Last week, NFL fans watching the Baltimore Ravens take on the Miami Dolphins were reminded of the unforgiving nature of football as Tua Tagovailoa, the Dolphins' 24-year-old star quarterback, suffered what appeared to be a severe concussion during the game's first half.
1. Claims of Age Discrimination in Hiring and Firing Remain Pervasive
Broadly speaking, the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) forbids age discrimination in hiring and firing against people 40 or older. The law also applies to pay determinations, job assignments, promotions, layoffs, training, benefits and any other term or condition of employment.
Under the ADEA, it is unlawful to discriminate because of age with respect to any term, condition or privilege of employment. Harassing an older worker because of age is equally prohibited, and it is also unlawful to retaliate against an individual for opposing employment practices that discriminate based on age.
Despite these strict rules, data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shows Americans continue to file a substantial number of age discrimination lawsuits each year.
Notably, the pace of age discrimination claims grew significantly during the Great Recession period, increasing from 16,585 total claims in 2005 to a peak of 24,582 in 2008, after which the total began to decline slowly year over year. In 2021, Americans filed just shy of 13,000 age discrimination in employment claims.
The prospect of another potentially painful recessionary period may increase the likelihood of both fair and unfair layoffs among older workers, many of whom have suffered significant losses in retirement accounts and personal savings due to the market volatility of 2022.
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2. The COVID-19 Pandemic Sped Up Older Workers’ Departures
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that more adults age 65 and older left the labor force in 2020 than in any year since the U.S. began tracking such information in 1948, and the rate of exits has remained elevated over pre-pandemic levels.
According to an analysis published last year by the Urban Institute, many of these older Americans will likely never work again, jeopardizing their immediate and long-term financial security.
The Urban Institute noted that efforts to make the workplace safer during the pandemic, to better prepare older workers for today's economy, and to root out ageism could help the older adults who want to work remain employed.
A report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute paints a similar picture, finding the COVID-19 era has already affected elderly American adults' work and financial situations to a large extent. Despite the clear impact, the retirement expectations of these respondents seem to have remained unchanged.
EBRI finds there is generally an upward trend among elderly American adults to expect a later and later retirement age, despite the fact that the opposite seems to be happening in practice. That is, elderly American adults have not adjusted their retirement expectations significantly, including planned retirement age and Social Security benefit claiming age, despite many survey respondents indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic had negatively impacted their work and financial situations.
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3. Improvements in ‘Work Longevity’ May Have Stalled
Many workers assume that they will be able to work well into their 60s and 70s because of broad improvements in health and life expectancy enjoyed by Americans in recent decades.
However, as highlighted in a recent report from the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College, studies suggest this progress has stalled. According to the CRR, while the percentage of men and women with a work-limiting disability declined between 1980 and 2005, the percentages held relatively steady between 2006 and 2018.
Moreover, estimates of health-life expectancy at age 50 — which combines the disability rate with changes in life expectancy — showed actual declines for lower-educated white workers and lower-educated Black men.
Hence, the CRR concludes, the broad desire among individuals to work longer is unlikely to actually move the average retirement age in the coming decades.
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