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Can the Bottom Third Work Longer

Even before the sharp financial downturn, working longer had emerged as perhaps the most attractive response to the contraction of the nation’s retirement income system.1 Since the downturn, working longer increasingly seems to be the only way most work­ers approaching retirement can secure a reasonably comfortable old age. The rise in employment rates at older ages has thus received a great deal of positive attention. What has not received much attention is its unevenness. At older ages, high-skill workers have much higher employment rates than workers with lower skills. Understanding the causes and conse­quences of this pattern could have important implica­tions for policymakers concerned with strengthening retirement security. This brief addresses the question of whether men in the bottom third of the educational distribution – a proxy for earnings levels – can be expected to work longer. The first section describes the employment patterns of men and the change in employment patterns since the early 1960s. The second section examines the primary factors that might explain the decline in employment among older low-skill work­ers – changes in availability of alternative sources of income (Social Security disability and retirement benefits and the advent of the Supplemental Security Income program), changes in the composition of labor demand, and changes in health. The conclud­ing section assesses the implications for retirement income policy.