‘A Godsend’: This Federal Program Helps Older Adults Get Back to Work and Make Ends Meet

AARP is urging lawmakers to safeguard the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a job-training lifeline for people 55+

Molly Snow,

AARP

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Published April 22, 2026

Ward Grafton Jr. (left) works part-time at the Thomaston Public Library in Maine with head librarian Caroline Ward-Nesbit. Grafton is employed through the federal Senior Community Service Employment Program.

Ian MacLellan for AARP

Key takeaways

The Senior Community Service Employment Program helps adults 55-plus with low income learn new skills and reenter the professional workforce.
Small employers rely on the program for staffing they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.
Proposed cuts and funding disruptions threaten workers’ incomes and community services.

For 12 years, Ward Grafton Jr. made a living scouring the coast of Maine for colorful sea glass that he fashioned into jewelry. But the work became increasingly difficult.

The glass is harder to find these days, as much of what washes ashore is plastic, the 67-year-old Rockland, Maine, native says.

He’s also lost some of the dexterity and keen eyesight required to bezel the frosted glass and mold sterling silver wire around it. So, about four years ago, Grafton began looking for another way to supplement his income in retirement.

“I can't survive on my Social Security alone,” he says.

Grafton discovered the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), a job-training initiative established by the Older Americans Act in 1965. The program is managed by the U.S. Department of Labor and coordinated through a nationwide network of agencies and nonprofits that temporarily employ workers in places like schools, police departments, museums and town offices.

After receiving initial training through SCSEP, Grafton began his assignment at a nearby public library, where he has been honing customer service and computer skills.

The value older workers bring often goes untapped because of age discrimination, scarce training opportunities or inflexible workplaces. SCSEP provides a roadmap for moving ahead and helps employers who depend on the program for manpower fulfill local services.

But the program could be on shaky ground if lawmakers fail to secure enough federal funding to support its future or if grant funding is disrupted, as it was last year.

an older adult bends down to grab a book from the bottom shelf of a library bookshelf

Grafton collects hold requests at the Thomaston Public Library. The paycheck from his job helps supplement his Social Security income.

Ian MacLellan for AARP

On-the-job training for older adults

SCSEP is the only federal job-training initiative that exclusively serves older workers with the goal of helping them transition to employment outside the program. To qualify, participants must be at least 55, unemployed, live in a county served by SCSEP and be considered low income.

Job seekers can apply through their local SCSEP office and begin by choosing a career track and developing a personalized plan with goals and skills to ensure they are “job ready” by the time the program ends. SCSEP matches job seekers with paid, part-time assignments at community-service focused agencies or nonprofits. The goal is for participants to use what they’ve learned to eventually go out and find a job.

Many build computer and professional skills, earn industry certifications, expand their professional networks, and, in some cases, even learn new languages. Exposure to new technology in particular has helped Grafton assist library patrons in new ways.

“I can help them with the basic stuff if they’re not even familiar with a computer,” he says.

About 1 in 4 SCSEP workers were employed six months after leaving the program, according to national averages from 2022 and 2023, the latest federal data available.

But budget disruptions and calls to defund the $400 million program risk leaving older adults — and the communities they serve — without this resource. The program awards federal grants to national and state organizations that pay participants’ wages and partner with local nonprofits or public agencies to host workers.

AARP is urging lawmakers to fund SCSEP in fiscal 2027 and renew the Older Americans Act which would extend the program and others established to help older adults through fiscal 2030. OAA renewal is several years overdue; Congress last updated the law in 2024, and it has since expired. Typically, programs are reauthorized every four years.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced reauthorization legislation last summer, but the bill has yet to move forward.

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In the meantime, SCSEP is making a real difference.

Workers told AARP that income they earn has helped them pay down debt and rebuild savings strained by medical expenses and rising costs of living.

Ruth Fox, 70, and her husband were facing bankruptcy when they found out about SCSEP.

The couple was still making payments on their house in Presque Isle, Maine, but with Social Security as their only retirement income, it was a struggle. After refinancing their home and using credit to pay the mortgage, Fox faced an interest rate that was “just heartbreaking,” she says.

A friend told her about SCSEP, and Fox leapt at the opportunity to get trained as an office clerk. She’s been working as a case management assistant for a nonprofit for about a year and a half, and her husband joined the program, too.

“Now, [we] are making plenty of income that we can afford to make our house payments [and] pay our bills,” she says. “Our savings account is growing, and we both feel so much more confident in ourselves. This training program has been a godsend for us.”

Filling a need among older job seekers

In rural areas and states with large aging populations, like Maine, SCSEP jobs are often among the few options for older people who face health issues or disabilities, or a lack of access to employment services that fit their needs.

Like Grafton and Fox, many Americans are seeking a return to the workforce out of economic necessity. Forty-eight percent of adults age 50 and older said their primary reason for returning to work is to make money, an AARP survey found.

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Nationwide, adults 55-plus represent a growing share of the workforce, moving from 15 percent to 23 percent over the last two decades, according data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Still, employment barriers often prevent older workers from filling open roles and easing labor shortfalls nationwide.

“SCSEP provides structure, training, community and a pathway to economic stability,” says Elexia Torres, AARP’s assistant national director for programs and fields. “In many ways, it’s not just a workforce program. It’s also a lifeline.”

Alongside other national grantees, AARP has employed SCSEP participants for more than 50 years, and Torres has witnessed their eagerness to work and learn. In 2025, AARP Foundation SCSEP provided training assignments with a variety of organizations to more than 9,500 participants across 19 states and Puerto Rico.

“It really affirms the value of the older workers and ensures they aren’t left behind in a rapidly changing economy,” Torres says.

Before she found SCSEP, Cynthia Poston, 67, lost her son to a motorcycle accident. She was living in California at the time, and his death set her on her heels.

“I basically just lost myself,” she recalls.

She moved to Iowa to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren, but a full-time job felt too overwhelming. SCSEP seemed like a good way to ease back into a routine.

Poston started working part-time as an employment specialist in Des Moines and graduated from the program two years early. She was then hired full-time as an assistant project director and then promoted to SCSEP project director for AARP in Fort Myers, Florida. She now helps fellow participants navigate the program.

“[SCSEP] gave me everything I needed to provide for myself, not just financially, but to provide for my well-being,” she says. “I made some friends. I got busy. My life [had] meaning again.”

Small towns benefit from a pool of trained workers

As national workforce shortages persist, especially for small employers with limited resources, SCSEP participants fill essential roles these organizations could not otherwise afford, says Galan Williamson, executive director of the Northeastern Workforce Development Board.

Take the Thomaston Public Library, for example, where Grafton has been working under SCSEP.

Head Librarian Caroline Ward-Nesbit said without the program, she wouldn’t have been able to hire another employee.

The local population is less than 3,000, she says, but the library routinely serves nearly twice as many visitors, putting a strain on her small team, especially during the busy summer season.

“Funding is always an issue,” she says. “We always wish we could have more people [on staff] than we have money to pay for them. SCSEP was great in that it allowed us to get some extra help that we really needed.”

And when the program is disrupted, that loss is keenly felt.

In July, the Department of Labor delayed federal grants for SCSEP until November, forcing host agencies across the country to furlough staff. Some estimates indicated more than 20,000 older workers were impacted nationwide.

“We did deplete our savings through those four months,” Fox says. “I had four-and-a-half months of savings because of this program, so we were able to keep afloat with our bills. [But] we didn’t have any savings left, and we were right back down to zero for income.”

Grafton volunteered to work without pay during the lapse because he couldn’t stand leaving the team “high and dry,” especially as summer programming for kids was in full swing.

“Of course I needed the money,” he says. “[But] the employers depended on us.”

Although participants were able to resume work once funding was restored last fall, the interruption and unclear timeline undermined trust in the program, says Alex Fizz, CEO of A4TD, a workforce development nonprofit in the Northeast that recruits and enrolls older workers into the program and occasionally hosts workers itself.

When workers returned, one of the most difficult questions Fizz faced was why they should rejoin a program that no longer felt stable, especially as older adults were also grappling with a government shutdown and delays in food assistance at the time.

People like Grafton worry about SCSEP’S future if funding is in doubt.

“As far as cutting programs like this? No, no, no. People need this,” Grafton says, “not only to survive, but to give them purpose in life.”

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The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Molly Snow is a writer for AARP covering advocacy issues and state news. She also writes AARP's Today's Tips podcast. She previously worked at other news outlets, including Federal Times, McClatchy and Gannett.