Older Americans Taking Blue-Collar Jobs, White-Collar Hiring Slowdown | Hacker News Reader

Older Americans Taking Blue-Collar Jobs, White-Collar Hiring Slowdown

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19 pointswallflower7 comments

> To be sure, the unemployment rate for Americans age 55 and older was 3% as of January, which remains near historic lows.

The "Unemployment Rate" measurement always seems so fraught and useless to cite. I wonder how many of these 55 and olders would love to work but gave up looking and decided to just accept a less secure retirement. More interesting would be the workforce participation rate of 55+ seniors. I doubt it's at "historic" highs.

>> More interesting would be the workforce participation rate of 55+ seniors. I doubt it's at "historic" highs.

Here's the graph from FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11324230.

It went down slightly when Covid hit, but is still higher than it was during the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's and the first half of the 2000's.

Of course, a lot more people at age 55 back then were eligible for social security or corporate pensions than now. So not working was something they could choose to do not out of despair but for the sake of enjoying a comfortable retirement.

Nobody was eligible for SS at age 55, but they did gradually increase the full retirement age for SS (FRA) which is probably the majority of the change you see in that graph (note the axis).

Probably other changes too, but I would guess that's the main one.

Average (meaning median) US retiree has jack shit other than SS and hopefully their house.

In Australia, "Blue Collar" jobs are paid extremely high. A normal tradesperson (builders, electricians, plumbers, etc.) earns $125,000 pa, and specialist commercial construction people may earn over $300,000.

Even a retired person doing minor repairs or gardening charges over $80 per hr.

On the other hand, retail and fast food also are blue collar. I’m guessing most older people aren’t quitting the rat race to do things that are tough on the joints the way trades are. (Acknowledging that retail and fast food do require a lot of standing, but they aren’t physical in quite the same way.)

https://archive.today/rVveI

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