that age, up from 2.6 percent in 2006, before the recession. It’s the highest number on record.
They’re doing all sorts of jobs – crossing guards, farmers and ranchers, even truckers, as my colleague Heather Long revealed in a front-page story last week. Indeed, there are between 1,000 and 3,000 U.S. truckers age 85 or older, based on 2016 Census Bureau figures. Their ranks have roughly doubled since the Great Recession.
America’s aging workforce has defined the post-Great Recession labor market. Baby boomers and their parents are working longer as life expectancies grow, retirement plans shrink, education levels rise and work becomes less physically demanding. Labor Department figures show that at every year of age above 55, U.S. residents are working or looking for work at the highest rates on record.
The Rest…HERE
