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By: FEDweek StaffA study has illustrated that many persons of retirement age do not equate leaving their jobs with retiring, suggesting that if conditions are right, many are willing to return to working.
The Center for Retirement Research made that observation in a study of retirement patterns in 2020 in reaction to the pandemic, finding for example that previously, about 15 percent of workers age 55 and older would leave employment over the course of a year—ranging by age from about 10 percent for those 55-59 to 25 percent for those 70 and older.
That overall rate doubled in the pandemic’s early months and for the entirety of 2020 was up by more than half, it said. Rates were slightly higher for women, members of certain minority groups, and those without a college education, it said.
“For individuals ages 55 and over, leaving the workforce is usually combined with the decision to retire, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. But the pandemic was not associated with a large increase in the share of older individuals who report being out of the labor force due to retirement,” it said.
The monthly claiming rate for Social Security retirement benefits remained about constant between April 2019 and June 2021 at about one tenth of a percent of all of those age 55 and over, it noted.
Said the report: “This discrepancy between leaving work and retiring can be interpreted in two ways. Some older individuals may intend to return to work to the extent that the pandemic continues to recede and vaccination and other medical advances make doing so safer.
“Others may not intend to return to the labor force but are using other sources of income – such as extended unemployment insurance or federal stimulus payments – to postpone claiming Social Security,” it said.
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