Getting Older: How We're Coping with Working and Living Longer

Around the mid-twentieth century, thanks to Social Security and the spread of company pensions programs, the idea that working life should end in a period of dignified retirement began to take hold in the United States. By the 1980s, the notion that retirees should enjoy some “golden years” of travel and relaxation had come to seem, to middle class Americans, like a natural right. But as the baby boom generation reaches retirement age—an estimated 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day—retirement remains a distant dream for many. Millions of them were laid off late in their careers or, with pensions mostly a thing of the past, haven't themselves saved enough for secure retirements. Increasing life expectancies and a weak job market mean that many are caring for elderly parents and providing for adult children—or both—while some seek to redefine their senior years.

Please join New America NYC for a discussion of contemporary retirement. How are individuals and workplaces responding to the fact that so many Americans are working longer? Where did our ideas about retirement come from in the first place? Now that repeated studies have confirmed the physical and mental health benefits of remaining in the workforce, should we even want to retire?

All attendants will be provided with an e-book copy of Getting Older: How We're Coping with the Grey Areas of Aging, courtesy of Bloomberg Press.

Participants:

Ngina Chiteji
Associate Professor, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University

Teresa Ghilarducci
Director, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School
@tghilarducci

Chip Castille
Managing Director and Head of U.S. Retirement Group, BlackRock

Marci Alboher
Vice President, Encore.org
@heymarci

Carol Hymowitz
Editor-at-large, Bloomberg News
Contributor, Getting Older: How We're Coping with the Grey Areas of Aging
@carolhymowitz