... There are already a record 11.6 million Americans aged 65 and older still punching the clock. ... today’s elderly may actually be the last generation capable of working until they die on this scale. ...
More.
The percentage of older Americans working peaked in 2019-2020, as Peak Baby Boom 1957 turned 62. It's been all downhill from there.
The phenomenon has been a function of the size of the cohort relative to the overall population. The Baby Boom is like a dead bunny passing through the body of the snake.
Meanwhile the author fears the jobs these older people do are vulnerable to replacement by AI because they are supposedly overwhelmingly cognitive, so that younger workers will never be able to work until age 67 like many older Americans currently do.
But older workers are a diverse lot, performing a variety of work that can't be dismissed as simply cognitive.
Currently, the top 20 jobs by headcount of workers 55 and over according to the BLS are quite diverse, and categories where growth is expected to one degree or another in green outnumber those where stagnation and decline are expected in red by 3.5:1:
