A slight majority of Americans over the age of 50 now report having physically demanding jobs, meaning they feel their work is either physically taxing, stress-inducing or outright dangerous.
In fact, according to a major new analysis and accompanying chart book published by the Economic Policy Institute, some 50.3% of older workers say they have physically demanding jobs, while an even larger majority (54.2%) of older workers report being exposed to unhealthy or hazardous conditions at work.
Other topline findings show 53.7% of older workers have difficult schedules, while 46.1% of older workers have high-pressure jobs. What's more, according to the EPI, more and more older workers increasingly feel "trapped in crummy jobs," left physically drained by their work but unable to plan for retirement thanks to a dearth of earnings and savings.
Speaking about these findings during a webinar put on by the EPI to introduce the new research, Teresa Ghilarducci, the influential economics professor at the New School for Social Research, called on policymakers in Washington and the states to act to head off what she described as a "true crisis" for many older workers.
As Ghilarducci pointed out, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 50% of low-income older households ages 55 to 64 were financially fragile — up dramatically from the 35% found to be at risk of financial insecurity in 1992.
"There is a looming retirement crisis in the United States," Ghilarducci warned. "Millions of people are entering their retirement years with insufficient savings to cover basic expenses and medical bills."
According to Ghilarducci, in response to these concerns, some policymakers have proposed that older Americans could delay retirement to increase their savings, while others have insisted that the full Social Security claiming age should be raised to 70.
Ghilarducci said the new EPI data shows "just how unrealistic" such solutions are for the U.S. workforce, and she called on government leaders and the business community to consider alternative solutions that will not require more Americans to stick with physically taxing jobs beyond the traditional retirement ages of 62 or 65.
What the Data Show
As the report spells out, assuming similar educational attainment levels and many more years of experience, one might expect older workers to have "better" jobs than prime-age workers, meaning jobs that pay more and require less physically demanding tasks.
This is true, on average, according to the EPI analysis, but the differences are much smaller than might be expected, and many older workers remain in difficult jobs that do not pay an adequate wage to allow for successful retirement preparations.
Specifically, of the six categories of difficult working conditions discussed in the report, older workers experience on average 2.6 of them, while prime-age workers experience 3.1. This means older workers are indeed slightly less likely than prime-age workers to have physically demanding jobs or be exposed to uncomfortable or hazardous environments.
