Only 10% of people ages 62 to 70 are financially able to retire and do, according to Teresa Ghilarducci’s sobering new book, “Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy.” Half of the rest are retired but have seen their living standards fall. Twenty-eight percent must keep working until they drop—or are dropped out. If later-life poverty comes as a surprise, it’s because US billionaires skew published data about old wealth, falsely suggesting it is spread equally. Billionaires have an average age of 67.
The fact of the matter is that millions in their 60s and older are in deep trouble. For them, the fear of financial ruin from a chronic or final illness is not theoretical. One particular cause of hardship has needed more critical sociopolitical attention for 50 years: the business practice of getting rid of employees who are considered “too old” far too young. They get maligned as “deadwood” or “not a good fit.” They may no longer get promoted. If they lose a job, it takes them far longer to find a new one. In the second half of 2025, the typical unemployed person took 10 weeks to find a job; workers 65 and older needed over 30 weeks. Your granddaughter is working while your application gets rejected over and over. New jobs are likely to pay less. Women suffer at earlier ages than men.
Years ago I coined the term “middle ageism” to draw attention to the relatively young ages at which working people were losing jobs and even being forced to drop out of the workforce.
The “cult of youth” is typically treated as a commercial phenomenon selling “anti-aging” products (which are, needless to say, useless against discrimination). Instead, youth-preference should be seen as a long-term capitalist trend that destroys the concept of seniority and seriously reduces the human value of growing older, at ever younger ages. As artificial intelligence slides into hiring decisions in the guise of “augmented” intelligence, that tech turn will augment ageism, sexism, racism, and ableism.
‘Middle Ageism’
“Older worker”—the term used by economists for workers or would-be workers between the ages of 50 and (now, given longevity and neediness) 100—does not capture this frightening midlife phenomenon and its ominous life-course consequences. Years ago I coined the term “middle ageism” to draw attention to the relatively young ages at which working people were losing jobs and even being forced to drop out of the workforce. People are encouraged, and in some cases now required, to keep benefits to keep working, but middle ageism makes that hard. Once they drop out, they are not counted in the unemployment data.
Such hostility to midlife and older Americans in the workforce means a vast swath can no longer do the good deeds they would prefer: Financially helping their adult children or grandchildren with college or a starter home. The American Dream fades, generation after generation. The older cohorts are idle or under-employed in the very years when their experience would benefit them and their employers. They may stop voting, or vote ignorantly, in a system that offers them few protections.
In relation to personal retirement, victims of age bias lose the chance to save enough for later life. The Elder Index from the Gerontology Institute at UMass Boston shows that over half of older Americans struggle to make basic ends meet. Lower incomes and corporate disavowal of pensions mean many cannot match the rising costs of housing and food, and their rising expenses for health care. Corporations dumped traditional pensions from those lucky enough to have them, in favor of minimal company contributions to 401(k)s and the like. To keep going, older adults may draw down retirement savings or take Social Security too early, losing the important growth years leading to age 70.
In 2025, the average woman over 65 gets (after subtracting her Medicare Medical Insurance deduction) $1,426. The national average rental in 2025 is $1,632 a month.
Social Security Falls Short
Unless you get so much Social Security that you are taxed on part of it, your Social Security check is inadequate. It may not cover basic living expenses. In 2017 a woman’s check was 26% less than a man’s. In 2025, the average woman over 65 gets (after subtracting her Medicare Medical Insurance deduction) $1,426. The national average rental in 2025 is $1,632 a month.
Once pauperized, if they become ill or disabled, some people say, “I would rather die than go into a nursing home,” but a million—almost 70% of them women—wind up in long-term care on Medicaid. If they are not ill enough for a nursing home, they may be put on a waiting list for homecare. In many states, however, homecare has been cut, along with adult day care, because of Trump’s big ugly bill, which has cut subsidies for state programs.
It is no wonder that “retirement” has become a dirty word in the American lexicon. It’s not because of physical problems that people nowadays say, “old age is not for sissies.” Among those over 65, only the “unretired” have a claim on dignity.
Robert Frost warned us in the midst of the 1930s Depression, what to do to prepare for a tough old age: “Provide, provide,” with “boughten friendship at your side.” As for giving assets away to adult children before you know if you have enough to get help through your last illness, ask King Lear how well that worked out for him.
Margaret Morganroth Gullette is the author of “American Eldercide” and five other books on the midlife, age, and ageism. Gullette has followed trends in middle ageism in several of her own books, in an edited collection, and in articles in Monthly Review, the Nation, New Political Science, Boston Globe, Al Jazeera, atlantic.com, and others, since 1995.
Photo credit: Shutterstock/Julia Zavalishina
