Life expectancy at birth is now 77, 15 years later than in 1935 when the U.S. adopted 65 as the official retirement age. The prevalence of centenarians — people over the age of 100 — in our population has doubled.
Many people are choosing to spend those extra years in the workforce. Roughly one in five adults aged 65 and older is working — twice as many as in the 1980s. Over the next decade, the number of working Americans 75 or older is expected to nearly double.
Our century-old definition of retirement is due for an update. Many older Americans have already decided that this binary mode — they’re either working or they’re not — is not how they’d like to spend their golden years. It’s time for public policy to catch up with them — and make it easier for people to work as they age, if they so choose.
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