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Title: ‘If you’ve got a good life, why throw it out?:’ More very old Americans are working full-time
Citation Type: Newspaper Article
Publication Year: 2017
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Abstract: When Tom Cooper came out of the Navy and got his first job selling shoes, Harry Truman was president and a gallon of gas cost around 18 cents. Now 85, Cooper still puts on a tie five days a week and drives from his home in Silver Spring, Md., to work as a shoe salesman, and he has no plans to stop. One reason is that he can’t afford to — he needs money to pay bills from cancer treatment, a back operation and a foot operation. But even if he had enough savings to retire, he doubts he would. “I’d go nuts. I’d have nothing to do,” he said. “I can’t lay around the house, do nothing and watch TV. I feel a lot better when I’m walking and helping people and doing stock work.” Cooper is part of a small but growing segment of Americans who remain in the workforce into their 70s, 80s and 90s. Although the average retirement age for Americans is 63, the portion of people 75 and older in the workforce has more than doubled since 1985 — from 3.6 percent to 8 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) at the University of Minnesota. For those working full-time, the increase has been even more dramatic: From just over 1 percent in 1993 to nearly 4 percent last year.
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Authors: Bahrampour, Tara
Publication Name: The Washington Post
Publisher Location: Washington, D.C.
Publication Date: March 16, 2017
Pages: 9
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Aging and Retirement, Labor Force and Occupational Structure
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