Early retirement in the United States

Despite improvements in health and longevity, many workers in the United States retire young. By age 62, only 44 percent of men and 24 percent of women are still working full-time. The combination of younger retirement and increasing longevity means that Americans are spending more years in retirement than at any time in history. The widespread availability of post-retirement benefits is an important aspect of this national trend. Eligibility for employer-provided retirement benefits can begin as young as age 50 and occurs quite frequently at age 55. Eligibility for Social Security benefits begins at age 62. Eligibility for Medicare begins at age 65. As the population ages, the implementation of cost-saving reforms in retirement programs has become an increasing policy concern. To sustain the major public entitlement programs, proposals have been made to raise the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare, or to reduce benefit levels, or to target benefits to those most in need. Other cost-saving changes have been considered, and in many cases implemented, in employer-provided retirement benefits. These policy changes will have implications for the retirement decisions of working Americans in the future. This report, drawing on research sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, reviews the trend in the United States toward earlier retirement as well as some recent research findings on how retirement decisions relate to public and private retirement policies. With the changing age demographics of the population, the implementation of cost-saving reforms to retirement policies and other changes in the economic circumstances of individuals as they age, the work and retirement decisions of older workers will continue to evolve over the coming decades.