“Older generations tend to earn more and lift spending,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. With this group out of the labor force in greater numbers, “it’s more of a negative than a positive for the economy.”
In the 15 months since the pandemic began, about 2.5 million Americans have retired, Mr. Daco said. That’s about twice the number who retired in 2019, which means there are essentially 1.2 million fewer people in the work force over the age of 55 than would otherwise be expected.
The abrupt increase in retirements — as reflected in the way people describe their work status in monthly government surveys — has also fallen unequally among groups of different educational and ethnic backgrounds.
A November 2020 study by the Pew Research Center found that the share of Americans born between 1946 and 1964 with just a high school diploma who are retired rose two percentage points from the prior February, double the proportion among those with a college degree.
What’s more, the share of the Hispanic population in this age group who are retired jumped four percentage points, compared to one percentage point increases for white and Black boomers.
Hispanic workers, especially Hispanic women, were hit disproportionately hard by the downturn in leisure and hospitality employment, said Richard Fry, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center.
In terms of older workers over all, “it’s anyone’s guess whether they will return,” Mr. Fry said.
The proportion of adults 16 or older who are employed or looking for a job, now at 61.6 percent, has been slipping for years, falling from 66 percent in 2009 to 63 percent in early 2020. But it dived when the pandemic hit and has been slow to recover.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/business/economy/retire-early-pandemic-social-security.html
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