Out of retirement and into the workforce

WASHINGTON " In these scary economic times, older workers are putting off their retirement and hanging on to a paycheck.

Some retirees struggling to make ends meet are scanning help-wanted ads for the first time in years.

At 74, Beverly London of Big Run, Pa., thought her days of working were over. She and her husband sold to their son the family retail carpet store they operate in their rural community and settled into retirement. They felt secure with thousands of dollars of stock in a bank. But the bank failed and the value of their stock shrank from six to four figures.

"We were thinking about winter and I was worried about how I was going to keep my house warm. I had to start putting resumes in," London said, recounting how a younger worker got one retail job she applied for.

London eventually found a job through Experience Works, a national nonprofit organization that receives money from the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a Labor Department program. The $787 billion economic stimulus package that President Barack Obama signed includes $120 million in additional money for the program, which provides subsidized, part-time community service jobs to low-income workers 55 and older.

London works part time at Pennsylvania CareerLink, a state unemployment office in nearby Punxsutawney, Pa. She is happy and healthy, but knows her work days are numbered.

An AARP survey of 1,100 people conducted in December showed that 16 percent of people 45 and older had postponed retirement because of the economic downturn. But the percentage of people planning to delay retirement shot up to 57 percent among respondents who were working or looking for a job and had lost money in the market during the past year.

The average retirement age, which was between 62 and 63 for men and women last year, is on the rise, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute. For instance, the percentage of 63-year-old men who were in the work force rose from 44 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2007, according to the institute.

The recession is not the only reason people are working longer. Life expectancy rates are going up. So, too, is the age at which workers are entitled to receive full Social Security benefits.

Mark Lassiter, a spokesman at the Social Security Administration, said that while some older people stay on the job during economic downturns, others turn to Social Security because their jobs are eliminated. The agency reported a nearly 9 percent increase in retirement claims between the 2008 budget year and 2009, which ended Sept. 30.

Currently, about 17 percent of the work force is 65 or older " a share on the rise since the late 1990s.

Nationwide, the February unemployment rate for workers 65 and older was 6.8 percent, the highest reported for the group since the 1970s.