Older workers aren’t retiring. Should they be forced to?

Summary

Planet Money: "Older workers aren’t retiring. Should they be forced to?"

Date: August 7, 2026
Host: Sarah Gonzalez

---

Overview:

This episode dives into the rising trend of older Americans staying longer in the workforce, exploring the impacts on younger workers, economic theory, and the provocative question: Should we bring back mandatory retirement ages? Host Sarah Gonzalez speaks with frustrated younger workers, controversial Yale professor Samuel Moyn, and retirement economist Olivia S. Mitchell to dissect the generational tug-of-war over jobs, advancement, and the future of work.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Frustration from Below: Younger Workers Feel Stuck

Timestamps: 00:19 – 06:47

• Ryan Hendrickson’s Story (00:19–03:29):

  • 37-year-old NASA engineer, first in family to go to college.
  • Felt "stuck" after being passed over for a promotion in favor of a colleague with 40+ years at NASA—who had held that same role decades earlier.
  • "The role I was going for was filled by someone who was well into retirement age, but also had that exact same role like 20 years prior… definitely felt unfair." (Ryan Hendrickson, 02:34)

• Reddit Rants & Generational Friction (04:07–06:47):

  • Younger workers like Ryan and BJ Swami vent on Reddit about Boomers “not retiring” and blocking upward mobility.
  • BJ Swami, engineer: “Boomers won't retire, and it's screwing the rest of us. There, I said it.” (BJ Swami, 04:26)
  • Both younger workers describe feeling like, without advancement, their own ability to save and plan for retirement is undermined. They foresee themselves becoming the stuck 70-year-old one day.

2. Why Aren’t Older Americans Retiring?

Timestamps: 06:48 – 11:58

• The Retirement Reversal:
  • Historically, people worked until they physically couldn’t. The rise of Social Security and pensions in the 20th century created the concept of retirement, pushing average retirement earlier.
  • Since the 1990s, the trend reversed: People live longer, jobs are less physical, defined-benefit pensions are rare, so many can’t afford to retire.
  • The share of workers over 65 has nearly doubled since the mid-80s; today, nearly 1 in 5 workers is 65+.

3. The Case for Mandatory Retirement (Samuel Moyn)

Timestamps: 08:36 – 19:22

• Introducing Samuel Moyn (08:36):

  • Yale professor, author of "Gerontocracy in America."
  • Argues that privileged older Americans—especially academics, executives, and professionals—are “hoarding” jobs, power, and wealth.
  • "People are under the thumb of old people, old men, who most commonly." (Samuel Moyn, 09:20)

• The Unfairness Argument:

  • Older workers blocking career ladders for the young: “Younger people can't move up in pay, can't move up in position... can’t afford to buy a home.” (Sarah Gonzalez & Samuel Moyn, 12:03)

• Mandatory Retirement—The Solution? (12:49–17:08):

  • Moyn proposes reinstating mandatory retirement ages (as existed up to the 1980s), especially for those who can afford it and hold positions of power.
  • “Mandatory retirement meaning you think we should force people to retire when they hit a certain age?” _(Sarah Gonzalez, 12:53) “Correct." (Samuel Moyn, 13:01)
  • Historically, professors like Milton Friedman had to retire at 65; law now largely prohibits age-based forced retirement, exceptions made for pilots, air traffic controllers, etc.

• Innovation and the Case for Turnover:

  • Moyn: "Innovation in education comes from young faculty members…” (Samuel Moyn quoting Gerhard Casper, 16:19)
  • "Let's check the citation counts of those over 70 and see... what work actually changes fields. Hard to think of a lot produced by those over 70." (Samuel Moyn, 24:50)

4. The Economic Counterpoint (Olivia S. Mitchell)

Timestamps: 19:22 – 29:33

• The Lump of Labor Fallacy (19:26–20:58):

  • Olivia S. Mitchell, Wharton School economist, rejects the idea that older workers take jobs from the young.
  • “The lump of labor fallacy is the notion that there's only a certain number of jobs... More people working create more jobs and create more demand for labor.” (Olivia S. Mitchell, 20:07)
  • Historic evidence: When women joined the workforce, jobs expanded.

• It’s About Quality, Not Quantity:

  • Sarah clarifies Moyn’s argument: The fight is over good jobs, not total jobs.

• Questioning Overpayment of Older Workers:

  • Classic economic model (Edward Lazear): Workers initially underpaid, overpaid later to encourage loyalty. Moyn says that’s broken with the end of mandatory retirement.
  • Mitchell: That model “broke down”—people don’t stay in jobs long enough now, and the salary-productivity gap is negligible.

• More Reasons to Work Longer:

  • Delayed retirement means: higher tax revenues, labor supply, economic growth.
  • “For the economy, delayed retirement boosts labor force participation, it raises tax revenues, it eases labor shortages, and it generates more economic growth.” (Olivia S. Mitchell, 28:21)

• Social Security Challenges:

  • Early retirement makes programs less sustainable: “Social Security is running into insolvency within about six years… it's getting more expensive to retire at all.” (Olivia S. Mitchell, 29:13)

5. Where’s the Middle Ground? Tailored Approaches

Timestamps: 29:33 – 34:41

• Flexible, Domain-Specific Solutions:

  • Moyn suggests mandatory retirement might make sense only in certain fields with significant pipeline blockages (e.g., elite academia), not in sectors with labor shortages (e.g., teachers, nurses).
  • “Primary school teacher is my best example... The public school children of America, benefit by having teachers stay rather than be forced out, even if they're 80, 85, 75.” (Samuel Moyn, 31:29)

• Phased Retirement and New Roles:

  • Moyn: After stepping aside, older workers can remain active—consulting, research, mentoring—just not in the top, blockading seat.
  • “You could remain in your firm as an avuncular counselor… write articles and books until my dying day.” (Samuel Moyn, 33:08; 33:25)

• Global Perspective:

  • Mitchell notes in Japan, older workers step out of primary roles and into training/mentorship positions, which she sees as positive.

• Consensus on Meaningful Work:

  • Both experts agree: Retirement doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean doing nothing. Staying active and socially connected is valuable for health and wellbeing.
  • “Continue working if you want, but do something else that is meaningful that still allows for youthful succession. We did it.” (Sarah Gonzalez, 34:14)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On generational gridlock:

  “Boomers won't retire, and it's screwing the rest of us. There, I said it.”
  – BJ Swami, 04:26

• Samuel Moyn on academia's resistance to turnover:

  “People are under the thumb of old people, old men, who most commonly.”
  – Samuel Moyn, 09:20

• Olivia Mitchell’s mantra for the modern era:

  “So my advice is work more, save more, and expect less. That's my mantra.”
  – Olivia S. Mitchell, 29:03

• Philosophy of career sunset:

  “I can write articles and books until my dying day.”
  – Samuel Moyn, 33:25

• Global practice for old workers:

  “In Japan, they still have mandatory retirement, but what happens when the older worker hits that age? They're not forced to go home. What they do is they start training the younger generation to be able to fill their shoes.”
  – Olivia S. Mitchell, 33:55

---

Segment Timestamps

• 00:19 – 06:47: Younger workers’ stories and frustrations over bottlenecked promotions
• 06:48 – 11:58: The evolution of retirement in America and rise of older workforce
• 08:36 – 19:22: Samuel Moyn’s perspective: mandatory retirement and generational justice
• 19:22 – 29:33: Olivia S. Mitchell’s economic analysis—debunking the lump of labor and defending later retirement
• 29:33 – 34:41: Domain-specific solutions, global comparisons, finding common ground
• 34:41 – 34:57: Reflections from guests—what work means to them and the real-life consequences for the guests

---

Conclusion/Tone

Planet Money offers a lively, human-centered look at the messy reality of aging, work, and advancement. With humor, empathy, and clear economic analysis, this episode challenges listeners to rethink assumptions about retirement, intergenerational fairness, and the economic ripple effects of our aging workforce. The key takeaway? There’s no one-size-fits-all solution—only nuanced debates, shifting incentives, and an evolving social contract.

Transcript

[Advertisement Voice]

This message comes from Edward Jones. Where they believe rich means opening yourself to new possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are, helping you move forward with confidence. Let's find your rich Edward Jones Member, sipc.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

This is Planet Money from npr. When I talked to Ryan Hendrickson, he was sitting on a porch in Southern California on his lunch break. The wind chimes are such a nice touch. I feel like I'm relaxing.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

I hope that doesn't mess up the

[Sarah Gonzalez]

audience on a lake.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Yeah, right.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Ryan is 37, the first in his family to go to college. And he's gotten to work on some cool, cool stuff in his career so

[Ryan Hendrickson]

far, working on a few different missions. When we send like a rover or a spacecraft to another place.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

So wait, like NASA?

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Yes.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah, yeah, NASA. The dream. And he was crushing it. Ten years into his time there, he'd been promoted three times.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

And an opportunity came up for me to move into like a supervisor type of position. And they ended up going with someone else for the role,

[Sarah Gonzalez]

which, okay, fine, that happens. But Ryan was bummed and he asked the higher ups what he could do differently next time.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

The response I got was, no, you're doing a great job. Just keep doing what you're doing and it will work out. And I was just sort of like, that's what I've been doing. And that didn't work.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

So Ryan was feeling a little stuck. Like he was doing everything right, everything he should do, but he just couldn't move up anymore. And he couldn't stop thinking about who got the job instead of him.

[Sponsor Voice]

Him.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

The person that ended up getting the role had been at NASA for somewhere around like 40, 45 years. And they actually had this same position like 20 or 30 years ago.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

The supervisor position that they were applying for, they had already had.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Yeah, they had already had it. Yeah. Frustrations kind of boiled up a little bit, you know, getting to a point where the role I was going for was filled by someone who was well into retirement age, but also had that exact same role like 20 years prior to that, you know, definitely felt unfair.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah, we're talking about age here. Just to name the 800 pound Rover in the room. So you said that the person who got the job over you had been at NASA 45ish years?

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Yeah.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

So they're like 66, 67.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Yeah, I guess this, this person also did have their PhD as well.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Oh, so they're like 7, maybe 75.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Yeah.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

If you were being like your most petty self, like, what were you feeling?

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Yeah, it was definitely really frustrating, but technically, I don't have my PhD. Right. So on that front, definitely, they were more qualified, for sure.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

We did reach out to NASA. They said they generally do not comment on personnel matters. But, yeah, this person was obviously more qualified, more years on the job, had management experience. A PhD was maybe even better than Ryan at doing the job.

[Samuel Moyn]

Okay.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And there are probably also a bunch of other good reasons why this person wanted their old job back again. Right. But Ryan says he couldn't help but feel like this worker took an opportunity from him, like they already had the chance to do this job when they were younger. And Ryan felt like it was his time now, his turn. He was feeling like this implicit agreement between employee and employer that if you work hard, you can move up in pay and position wasn't happening for him anymore. And Ryan went where any late 30s millennial would go to commiserate Reddit.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

For some reason. I went onto the Millennial subreddit and made a post, basically said, has anyone else been noticing senior colleagues at work refusing to retire and making it much harder to move up the ladder?

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Ooh, and there are several similar posts out there like this one.

[BJ Swami]

Boomers won't retire, and it's screwing the rest of us. There, I said it.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Attention grabbing. Yeah, that's BJ Swami, an engineer in tech who wrote that colorful Reddit post. What kind of reaction did you get?

[BJ Swami]

Oh, Reddit just lost its mind. Like, I got. Oh, my goodness. All varied reactions. The perspective of the younger colleagues was they work hard, they're ambitious, they want to go places, but then they're stuck. And then there's others that are saying, I would retire now, but I can't afford to retire and I'm in my 70s.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

BJ had written that his boss was 71 and kept saying he'd retire next year.

[BJ Swami]

I know he said he had some health reasons and the family had to pay off medical bills, and I felt his pain, but it was also frustrating from my end because, like, I'm stuck in this position because I can't go to the next level because I'm, you know, there's already people there that are not retiring. It's just hard.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And for Vijay, it feels like the writing is already on the wall for him.

[BJ Swami]

You know, we're told to save for retirement constantly. You know, put money in the 401k max. Your Roth IRA compound interest. Okay, cool. I would love to, but I can't get promoted, so I can't make more money, and I barely save anything. And it's almost like I know I'm going to probably be the same person in my 70s doing the same thing and then some guy or girl my age is going to be like, I should be in that position, but I'm stuck here because of you.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

You're going to be the 70 year old that some younger workers complaining about.

[BJ Swami]

Oh, yeah, I feel like I'm. That's the irony of life.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Because you want to work until you're 70 or because you think you're going to have to?

[BJ Swami]

Probably have to, in all fairness.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

All right. Despite BJ's provocative headline, his post is actually pretty thoughtful and it captures this feeling that many early and mid career workers are having. When older workers cannot afford to retire, that's one thing. When they can and just don't want to, that's trickier.

[BJ Swami]

It's just a cycle and it sucks. And I don't know what the solution is, honestly.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Mmm.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

We heard about a potential solution. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. There are 11 million people over age 65 in the U.S. workforce. And age in the workplace is a complicated thing to talk about. In fact, sometimes it's illegal to bring up. But the trend toward later and later retirement is one of the most important labor market developments of the 21st century. So we're going to talk about it today on the show, a debate over how long people should work. Who wins when we delay retirement, who doesn't. And we consider an old idea to force people to retire. Plus the case for why older workers want to and maybe even should work even longer.

[Sponsor Voice]

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Vanguard. Every day, shareholders meet to discuss important matters about the companies you invest in. Now you can make your voice heard too. Vanguard Investor Choice makes it easy to set your proxy voting preference for your eligible Vanguard index funds. Visit vanguard.com investorchoice to learn more. Vanguard investors own shares of their index funds and those funds own shares of the companies they invest in. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor this message comes from Schwab. With the new Schwab Teen Investor account, teens can gain hands on investing experience. It's co owned by you and your teen so you can monitor the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn [e-mail] all right, you want to

[Sarah Gonzalez]

meet the person with the potential solution for our retirement problem? If you think that it is a problem, here he is.

[Samuel Moyn]

I'm Sam. I teach college and I teach law and I'm excited to chat.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

I teach college is the Chillest way I've heard someone say that they're a professor at Yale.

[Samuel Moyn]

Well, I always liked professors who said they're teachers.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Samuel Moyn, Sam teaches history and law and has just written a book called Gerontocracy in America. It's about how, according to him, some older Americans are, quote, unquote, hoarding power and wealth and housing and jobs. Now, we're just going to talk about the jobs part because Sam has a pretty provocative take that older workers are staying in their jobs way longer than they

[Samuel Moyn]

should. Oh, absolutely. I think it's very widespread across a lot of domains. People are under the thumb of old people, old men, who most commonly.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And why is that a problem?

[Samuel Moyn]

Yeah, so one of the most glaring is injustice or unfairness towards other people, especially younger people.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

We're gonna get to his arguments in a bit. But first, it used to be that people didn't retire at all. Right. For most of human history, you worked until you died on the farm or became physically unable to work. There was no such thing as retirement. Then in the 1880s, the head of Germany, this guy named Otto von Bismarck, looking to score some points, said, what if we let people stop working when they get older and the government takes care of you? People were like, sounds great. And slowly the idea picked up in the United States as well. In the 1930s, the US got Social Security. Then in the 60s, the Medicare, and people started retiring. Also, traditional pensions were more common, where employers would guarantee workers a specific amount of money every month for the rest of their life after retirement. And these old school pensions actually incentivized workers to retire at a specific age. And for all of these reasons, the trend for four decades was earlier and earlier retirement. But then in the 90s, the trend reversed. The average age of retirement started going back up. People were working longer. And there were a few reasons for this. For one, people were living longer so they could work longer. Also, jobs got a lot less physically strenuous, so it was easier to work longer. And traditional pensions started going away, so people couldn't afford not to work longer. The share of employed people 65 and older has close to doubled since the mid-1980s. And now about 19% of the workforce is over age 65. And Sam Moyn says there have been some collateral effects, like upward mobility for younger workers.

[Samuel Moyn]

When older people are hoarding their positions and refusing to retire, they're inhibiting other people from getting what they have acquired. This staying on is unfair to younger people who often have to choose different careers or wait around for ascent in their career.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Younger people can't move up in pay, can't move up in position and then,

[Samuel Moyn]

or can't get the job at all

[Sarah Gonzalez]

and then can't afford like to buy a home and the whole houses and other benefits. As the proportion of workers over age 55 has gone up, so has the pay gap between older and younger workers. Between 1979 and 2018, the the pay gap between those over age 55 and under age 35 has increased by 61%. Sam points out the US is the first society in history where you're more likely to be poor if you're young than if you're old. And yet Sam says most of the social safety net is for older Americans, right? Not like lower paid mid career people struggling to afford childcare and buy a house. Okay, now we have to get to the solution. What is your solution?

[Samuel Moyn]

Well, the main one I talk about is mandatory retirement.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Mandatory retirement meaning you think we should force people to retire when they hit a certain age.

[Samuel Moyn]

Correct.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Sam is very careful to say that of course there are a lot of older workers who would love to retire but can't afford to. Right. There are millions of Americans over age 65 that live near or below the poverty line. But he is not talking about those workers. You know, people in blue collar, low paying, back breaking jobs.

[Samuel Moyn]

We should actually like be thinking creatively about how we can do better by them in their retirement too. But they're not the ones who are hoarding employment opportunity.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Sam is talking about those who can afford to retire but don't, particularly those in powerful positions like you know, politics and those in the highest level, highest paying white collar jobs. So engineers, lawyers, judges, CEOs, journalists, professors. Sam says academia is actually worst of all as a place where older people stay on to the detriment of the rest. Now is it legal to force millions of workers out of their job because of their age? Nope. Sure isn't. Not in most sectors of the US but it used to be. Not too long ago even it used

[Samuel Moyn]

to be standard to have mandatory retirement.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

In the 1970s, about half of all jobs in the US came with a non negotiable expiration date. A date when workers would be forced to leave when they hit a certain age, usually age 65. One of the ideas behind mandatory retirement ages was to help like freshen up the workforce, bring younger workers in with their newer skills. So people like Albert Einstein, Milton Friedman, Nobel prize winning economist, had to retire. They had to leave their universities because they reached their age of mandatory retirement. This was standard. So people would be, like, at their job for a decade or two decades or four decades, and then they'd be like, oh, it's your birthday, you're gone.

[Samuel Moyn]

Absolutely.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Like on their birthday.

[Samuel Moyn]

On their birthday.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And really. And you knew when you got in,

[Samuel Moyn]

and you knew from the start you retired at 65.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah. People knew when they took the job what their last day was going to be. And everyone could plan around that. Even when Congress passed the Age Discrimination in employment act in 1967, employers were still allowed to force people to retire at age 65. But after lobbying from the AARP and pushback from seniors who were like, hey, we're living longer now. Why are we getting kicked out of work work when we still have so much life to live? The law was revised. They said you couldn't kick anyone out until they hit age 70. Then the law was revised again in 1986, when it became largely illegal to force anyone to retire because of age. Though Congress did make a temporary exemption for universities because universities, academics. They were strongly warning against the consequences of eliminating mandatory retirement, saying it would be bad for business, bad for innovation, bad for research. Like this former Chicago school provost who went on to be Stanford University president.

[Samuel Moyn]

Oh, Gerhard Casper. Yeah, he went hard.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

What did he say?

[Samuel Moyn]

I've never met him, but he is one of my heroes. He said that innovation in education comes from young faculty members. Faculty tend to teach what they understand, and they understand best what they learn when they were young. Everything he warned about has come true.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Meaning you think that there's. Okay. You think there's, like, the less quality research being done by the older. Oh, yeah, you're shaking your head like. Like, of course there. What do you mean?

[Samuel Moyn]

Absolutely. Yeah. No, it's okay.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Milton Friedman, famous economist, won the Nobel Prize in economics the year that he was forced to mandatorily retire from his university.

[Samuel Moyn]

Yeah, but that's. That's for time served. It's not for future promise. Nobel prizes are for something you did, and no one's expecting you to do it again.

[Advertisement Voice]

Harsh.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Now, Sam has been accused of ageism since his book came out, but Sam says it's not ageism because what he's proposing would apply to everyone who eventually becomes old. So younger workers would also be subject to forced retirement at some point. Right. There were, of course, unintended consequences from making mandatory retirement ages illegal. Ironically, it created new ways to discriminate against older workers because, like, sure, it protects current employees from being forced out, but employers might choose not to hire older workers at all because they worry they'll be difficult to let go later. And kind of surprisingly, mandatory retirement is still allowed in some industries in the United States for commercial pilots, air traffic controllers, federal firefighters, often state judges in these professions, you, you do not have the right to stay on until you decide to leave. Air traffic controllers have a mandatory retirement age of 56. So young commercial pilots have a mandatory retirement age of 65. And that age cap was based on a years long safety study. When Congress tried to raise the age of retirement for pilots to 67 a few years ago, the pilots union said, we don't want that unless you can prove that raising the age is safe. And Sam's really just saying, maybe there are other professions out there that should also consider age caps. Okay, so I, I just, I have to ask you, how old, how old are you?

[Samuel Moyn]

I'm 54.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

You're 54?

[Samuel Moyn]

54 and a half.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Okay, all right, 55. You're 54 or 54?

[Samuel Moyn]

54 and a half.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

54 and. Sorry, sorry. At six months. So you're like, you're out at 65, you're retiring.

[Samuel Moyn]

I've said 70. I mean, I like 69 and a half.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Look at you. You're out.

[Samuel Moyn]

Well, no, but look, we have people who are in their 80s here. Look, I'm, I want a general rule we all agree about, and if it's 65, I'm down. I would retire earlier than that if I might. I mean, I'm not committing to it, but I'm definitely committing to retire before a lot of my older colleagues have chosen to do so.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

Well, you know, 80 is the new 70 and 70 is the new 70.

[Advertisement Voice]

What is it?

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Oh, I did. I wasn't aware. Okay, good to know, Olivia. We called up economist Olivia S. Mitchell for a counterpoint. Olivia started out as a labor economist, now focuses more on things like pensions and retirement at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. And as an economist, Olivia fundamentally rejects the assertion that older workers are taking jobs away from younger workers. This is known as the lump of labor fallacy, which we've covered on Planet Money before. The lump of labor fallacy is the mistaken belief that there's a fixed amount of work to be done in an economy like one big lump of jobs that we all fight over and have to share.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

So the lump of labor fallacy is the notion that there's only a certain number of jobs in the labor market. And, and if the older people don't retire, there won't be any opportunities for the young or for women or for ethnic minorities. And the reality is that more people working create more jobs and create more demand for labor.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

I mean, I think a good example is like when women entered the labor force, it's not like we took all the men's jobs and now there weren't enough jobs for men. Like, we will make as many jobs as we need is sort of the idea.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

Right. And I would say that when women did go into the paid labor market, that created jobs for other people to help them, you know, help take care of their houses, help take care of their children, babysitters. Right.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

The idea that an older person refusing to retire is preventing a younger person from finding a job is just wrong. Olivia says. But that's not necessarily the only thing that Sam is saying. I see that for like there's not a finite number of jobs and the more people working creates new jobs and new opportunities. That all makes sense.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Right.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

But I think some people's arguments like this, this book author, Samuel Moyn, he's not really saying there aren't enough jobs for younger workers. He's saying there's not enough well paying jobs and that it's because the older workers have the highest salaries.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

How old is he?

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Not above 60.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

Yeah.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Why do you say that?

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

I was just curious.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah. So anyways, yeah, people always bring up the lump of labor fallacy to Sam, and generally he agrees that more people working creates more jobs, is good for

[Samuel Moyn]

the economy in general. It's great to have more jobs. And the fact that someone holds a job doesn't forbid the creation of a new job, but sometimes it does.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

So there is not a finite number of jobs in the economy, but maybe there are in some sectors, like tenured professors, for example. After the break, we put some real parameters on how mandatory retirement could work and for who. Also a hot take from Olivia.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

Well, I think people retire far too early.

[Sponsor Voice]

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Vanguard. Every day, shareholders meet to discuss important matters about the companies you invest in. Now you can make your voice heard, too. Vanguard Investor Choice makes it easy to set your proxy voting preference for your eligible Vanguard index funds. Visit vanguard.com investorchoice to learn more. Vanguard investors own shares of their index funds, and those funds own shares of the companies they invest in. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor this message comes

[Advertisement Voice]

from Workday, the enterprise AI platform for HR finance. And it when it comes to your company's finance and HR functions, you can't afford to get it almost right. Workday's AI platform empowers agents to work Securely and accurately following your organization's unique context and guardrails. Agents operate within predefined permissions to complete tasks, and they log every action to guarantee auditability. From automating routine data entry to flagging financial anomalies, every workflow runs within enterprise controls, so it does the work to drive real outcomes you can trust. This is the world workday is creating, where the limitless potential of AI is combined with the certainty and predictability your enterprise needs. It's a new workday. Learn [e-mail]

[Sarah Gonzalez]

do you mind sharing with us how old you are?

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

I'm 73.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

That's economist Olivia S. Mitchell again. And how do you feel about work? Are you.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

I wake up every day say, oh, there's new things I can explore. Explore. I'm so excited.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Really?

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

Yeah. I'm not planning to retire.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

I mean, at some point, well, maybe

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

another 10 years, we'll give it. Everything's on a 10 year plan. We'll see.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Olivia will maybe consider retiring around age 83. But like, hard maybe.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

I have a lot of research left in me. I have a lot of books I want to write.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

I told Sam Moyn about Olivia, she's like, I do not plan on retiring.

[Samuel Moyn]

I think that's. Let's check the citation counts of those over 70 and see what, what happens, what, what work actually changes fields. Hard to think of a lot produced by those over 70.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

With all due respect, the hits keep coming from Sam. And listen, this is where Sam's argument does start to get more uncomfortable, okay? Because he is saying that when it comes to research, younger academics tend to be more innovative. He does admit that in some professions, the older you get, sure, the better you get at your job because it's more about repetition. So like think a pianist or maybe, I don't know, an interpreter. But like in science, for example, according to a peer reviewed study in the Journal of Science, researchers from the University of Chicago did find that scientific innovation narrows as scientists age. They wrote younger scientists are, quote, more likely to instigate disruption in their fields, replacing established ideas with new ones, while older scientists tend to iterate on their earlier work. Now, of course, this is not true for all jobs, but some. And there is this economic theory that kind of backs some of this stuff up too. And the case for mandatory retirement. Okay, so there is this economist, his name was Edward Lazear, and he used to say that mandatory retirement enabled this like implicit contract between the worker and the employer. And it basically says when you are a younger worker, you get paid less than your productivity, but we reward you by when you're an older worker, you get paid more than your productivity.

[Ryan Hendrickson]

Right.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And he's like, but that only works. And we all were okay with that because there was an end date to when you're an older worker. Because otherwise, if you stay past, you know, 70, 75, 80, you're just getting this high salary. And it's more than what we should have compensated you from this chunk when you were underpaid. Okay, Right.

[Samuel Moyn]

Brilliant, Brilliant. Totally agree with his point. With the rise of Gerontocracy, what we have is like a rupture of the implicit contract by those who are hanging on now.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

It's not that older workers necessarily become less productive. It's that their salaries are just higher than their productiv. And this economist, Edward Lazear, said mandatory retirement corrected for that.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

So I know Eddie Lazear quite well. The implicit contract, it worked for a time, but that model broke down.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Olivia says the assumption that older workers are generally overpaid relative to productivity is much less convincing today than when Lazear wrote his paper, and that it is probably a less complete description of compensation practices in today's labor market. Because people bounce around now. They don't stay at one job forever to reach that stage when they become overpaid. And early career workers are less likely to tolerate being underpaid because of that. Also, it's just a different time now. Olivia says there were a bunch of things that actually enabled mandatory retirement ages to work for the employer and for the employee, like traditional pensions, which are so rare now. If we look at the system now, Olivia says there is every reason to work longer, as long as possible. Actually, she says delaying retirement is not just good for you as a person, it's good for the economy.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

For the economy, delayed retirement boosts labor force participation, it raises tax revenues, it eases labor shortages, and it generates more economic growth.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Olivia travels all over the world advising governments about their pension and Social Security systems. And she says people are retiring far too early to cover their own needs.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

Under the US Social Security rules, you can stop working as early as age 62. But I wouldn't advise that, because if you delay claiming until you're 70, your benefits go up by 75%.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah, the system rewards you if you retire later.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

So my advice is work more, save more, and expect less. That's my mantra.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Expect less from the government to support you.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

Yes, because Social Security is running into insolvency within about six years. By the way, Medicare is also running Short of money. So when you think about the amount of money you need to retire on these days, it's getting more expensive to retire at all.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And this gets to the heart of Olivia's point. As a society, Olivia says we can't actually afford to let people retire earlier. So if Sam's whole point is, you know, justice for younger workers, Olivia says early retirement would not give them that.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

So if more people retired younger, then those who are young would end up paying much higher taxes to take care of us. Right when we could be very productive and we could be generating output for the economy. So I am not in favor of people retiring young. Companies would face terrible hiring challenges. Productivity would decline, government tax revenues would decline. So it's not a good idea.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Remember when Congress wanted to raise the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots and the pilots union said, no, we don't think it's safe? The reason Congress wanted to raise the age was because we had a shortage of commercial pilots. We still do, actually. We don't have enough workers in a lot of sectors. Plumbers, electricians, registered nurses, home health aides. So everyone retiring when they turned 70 or whatever. Not a great idea. But in fairness to Sam, his proposal is more nuanced than that.

[Samuel Moyn]

I think it could be domain specific.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

He's talking different age caps for different jobs and not for every single job even necessarily.

[Samuel Moyn]

It really does depend on, is there a supply crisis and is there a reason to force people out if they don't want to leave?

[Sarah Gonzalez]

He just thinks companies should have the option to force people to retire and that there should be government regulations that let each industry decide and let them change their mind depending on what their labor shortages might be. Give me an example of a profession or an industry where you think they maybe could be or should be exempt from mandatory retirement ages.

[Samuel Moyn]

Oh, primary school teacher is my best example because there's a crisis in supply. Nobody wants to do the job. It's very poorly paid. I think if we actually gave it the status it deserves and the pay it deserves, it would be then just like other white collar professions where you have pipeline issues. But right now, like the public school children of America, benefit by having teachers stay rather than be forced out, even

[Sarah Gonzalez]

if they're 80, 85, 75.

[Samuel Moyn]

No one else wants to.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah, because one of the things you're saying is like, they might not be as good as their job as they once were.

[Samuel Moyn]

Well, any teacher is better than none.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Okay, While it seems like Sam and Olivia are pretty far apart, here's where they start to align A little more because. Right. Sam is not actually saying that all people over age, whatever, need to leave the labor force entirely. Right. He's just saying that those in high paying, cushy jobs, as he says it, should, you know, step aside so younger workers can move up. And he does think that doing meaningful work is good for you. He's just saying find other meaningful work that can still keep you moving, keep your brain active, keep you interacting with people. There is research that suggests that people who work longer and maintain their social networks live healthier longer. Sam's not trying to take that away from anyone. He's like, work at a bakery, open a bakery, work at a museum. Or maybe just start stepping aside. In your current field, you can have

[Samuel Moyn]

phased retirement where you teach a bit. You know, you could remain in your firm as like an avuncular counselor.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Come on, as a paid consultant with all of your knowledge and experience, still do research, just not as a full time tenured professor for academics.

[Samuel Moyn]

I can write articles and books until my dying day.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

But you lose your salary.

[Samuel Moyn]

You have a 401k. That means that you have an income, but it's not a salary anymore. But you have a library card at rich institutions like Yale, you have an office.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

At some universities, you get free housing forever.

[Samuel Moyn]

So you lose very little.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Actually, Olivia thinks this is a good idea.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

You know, I think that's perfectly fine. In fact, in Japan, they still have mandatory retirement, but what happens when the older worker hits that age? They're not forced to go home. What they do is they start training the younger generation to be able to fill their shoes. And I think that would be a

[Sarah Gonzalez]

good model in the U.S. guys, we have agreement. Continue working if you want, but do something else that is meaningful that still allows for youthful succession. We did it. By the way, Sam says two people have reached out to him since his book came out to say that they were going to retire now because they thought it was the right thing to do for younger workers. As for Olivia, she's staying put. Her work brings her fulfillment. If what you want to do is to work until at least 85, then that's what I want for you all.

[Olivia S. Mitchell]

Thank you and same to you. I'll see you working when you're 100.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

I don't think I want that. I wish for the opposite. For me, I see and remember Ryan and Vijay who felt stuck and couldn't move up in their jobs. They both ended up leaving their companies. They said there was just no way for them to advance anymore. Before you leave, we have a quick favor to ask you, please hit the Follow button on your podcast app. We know that we have a lot of regular listeners who don't technically follow us, and these apps, they're changing all the time. And more than ever, hitting that follow button helps you not miss future shows, but also it helps other people find Planet Money. So it's one way to support our show. And thanks as always to our NPR supporters who get sponsor free listening and bonus episodes like just recently, a live Zoom call in where Adrian Ma and Waylon Wong from the Indicator answered your housing questions with a housing accommodation. For that, go to plus.NPR.org for all the details. Today's show was produced by Willa Rubin with booking help from Sam Yellow Horse Kessler. It was edited by Eric Masitzis, Mano Fact Checked by Charlotte Isadore and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Jimmy Keeley. Special thanks also to Noah Scheideloer at Business Insider. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. This is npr. Thanks for listening.

[Sponsor Voice]

This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums. What's in your wallet terms apply. See capital1.com bankguy for details. Capital1 NA Member FDIC this message comes from Capella University. You know that feeling when there's a spark building inside you that you were meant for more? That's your own drive pushing you towards what's next. Capella University gets that with their flexpath learning format. You can set the pace and earn your degree without putting life on pause. You've built experience and know what you're capable of. Now this is your time to turn that momentum into more. The only real question is, what can't you do? Learn [e-mail].

[Advertisement Voice]

this message comes from Bombus. Comfy footwear is the last thing you want to worry about this summer. Bombas sandals and slides are perfect for beach days, barbecues and everything in between. Go to bombas.com npr.