What Couples Miss When Going Down to One Income
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Why is the labor force participation rate at a 50-year low and who is affected?
The labor force participation rate just hit a 50 year low. At the same time, a record number of Americans are turning 65 and many are unretiring instead of retiring. Today, we chat with an expert about what's actually happening to the 50 plus workforce. Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles.
And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. First, our weekly money news roundup, where we break down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money. Our news colleague Rick VanderKneife is here this week to talk about what's happening with older workers. Rick, tell us what's going on.
Hey, it's good to be back, Elizabeth and Sean. Big demographic shifts have been reshaping the workforce in recent years, with lower birth rates at one end and a record number of Americans hitting age 65 at the other. And to talk about what's happening in the workforce, we've invited Gary A. Officer, president and CEO of CWI Works, a national nonprofit focused on job training and employment opportunities for older job seekers. Hey, Gary, welcome. Can you give us the elevator pitch on CWI Works and what it does?
So thank you, Rick. Nice to see you again. So we are a national organization that provides workforce training to primarily low-skilled, unemployed older Americans who are seeking to reenter the workforce. So we have a bird's eye view of what's happening for older workers as it relates to workforce opportunity and how they are faring day to day in the labor market.
What are some of the long-term trends we're seeing in the workforce? What has changed and what's driving it?
There's a massive amount of anxiety in the workforce around AI, right? So we're seeing that in the corporate earnings reports. We're seeing it in preemptive layoffs. We're seeing that in occupations that we know will be impacted by the AI transformation. So a massive amount of labor market and labor force anxiety. that anxiety is fed into the workforce training system. Because we all know in the training world that this future is uncertain. We all know that we are amidst a huge tsunami of change that's occurring within occupations. But we don't know the scale and how that's going to impact our current workforce. So this is an age of massive uncertainty. And candidly, many of us in the field just don't know the full extent of what's to come.
In this moment, what does the workforce look like right now for Americans over 50?
there's about 1.1 million older Americans 54 and over who are actively looking for work. Yet the long-term unemployment rate for older Americans is 27%. The labor force participation rate for older Americans 54 to 70 is 37%. So the data tells us that there's a massive need for skilled, qualified individuals to enter into the workforce. But the data also tells us that older workers have been squeezed out. So that's sort of one. Two, the general policy environment around which we think about what our needs are going forward is informed by the experiences of younger workers. And we hear about the growing anxiety around the Gen Xs and more recently, college graduates who are asking questions about, am I going to find a job?
Because employers are not making as hiring decisions as we speak. So we're seeing more focus on younger people. We're seeing decline in labor force participation rate, higher long-term unemployment rates. And none of those questions about needs extends to the experiences of older workers.
Let's talk about people who are working right now. We had a chance to talk a couple of years ago, and at the time you talked about three main groups among older workers, people who work by financial necessity, by cultural habit, their work is important to their identity. And people who continue working because health coverage is tied to the job, is that still kind of the right way to look at it?
Yeah, when we last spoke, we spoke as we were emerging out of the COVID economy, right? When millions of older workers left the workforce, and many were forced out of the workforce because of the relaxation and the pause in their participation on the job.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
Why is the labor force participation rate at a 50-year low and who is affected?
0:00–4:39
2
What does CWI Works do to help older job seekers reenter the workforce?
4:39–8:34
3
How is AI and automation creating anxiety and changing jobs for older workers?
8:34–12:58
4
Why are long-term unemployment and age discrimination squeezing workers 54 and older?
12:58–32:30
Speakers
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