ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
American workers are retiring later and later. Since the mid-1980s, the share of employed people 65 and older has close to doubled, and some people think that's a problem. Sarah Gonzalez, with our Planet Money podcast, reports on the debate around our aging workforce.
SARAH GONZALEZ, BYLINE: OK. When people cannot afford to retire, that is one thing. But when they can't afford to and just don't want to, Samuel Moyn, a law and history professor at Yale, says that's unfair to younger workers who want to move up in pay and in position.
SAMUEL MOYN: When older people are hoarding their positions and refusing to retire, they're inhibiting other people from getting what they have acquired - houses and other benefits.
GONZALEZ: And he has a solution for our retirement problem, if you think there is one - mandatory retirement ages.
You think we should force people to retire when they hit a certain age?
MOYN: Correct.
GONZALEZ: In the 1970s, about half of all jobs in the U.S. came with an age limit, a date when workers would be forced to leave their jobs, when they hit age 65, then later, age 70.
They'd be like, oh, it's your birthday. You're gone?
MOYN: Absolutely. On their birthday.
GONZALEZ: Really?
One of the ideas was to help freshen up the workforce and bring younger workers in with their newer skills. But in 1986, it became largely illegal to force anyone to retire because of age, though we do still allow age limits for federal firefighters. Air traffic controllers have a mandatory retirement age of 56. For commercial pilots, it's 65. It's a safety thing in these jobs. And Sam thinks that white collar high-paying jobs should also be allowed to force people out, like CEOs, judges, journalists, professors like him.
I have to ask you, how old are you?
MOYN: I'm 54.5.
GONZALEZ: So you're out at 65? You're retiring?
MOYN: I've said 70. I mean, I like 69.5.
GONZALEZ: Oh, 70. Look at you, you're already...
MOYN: Well, no, but look, we have people who are in their 80s here.
OLIVIA S MITCHELL: Well, you know, 80 is the new 70, and 70 is the new 60.
GONZALEZ: Oh, is it? I wasn't aware.
MITCHELL: Yes, yes.
GONZALEZ: OK.
We called up economist Olivia S. Mitchell at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, told her about Sam Moyn's big idea.
MITCHELL: How old is he?
GONZALEZ: Not above 60 (laughter).
MITCHELL: (Laughter).
GONZALEZ: As an economist, Olivia fundamentally rejects the assertion that older workers refusing to retire are taking jobs away from younger workers. This is known as the lump of labor fallacy, which is the mistaken belief that there's a fixed amount of work in an economy, like one big lump of jobs that we all fight over and have to share.
MITCHELL: 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.
GONZALEZ: I mean, I think a good example is like when women entered the labor force.
MITCHELL: Right.
GONZALEZ: It's not like we took all the men's jobs, and now there weren't enough jobs for men.
But Sam says in some sectors, there are a finite number of positions, like tenured professors, politicians. But as a society, Olivia says, we can't actually afford to let the 11 million workers over age 65 retire.
MITCHELL: 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.
GONZALEZ: She thinks people should actually be working even longer, as long as possible.
MITCHELL: I'm 73. Yeah, I'm not planning to retire.
GONZALEZ: I mean, at some point.
MITCHELL: Well, maybe another 10 years. Everything's on a 10-year plan.
GONZALEZ: Sarah Gonzalez, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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