The Post shares some newly released data from the Census Department. Apparently Washington area residents retire later than all other Americans — even after controlling for members of the U.S. Senate. The article lays out two separate likely causes why our older workers continue to work, one far less the sunny than the other. The area’s high number of white-collar jobs accounts for at least part of its residents slower transition to bird-watching and writing letters to the editor. Intellectual workers, it seems, have an easier time remaining engaged in their fields beyond retirement age, and are perhaps more likely to do so with new laws prohibiting age discrimination. Do you write policy briefs and do research at a think tank? Then you, too, can work until you’re 80!
But financial and medical concerns often motivate a delayed or canceled retirement for many D.C. workers, who find that the city’s high cost of living doesn’t allow them to consider retiring at the typical age of 65. Once again, the disparity between the haves and have-nots in Washington plays a major role.
Do you imagine wanting to work well past the age of 65? We are living much longer and healthier than we were when that age was first established, and most of us under 30 are only kidding ourselves if we imagine Social Security and Medicare will still be around for our benefit. It seems likely the combination of boredom and financial concerns will only push Washington’s retirement age up and up over the next few decades.
Other news from this latest batch of Census data is more worrisome: about 44 percent of the region’s foreign-born residents have trouble speaking English, particularly those who come from Latin America. The language factor is often blamed for increased tension between immigrants and native residents in the U.S., and is certainly a barrier against finding better employment. Recent battles over what to do with the increasingly large population of immigrants looking for work as day laborers in cities across the region have borne that concern out.
Photo by SweetJen34
