Benefits - Retiring Earlier, Living Longer

The age at which working people in the United States retire has been declining for many decades. The graph charts the median age at retirement for men and women for the 5-year periods 1950-55 to 2000-2005. All data for years after 1995 are projections made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Total population aged 65 years or older is also charted as a solid line.

Counting the number of retired people is more difficult than at first it may appear. The two ways the federal government employed in reaching the numbers provided here are by (1) counting the number of persons receiving a pension, private or public, and (2) counting the number of people leaving the labor force at an advanced age for reasons other than death.

The inherent problem with counting the retired population in this manner stems from the fact that many people are returning to work after "retiring" from one job by taking on another while receiving pension payments from the first. Nonetheless, it is the best method found by the BLS to date.

In 1950, men and women both retired in their late 60s. Interestingly, women worked almost a year longer than men did on average in the early 50s. By the first years of the new century, this difference is expected to have reversed. Women will be retiring 6.5 years younger than they did in 1950-55 at the age of 61.2. Men too will be retiring earlier than they did in the 1950s but they will be doing so a half year older than their female counterparts, at the age of 61.7.

The trend is clear. We are retiring earlier and living longer. The population age 65 and older has grown steadily over the last century, not only in real numbers but also as a percent of the total population.

Can we afford to continue this trend of retiring ever earlier and living longer? This is a question we will address in the next few panels.

Source: Age of retirement data: Gendell, Murray and Jacob S. Siegel. "Trends in retirement age by sex, 1950-2005." U.S. Department of Labor. Monthly Labor Review, July 1992, p. 27. Population data: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, U.S. Bureau of the Census. Vol. 1, p.10. More recent data: Online. Available: http://www.census.gov/. Working after retirement data: Herz, Diane E. "Working after early retirement: an increasing trend among men." U.S. Department of Labor. Monthly Labor Review, April 1995, p. 13.