Why Aren't Older Workers an Election Issue?
Much has been said about how old the presidential candidates are, but that is not the aging discussion we really need
For months, polls have shown that voters are worried President Biden and former President Trump are "unfit" for the job because of their ages. The recent presidential debate has escalated these arguments; a July 4 Wall Street Journal poll shows that 8 in 10 voters think President Biden is "too old" to run for a second term.
First, the basics: regardless of Biden's case, crudely conflating old age with physical and cognitive capacity is wrong. Only a person's medical team can offer that assessment, and age alone says nothing conclusive about one's physical and mental health. Further, to propose age limits for holding office with no consideration for individual differences is grossly ageist and discriminatory.
What We Should Talk About
However, it is equally troubling that this discussion diverts attention from the more pressing concerns facing older people. Chief among them are the profound employment barriers facing older workers, a growing population that could help address a widespread labor shortage if our government properly supported them. Yet these issues are glaringly absent from the election discourse.
Consider the statistical reality. People aged 55 and older have grown from about 14% of the labor force in 2002 to a projected 24% in 2032.
And older workers are getting older. According to the Pew Research Center, people aged 75 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the workforce. This trend is due to positive factors, such as healthier profiles and more age-friendly jobs, and negative factors, including more rigid retirement plans and policy changes that discourage early retirement.
Older workers personify the future of work, and let's face it: most of us will age into this reality if we're not there already, so it should feel personal.
Which Is Your Future?
In this context, the research generally portrays at least two economic segments of older workers. The first segment includes millions of low-wage job earners and people impoverished by circumstances who cannot afford to retire and enter their later years financially insecure. Black, Latino and other marginalized people are over-represented in this group.
The other segment is made up of middle-income and wealthier individuals with the resources to retire or who want to continue working through their 70s and older. While financially strong, many of them exist only one health crisis or life disruption away from joining the first segment, as a history of Medicaid long-term care catastrophes shows. Both groups deserve public policies that meet their needs and supports a U.S. labor force desperate for workers.
What happens to many workers as they age into their 50s and older? Many experience age-related employment discrimination: employers whose biases lead them to pass over older workers for new jobs or promotions, who falsely assume they lack fresh thinking or tech acumen or will require higher salaries and are much more costly than younger ones.
While Biden and Trump face routine scrutiny about their ages, they have been privileged to live through strong careers, high earnings, and retirement possibilities on their terms.
Many older workers deal with all these factors and have always worked in low-wage jobs with limited benefits — as care workers, taxi drivers, food servers, grounds maintenance workers and many others, segregated into these occupations by decades, even centuries, of racially discriminatory policies. They form the backbone of our economy and are essential to its success, yet they are egregiously neglected by government at all levels.
These challenges harm workers and cost our economy. Because of pervasive employment barriers, older workers experience decreased earnings, job instability, and limited access to benefits such as paid sick leave and employer-sponsored retirement savings, all of which exacerbate poor physical and mental health. Worse, many enter the later stage of life unemployed or underemployed, holding crushing debt and increasingly descending into homelessness at high rates.
The popular advice that we should all choose fulfilling jobs and exciting, new careers as we grow older misses the mark for millions of low-income older workers. Poverty constrains choice and forces many to work into later life, often in physically demanding jobs.
Low-quality jobs and pervasive age discrimination also have economic repercussions. People spend less, rely more on public assistance and other social supports, and fall back on costly and preventable ER visits rooted in a lack of access to affordable preventative care. It's a vicious cycle: individuals in poor health, in turn, struggle to stay employed and financially afloat. And at the national level, AARP estimates the annual cost of age discrimination to the U.S. economy tops $850 billion. Government leaders and those running for office must elevate these issues and advance the right solutions.
Advocates have already proposed various measures to help older workers thrive and build our economy:
Older Adult Workforce Initiatives. Federal and state officials should prioritize workforce development initiatives supporting older people as early as age 50 and into their late 70s and early 80s, recognizing the need to properly recruit, train and support them along their employment trajectories. This approach must include educating C-Suite leaders, managers, hiring professionals and workers of all ages on detecting and removing ageist beliefs and behaviors.
SCSEP and Major Social Programs. The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), the only federal workforce-training program targeting older adults, should be strengthened to reach more people. However, it also merits a comprehensive national evaluation to ensure it effectively leads to employment in high-quality jobs and provides adequate earnings for its participants. In this context, other major programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation and disability insurance also need protection and expansion.
Job Transitions and Career Supports. Since many mid-career and older workers often choose or are forced to switch jobs and careers, policymakers should invest in reemployment, job readiness and career counseling programs across the workforce development system, reaching a broader population than SCSEP. Like all workers, older workers benefit from enhanced skills assessments and individual case management that help them make better choices about their future and assist them with job transitions. Business owners and managers across the workforce and beyond also need training on age bias since they might not be aware they're neglecting aging needs.
Match Jobs to Skills
Skills-Based Training, Career Paths and Care Work. Most jobs in this country do not require a bachelor's degree. Yet, our workforce system doesn't adequately support eligible workers accessing the right skills for these roles and filling a rapidly expanding job market. Here, policymakers should invest in making sure older workers have sufficient access to skills training programs, quality non-degree credentials, career pathways, industry partnerships specific to in-demand positions and supportive services such as childcare and long-term care, to name a few. Care access is dependent on childcare and direct care workers having and staying in better jobs. In this case, we need policies that improve compensation, training, advancement, and overall job quality for this 6 million and growing care workforce.
Building the Knowledge Base. State and federal data leaders should also improve their data collection on older workers to learn how they're benefiting from the public workforce system. They should disaggregate and report this data into smaller age groups (50 to 60 years old, 60 to 70, etc.) and by race, gender, sexual orientation and other categories with evidenced disparities. We also need new studies on how older adults across sub-groups experience employment across their careers.
These ideas represent only a fraction of what's needed for older workers. While Presidents Biden and Trump face routine scrutiny about their ages, they have been privileged to live through strong careers, high earnings, and retirement possibilities on their terms. That's a luxury most older workers do not have — and our government must change that before it's too late.
