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When it came time for Diane Wetherington to consider retirement, reality quickly set in.<\/p>\n
The 72-year-old debated devoting her time to crafting and doting over her grandkids and even gave full-time retirement a try. But she soon realized her Social Security checks, which were smaller than her peers\u2019 due to time she spent out of the workforce while raising children, wouldn\u2019t be enough to cover travel or rising insurance costs on top of basic needs.<\/p>\n
Now, the Central Florida resident works part time as a remote contracting agent in local government. While she sometimes has to miss out on plans with fully retired friends, she said, continuing to work has kept her budget sound and her mind active.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just getting very hard to make ends meet,\u201d Wetherington said. \u201cThe way the world is right now, everything\u2019s going up, up, up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wetherington is part of a growing body of Americans staying in the workforce past 65, once a traditional marker for retirement. This trend has buoyed the national labor market after years defined by pandemic-induced worker shortages<\/a> and high quitting rates. It\u2019s also changed the financial outlook for those who remain employed in some capacity, whether for personal satisfaction or monetary need.<\/p>\n This trend should be more apparent than ever in 2025, when more Americans are expected to turn 65 than in any past year, according to a widely read study from the Alliance for Lifetime Income. It dubbed a multiyear period in the late 2020s as the \u201cPeak 65 zone.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The number of employed Americans 65 and older ballooned more than 33% between 2015 and 2024, according to a CNBC analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By comparison, the labor force for all workers 16 or older has increased less than 9% during the same time period.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That growth has meant workers ages 65 and older accounted for 7% of the total workforce in 2024. That share is up from around 5.7% a decade ago.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really hard for many employers in many sectors to fill key workforce needs right now,\u201d said Jim Malatras, strategy chief at FedCap, a nonprofit that helps train and place people in jobs. Tapping this age group \u201ccan help build key capacity where it\u2019s desperately needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While the swelling number of workers in this age bracket \u2014 more than 11 million in 2024 \u2014 has gained attention in recent years, the reasons for this outsized growth date back decades.<\/p>\n Chief among the drivers is the fact that America\u2019s population is aging, according to Laura Quinby, an associate director at Boston College\u2019s Center for Retirement Research.<\/p>\n But structural shifts in the retirement system have also encouraged working later in life, Quinby said. The transition in the private sector from employer-funded pensions to 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans created a need for many workers to remain employed longer. Social Security reforms in the 1980s<\/a> pushed the program\u2019s \u201cfull retirement age\u201d from 65 to 67.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople really do use the Social Security full retirement age as an anchor in terms of when they should retire and claim benefits,\u201d Quinby said. \u201cThat shift triggered a trend in people working longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Longer life spans have pushed a growing chorus of voices to call for the age of retirement to move back even further, especially as financial uncertainties swirl<\/a> around Social Security. BlackRock Chair Larry Fink, for instance, said <\/a>in an annual letter that it\u2019s \u201ca bit crazy\u201d that the expectation of retiring at 65 \u201coriginates from the time of the Ottoman Empire.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet there are vastly different reasons and experiences for people of retirement age to continue working in some capacity, said Teresa Ghilarducci, director of The New School\u2019s Retirement Equity Lab.<\/p>\n Some do retire, and some continue to work in jobs that they love out of passion alone. But she said about two-thirds of those still working do it \u201cbecause they have to.\u201d They can be in jobs with high physical or mental requirements, she said, but they see few alternatives, given that their Social Security checks can\u2019t sustain them.<\/p>\n \u201cI call it the tale of two retirements,\u201d Ghilarducci said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Employers of all kinds have tried to win and retain this growing base of talent.<\/p>\n Booking.com parent Booking Holdings<\/a>An \u2018anchor\u2019 for retirement<\/h2>\n
\u2018Vintage cars\u2019<\/h2>\n