‘Un-retiring’
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2022
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
Today on Post Reports, an estimated 1.5 million retirees have reentered the U.S. labor market over the past year. What’s bringing them back?
Read more:
Millions of Americans who retired during the pandemic are returning to the workforce.
Many are being lured back to work by more flexible, hybrid work arrangements and declining concerns over covid. And, yes, some of it is also being driven by high inflation. But there’s good news, too: Ageism might be less of a problem for older workers. Companies are scrambling to find experienced, reliable people to fill all these open jobs. And suddenly, the AARP set is looking pretty good.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Roblin Melton worked as an educator her whole career. |
| 0:05.1 | She saved up and a couple of years ago, she decided to retire early. |
| 0:09.9 | She'd done the math and she was pretty sure that she could make it work. |
| 0:14.0 | But then the cost of living started going up. |
| 0:16.6 | Her husband was laid off and suddenly being retired at the age of 58 didn't quite seem |
| 0:22.3 | like it was going to work anymore. |
| 0:24.0 | I mean, I think one of the things I would want people to know as they're thinking about |
| 0:29.0 | retirement is the high cost of your health insurance. |
| 0:35.5 | It's not just the health insurance, it's also the deductibles and the prescription copays. |
| 0:43.8 | It's those things that you take for granted when your company gives you health insurance. |
| 0:51.2 | So Roblin decided to go back to work and she's definitely not alone. |
| 0:59.2 | Of the 2.4 million additional Americans who retired early in the pandemic, we've seen 1.5 |
| 1:04.3 | million of them come back in the past year. |
| 1:07.1 | Ababa Bata Rae is the economics correspondent for the post and she's been reporting for |
| 1:11.4 | years now on all the ups and downs of the pandemic economy, the layoffs, the great resignation |
| 1:18.0 | and now the great unretirement. |
| 1:21.3 | So we're starting to close that gap and excess retirements that we saw early on in the |
| 1:25.8 | pandemic. |
| 1:26.8 | A lot of that has to do with what we're seeing with COVID. |
| 1:29.0 | A lot of people are vaccinated, they've gotten the booster shot, they're feeling better |
| 1:32.3 | about going out there. |
| 1:34.0 | Whereas maybe early on they had hesitations. |
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