Working After Retirement: What Jobs Americans 80 and up Are Doing

Harvey Mendelson is no stranger to reinvention.

His career over the last six decades has pivoted from stockbrokering to real estate to car sales, with a few business launches along the way. Now, at 88, he’s discovered a new passion: photography.

Mendelson, who lives in California, owns and runs a photo gallery and digital printing business at a local live theater. He displays his work and makes fliers for the theater. It doesn’t pay much, but he doesn’t need much, he said. He has no debt, and he said that while he’s not rich, the key to staying financially comfortable has been avoiding upscaling his lifestyle in retirement.

“You retire at 65, and in three days, you’re 80,” Mendelson said. “You need to try to do things you’re happy with, and for me, it’s always been being independent.”

Mendelson is one of nearly 550,000 Americans 80 and older who continue to work in some capacity. In a few years, he’ll join the 36,000 workers who are 90 or older.

Over the past three months, Business Insider has spoken to over 100 members of the Silent Generation — born between 1928 and 1945 — who still work at least part-time out of desire or necessity. They’ve included bookkeepers, lawyers, forklift drivers, Home Depot employees, and more. Most say they enjoy work and value being active and social. Many are in good health, and about half of the workers Business Insider spoke to said the extra money is helpful but not necessary.

Business Insider’s “80 over 80” series draws on interviews with more than 80 people who are part of the growing group working past their 80th birthdays. They discussed their careers, retirement planning, living expenses, healthcare, and life lessons. If you are 80 and older and still work, fill out this form to contribute to the series and read more here:

A handful said they work to supplement Social Security and other retirement income, fearful they won’t have enough if they lose their job or become too ill to work. Some said they’ve kept working despite health problems, including cancer, heart failure, and arthritis. (For many older Americans, health problems keep them out of the workforce.)

This group is part of the fastest-growing segment of the labor force. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that Americans 75 and older are twice as likely to be in the workforce now as they were in the early 1990s. The trend is expected to continue growing as pensions weaken and Social Security is projected to be depleted by the mid-2030s.

As people stay healthier longer and expectations shift around retirement, more people in their 80s may view work as favorable. Many experts on aging and retirement told BI that working longer helps older Americans stay sharp in older age.

Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at The New School and retirement security researcher, said, however, that working past 70 is often “not humane.” Older people with poor working conditions can suffer shorter life expectancies and shame, she said.

To better understand America’s aging workforce, Business Insider analyzed the 2023 Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the most recent to date. This included a review of individual-level survey responses from Americans ages 80 and older assembled by the Minnesota Population Center’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) program to determine how many worked, what jobs they held, and how their demographics and income compared to the broader population.

Where the oldest generation of workers is employed

The top jobs for workers 80 and older included managers, retail salespeople, lawyers, drivers, and real estate brokers, Business Insider’s analysis found. The most popular industries included elementary and secondary schools, construction, and religious organizations.

The median worker 80 and older earned $57,100 in 2023. About a third earned under $40,000, suggesting this subset works part-time or in lower-wage roles, perhaps to supplement Social Security. Meanwhile, about 26% earn over $100,000 yearly, while over 10% earn at least $200,000.

For America’s 17,000 managers over 80, construction is by far the most common industry, followed by financial investments, consulting services, mining, and scientific research. Nearly 2,400 people 80 and older work as managers in construction, nearly four times the next highest subfield. CEOs in their 80s and 90s are most likely to lead construction firms, executive offices, real estate, computer systems, and food services.

“Real estate agents are entrepreneurs who can’t just sit on the couch or be in the office all day,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. He said the flexible hours make it a retirement-friendly job that also offers “the intangible benefits and inner satisfaction that come from helping others.”

At 93, Bobbie Beckham Sellers manages her rental properties part-time. The Tennessee resident is refurbishing a property she bought 30 years ago and plans to do the same for two other houses. She oversees about 30 properties.

Her late husband encouraged her to start a realty company with $1,000, which she opened in 1972. It’s now one of the largest in her county. After decades of running the business, she retired and asked her son to take over broker management about seven years ago. She said she has always been frugal.

“I really enjoy continuing to work, and I enjoy every minute that I do,” Sellers said. “Quitting my real estate career was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my whole life. It took me at least four years to not feel guilty about not going to that office.”

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Within construction, workers 80 and older were most likely to be laborers, managers, carpenters, CEOs, plumbers, or electricians.

Retail salespeople gravitated most to building material and supplies dealers, warehouse clubs, automobile dealers, and clothing retailers. Nearly a dozen retail workers told BI they were paid slightly above minimum wage in these roles and took the jobs because they couldn’t find anything in their fields.

Richard Jackson, an 81-year-old Marine veteran, started a construction company five decades ago that’s still in operation.

After some acquisitions, Jackson now oversees three companies with his children: CR Jackson, a grading and paving company; Satterfield Construction, which specializes in asphalt services; and N. W. White & Company, which operates about 400 dump trucks throughout South Carolina. With his son, Steven, and daughter, Elizabeth, Jackson’s companies have over 1,000 employees, operate 11 asphalt plants, and pave in 36 of the state’s 46 counties.

Jackson works when he wants to, sometimes coming in later in the day for meetings and letting his children handle more of the logistical tasks. He maintains his commercial driver’s license and has occasionally driven a dump truck. His son said he and Elizabeth don’t consider themselves owners but rather “stewards” of what Jackson built.

“We don’t make strategic acquisitions or market moves without consulting with him and making sure that he sees what we see, and that he agrees with what we’re agreeing with,” Steven Jackson said.

The typical 80-year-old worker

Over 10% of all workers 80 and older live in California, followed by Florida and New York. Workers were slightly more likely to be born in the US than the general population.

Working Americans 80 and older were more educated than the general population in that age group. Nearly 42% of the working cohort had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to just under 27% of the whole population.

People working late into their careers tended to be white and male. Nearly 60% were men, though men represent 40% of the total 80+ population.

The percentage of workers 80 and older, compared to all Americans 80 and older, has ticked up over the last four decades. While 2.9% of people 80 and older worked in 1980, this has increased to nearly 4% in 2019 and 4.2% in 2023.

For much of his life, Leonard Carter, who lives in rural South Carolina, worked at his family’s textile byproducts company, buying cotton and mill waste from cotton mills and recycling them into new products. He supplied fiber fill for pillows for caskets and described selling 40,000-pound loads at 50 cents per pound. At 82, he now oversees operations — processing orders, arranging shipments, and calling clients. It beats watching TV all day, he said.

Carter, who works about 20 hours a week, said he has enough to live comfortably well past 100, as he has a high-six-figure IRA and gets $2,500 monthly from Social Security. Still, between multiple marriages, rising costs, and some tougher years with the business, finances haven’t always been secure.

He goes on work trips to the Midwest, and he stays active in his community, attending Rotary Club meetings and volunteering at historic sites nearby.

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“I tell people I’m coming out of this office feet first,” Carter said. “It’s a sense of purpose, and it’s also a sense of knowing I’m doing something good, which is recycling stuff that would go to landfills.”

Working odd jobs for the fun of it

A data analysis of people 80 and older by United For ALICE, part of United Way of Northern New Jersey, calculated that of the nearly 550,000 workers 80 and older, about 73% are above the ALICE threshold, the minimum income needed to afford basic living expenses. This suggests that most workers in this demographic are not desperate for additional income, though thousands still work to supplement their Social Security.

Stephanie Hoopes, national director of United For ALICE, said that many seniors may take on part-time work for a little extra boost of financial security. And employers may need them.

“There are parts of the country where they’re struggling to get workers, such as in the retail and service space, and they may be quite interested in hiring seniors because they’re maybe more dependable,” she said.

John Kasun, 86, has had a long and winding career. While working in engineering, he started selling archery equipment out of his basement. He hired six part-time workers and kept his full-time job.

Kasun, who lives in Pennsylvania, also wrote for an outdoor magazine and worked for a railroad rehabilitation company. While working, he invested all his extra money and spent frugally, splurging every once in a while on items like an ATV.

“For me, money is like having a goose that lays a golden egg every Monday; if you eat it on Sunday, you don’t get an egg on Monday,” Kasun said. “I don’t want anything to happen to me that I can’t handle financially, and I don’t want any conditions to dictate to me what I have to do.”

Kasun now writes part-time for a magazine. He has about $1.5 million in liquid assets and receives about $80,000 in retirement income from Social Security and the railroad company.

He doesn’t consider himself retired, and after a heart attack last summer, he likes to keep busy by picking up random tasks for his community.

“I’m a problem-solving guy, and anytime I see anything that I can get involved in or where I can be of help, I jump in,” Kasun said. “I see opportunities all the time. It’s almost like I wear special glasses.