THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020 NBU 5DORIAN MINTZER LOVESher work. A 74-
year-old psychologist, coach and author,
she has no plan to retire, and has continued
to work during the pandemic, doing
teletherapy from her home in the Boston
area.
Now, like millions of other older working
Americans, Dr. Mintzer is uncertain about
the future of her job — much will depend on
whether health insurers continue to cover
teletherapy post-pandemic.
“I’m going to keep working virtually,” she
said. “The idea of going into an office build-
ing, and not knowing who’s going in and out
— I’m really not sure about that. And sitting
in a room with clients with both of us wear-
ing masks — I wouldn’t be able to see their
facial expressions. So I am now for the first
time feeling at a crossroads.”
Dr. Mintzer is asking the same questions
facing millions of older workers. It’s still
early, but experts believe the pandemic will
upend the timing of retirement plans of
many older workers. In some cases, their
decisions will be voluntary; in other cases,
retirement may be forced upon them.
One of the most important factors affect-
ing your retirement security is how long
you work. Additional years make it easier to
increase annual Social Security benefits
through delayed filing: Filing at the earliest
age (62) gets you 75 percent of your annual
full benefit; every 12 months of delay past
your full retirement age (currently around
66, depending on your year of birth) gets
you an additional 8 percent until you turn
- Working longer also can mean saving
more, living off those savings for fewer
years and getting more years of employer-
subsidized health insurance.
Many older workers say they will need to
work longer because of the economic crisis.
For example, 37 percent of baby boomers
and 39 percent of respondents from Gener-
ation X said they had delayed retirement or
were considering doing so, according to a
recent survey by TD Ameritrade. But that
will be easier said than done: Between 2014
and 2016, just over half of workers who re-
tired between ages 55 and 64 did so involun-
tarily because of ill health, family responsi-
bilities, layoffs and business closings, ac-
cording to research by the Schwartz Center
for Economic Policy Analysis at the New
School for Social Research.
Here are some of the key issues and ques-
tions facing older workers navigating the
last part of their careers in the pandemic.
Your Retirement Timeline
In a typical recession, the unemployment
rate for older workers remains below that of
their younger counterparts, but that’s not
the case this time, noted Richard W. John-
son, director of the program on retirement
policy at the Urban Institute.
The combined rate of unemployment and
underemployment for workers over 65 was
26 percent in May, roughly five points
higher than for those ages 25 to 54. That is
the largest gap since record-keeping began
in 1948, Mr. Johnson said. And the combined
rates are especially high for older workers
who are less educated, black, Latino or in
certain industries, such as leisure and hos-
pitality, transportation and education.
What’s going on? “It could be that what
we’re seeing is a continuation of a long-term
trend in which seniority-based advantages
have been gradually eroding because of the
decline in unions and the shrinking bargain-
ing power of older workers,” Mr. Johnson
said. “But health risks related to the virus
are also probably a very important factor.”
The pandemic already has fueled a surge
in early retirements, according to a report
published recently by three economists.
They found that among people who had left
the labor force through early April, 60 per-
cent said they were retired, up from 53 per-
cent in January, before the pandemic. The
largest increase was among people over 65,
but nearly half of this group were 50 to 65,
said Michael Weber, a co-author of the re-
port and a professor at the University of
Chicago Booth School of Business.
The Health Risks of Returning
Guidance from the Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention states that adults over
65 are at higher risk of severe illness from
the coronavirus than others.
But the underlying C.D.C. data on illness
and mortality is more nuanced. The risks of
severe illness or death for people in their
50s or 60s who have no underlying health
conditions are similar to or even lower than
they are for workers in their 20s, 30s or 40s
with health problems.
“There is still some additional risk of bad
outcomes as you enter each older decade of
age up to age 70 even without an underlying
condition, but it isn’t as pronounced as the
risks for adult workers of all ages with
health problems,” said Daniel Kim, an epi-
demiologist and professor at Northeastern
University in Boston.
Most at-risk workers can’t afford to stay
away from work for long periods. An analy-
sis by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows
that the average earnings of workers 65 and
older in 2018 was $49,100.
“It’s double jeopardy for older workers as
businesses open up,” said Tricia Neuman,
director of the Medicare policy program at
Kaiser. “If they return to work, they risk get-
ting seriously ill due to Covid, but if they
stay home, they may forfeit their earnings.
For older workers who were hoping to work
long enough to collect full Social Security
benefits, the decision to stay home could
have lifetime financial consequences.”
Many older workers have been able to
work remotely during the pandemic. The
Center for Retirement Research at Boston
College calculates that 44 percent of work-
ers ages 55 to 64 and 47 percent of those 65
and older had jobs in 2018 that could be done
remotely.
But 30 percent of workers 55 to 64 have
physically demanding jobs — a figure that
rises to 40 percent for black and Latino
workers, according to Teresa Ghilarducci, a
labor economist and professor at the New
School. The New School’s research fore-
casts that the poverty rate in retirement
among workers who are now 50 to 60 will
jump to 54 percent from 28 percent because
of the pandemic economic shock.Will You Be Allowed Back?
The recession itself is likely the biggest ob-
stacle. The best odds for older workers to
land or retain a job are typically found when
the economy is strong, noted Peter Cappelli,
a professor of management at the Wharton
School at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Older individuals have their best chance
of continuing to work if their employer will
keep them on, especially allowing phased
retirements or less demanding roles,” he
said.
Are you hoping to get back to work but
don’t want to return to the workplace? Em-
ployers are not required to accommodate
you because of your age under the federal
Age Discrimination in Employment Act,
said Dan O’Meara, a lawyer in the Philadel-
phia office of Ogletree Deakins, a labor and
employment law firm. However, they would
have to accommodate any worker with a
disability under provisions of the Ameri-
cans With Disabilities Act, he added.
“That could include a work-from-home
arrangement, if it doesn’t pose an undue
hardship on the employer,” Mr. O’Meara
said.
In the next round of pandemic relief legis-
lation, employer groups and Senate Repub-
licans are pushing to add protection from le-
gal liability in the event that returning em-
ployees become infected.
Some experts worry about an increase in
pandemic-related workplace age discrimi-
nation.
“Older workers already faced much long-
er periods of unemployment than younger
workers before the pandemic,” said Laurie
McCann, senior attorney at the AARP
Foundation. “I think that will be on steroids
this time — employers will be more reticent
to hire older workers who may be more vul-
nerable to illness.”However, an employer’s decision to ex-
clude older workers from returning to the
workplace would violate the Age Discrimi-
nation in Employment Act, according to
guidance issued this month by the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission.
That law protects workers 40 and older, and
covers employers with 20 or more workers.
“I don’t see much basis to treat older
workers as different from younger ones,”
Mr. O’Meara said.
How age discrimination might play out
among employers is another matter — and
discrimination might not be limited to work-
ers over 65. “I don’t think employers are
hearing ‘65 and older,’ ” Ms. McCann said. “I
think they’re just hearing ‘older people.’ ”The Conversation for Couples
Most couples don’t retire at the same time.
A 2017 RAND Corporation study found amore fluid pattern, often involving phased
retirement, short-term jobs, and periods of
nonemployment and returns to work. For
most couples, there is a “discordant” phase,
when one spouse works longer than the
other, said Katherine Carman, a senior
economist at RAND and the lead author of
the study.
That pattern has benefited couples from a
financial standpoint. Continuing wages
from one spouse can stabilize household fi-
nances and allow both spouses to stay on
employer-subsidized health insurance.
Covid-19 likely will change those pat-
terns, Ms. Carman thinks, since a decision
to return to the workplace may not only cre-
ate infection risk for that person but put a
spouse at risk as well. “Those decisions
could go any number of ways,” she said,
“but I do think this will push people to re-
consider their thoughts about whether they
want to retire.”RETIRING MARK MILLER
The Pandemic May Lead Many to Retire Early
Older workers may not want
to leave the workplace, but
Covid-19 could push them out.
“I’m going to keep working
virtually. The idea of going
into an office building, and
not knowing who’s going in
and out — I’m really not sure
about that,” said Dorian
Mintzer, 74, a psychologist
practicing teletherapy from
home during the pandemic.DAVID DEGNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESReturning to work poses risks, but federal research shows that those with underlying health
conditions, regardless of age, are most susceptible to severe illness or death from Covid-19.
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