Over 65, out of work and desperate for a job? So are record numbers of people who thought they would be retired but now find they cannot afford to.
Please consider 65 and Up and Looking for Work.
It is well known that during the nation’s gale-force recession, many older Americans who dreamed of retirement continued to work, often because their 401(k)’s had plunged in value.
In fact, there are more Americans 65 and older in the job market today than at any time in history, 6.6 million, compared with 4.1 million in 2001.
Less well known, though, is that nearly half a million workers 65 and older want to work but cannot find a job — more than five times the level early this decade and this group’s highest unemployment level since the Great Depression.
The expectation once was to pay off your 30-year mortgage before you retired, or come close. Instead, the level of indebtedness among older Americans has risen faster than in any other age group, partly because so many obtained second mortgages to take money out of their homes.
The unemployment rate for older Americans is still much better than for others — 6.7 percent compared with 9.8 percent in the general population. But 6.7 percent is more than double the level of two years ago — and far higher than the minuscule 1.9 percent rate early this decade.
And unemployed older workers stay out of work longer — 36.5 weeks on average, 40 percent longer than for the unemployed in general.
“I often get told that I’m overqualified,” said Barbara Brooks, 71, who retired in 2003 after 30 years as an administrative assistant at the University of California, Los Angeles. She said being told that is code language for “you’re too old.” But Ms. Brooks said she wanted to work — and needed to — citing her monthly mortgage of $1,500, which eats up half her monthly pension.
65 and Over Unemployment Rate Highest In History
Tables Turned, Former Hirers Can’t Get Hired
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.