Working Over Time: Workers 65 and Older in Oregon

In the last few decades, the number of people who work later than the “traditional retirement age” of 65 has grown substantially. In fact, the population of workers in their 60s and 70s has been the fastest growing segment of the labor force in the last 10 years.



The number of workers 65 and older in Oregon has more than quadrupled since 1992. People 65 and older now make up nearly 7 percent of all workers, up from 2 percent 25 years ago.

While it’s true our population is getting older overall with the aging of the large baby boomer generation, the rate at which older people participate in the labor force is increasing as well, from a low of about 10 percent in the mid-90s to nearly 20 percent in recent years. That means about one out of five people 65 and older have a job or are unemployed and looking for work.

This trend is likely to continue: the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that nationally, the over-65 population is the only age group that will see a substantial increase in their workforce participation rates from 2018 to 2028.


Choice or Necessity?

Is an increase in older workers a cause for celebration or alarm? As is the case with so many economic questions, the best answer is probably, it depends.

Some people are working longer because they can. As Americans stay healthy and live longer, many see no reason to stop doing work they enjoy, especially since many jobs are less physically taxing than they used to be.

Another explanation is that people continue to work past 65 out of economic necessity. Fixed retirement income may not be enough to cover costs. Nationally, people in the bottom half of the income distribution are likely not to have any retirement savings, with Social Security often replacing only about 40 to 50 percent of pre-retirement income. Increasing housing and health care costs in many areas of Oregon are likely to create money pressures among the aging population that could keep them in the labor market.

Structural changes in retirement policies interact with these individual circumstances as well. Increases in labor force participation for older Americans coincide with increases in the minimum retirement age for full Social Security benefits. There has also been a large-scale shift by businesses from defined benefit to defined contribution retirement plans for their employees, which shift the risk of retirement investments from employers to workers.

To learn more, read workforce analyst Henry Field's full article here.