Still Working in Your 70s? You’re Not Alone

“We’re getting into the generations of people who didn’t have pensions, unless they were in the public sector, and I think that really matters for two reasons,” he says. “One is that the way pensions used to operate was there were a lot of built-in retirement dates. There was either a mandate or a strong suggestion to retire at a certain age. And, secondly, I just think people worry more about running out of [401(k) savings in retirement], so they tend to work longer to kind of keep saving longer.”

Sanzenbacher notes that working longer also enables people to delay claiming their Social Security retirement benefits, which can have significant financial advantages. Each month you can wait to claim between age 62, when people first become eligible, and age 70, when the benefit amount maxes out, will result in a bigger monthly Social Security check.

“Every year you delay, that’s a raise you’re giving yourself forever,” he says.

Physical demands make some jobs harder for the oldest workers

The opportunity to work past age 70 often depends on the job responsibilities. From warehouses to construction sites to home health care, many workers are employed in jobs that are difficult for them to continue to do as they age.

“If you’re a blue-collar worker, working in your late 60s may not be feasible, physically,” Sanzenbacher says. “If those folks financially need to work longer, that’s not great.”

For example, white men with college degrees in age-friendly jobs often continue working past 65, while those in physically demanding jobs are more likely to retire. The share of white men in physically demanding jobs drops from 29.5 percent for ages 55 to 64 to 15.9 percent for 65 and older, according to research from the Retirement Equity Lab (ReLab) at the New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis.

Black and Hispanic older workers are more likely than white workers to be employed in physically demanding jobs, a disparity that can limit their opportunities to continue to earn income and save for retirement later in life.

“We haven’t had enough advances in making jobs more accommodating for a workforce that’s aging,” says Siavash Radpour, associate director of the ReLab. “Think about all the people who have to stop working because of health issues or because they have to do caregiving at home. So, the main issue is who can actually afford to continue to work.”

Employers will need to adjust the physical demands of some jobs and offer workers more opportunities to build new skills to make the most of the rising numbers of workers who are older than traditional retirement ages.

“These people were not born yesterday,” Radpour says. “If someone is 70, we knew 70 years ago that this person would age, and we knew a long time ago that our labor force was going to look like this today. The solution is to invest more in technology to make workers more productive and reduce the physical demands of jobs, but that hasn’t happened.”