Top Ten Cities For Older Workers Looking For Work

Older workers are surely thinking about working longer since they are approaching retirement with a median retirement wealth balance of about $15,000. Some cities and regions are more friendly to older workers than other places. There are many stories about where older workers should move to increase the chances of finding work; but I find the lists come up short either because they include things I don’t care about – golf courses and age friendly grocery stores – or are so general I can’t answer this question – if I live in X will I get a job?

Here is a list of 7 major Metro regions with the highest pay for older workers. In Albuquerque wages for those over 55 are much higher than for workers younger than 54, where the unemployment rates for younger people are much higher than for older people.

Older workers earn more than younger workers in these 7 places:

DATA: CURRENT POPULATION SURVEY, ANNUAL SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SUPPLEMENT, 2014 complied by Mike Papadopolous, Economics grad student, The New School

Older workers earn about the same or less in these 8 places:

DATA: CURRENT POPULATION SURVEY, ANNUAL SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SUPPLEMENT, 2014 complied by Mike Papadopolous, Economics grad student, The New School

I can’t find any common characteristic that explains why one place is better than another, but here are some general themes.  Places that are heavy in finance and tech are generally friendlier to younger than older workers. There is a slight correlation between older workers’ unemployment and the share of employment in tech and finance. But there is no correlation between unemployment between those industries and young people’s unemployment rates. Young people have slightly lower unemployment rates in metro areas with more tech and older workers have substantially higher unemployment rates in places heavy in tech. In San Jose, for example, the unemployment rate for people under 54 is 3.7% and a relatively high 5.5% for people 55 and over. Pay is generally higher for younger workers in  regions with tech and finance; but there is no boost in older workers’ wages to be in an area with more tech and finance. Older people have less status in these places.

The reasons a city’s economy would prefer younger workers over older ones are complex and murky—there’s more research needed to be sure of anything. Economists have long understood that high unemployment weakens bargaining power and lowers wages. Adding to the weakened bargaining power of older workers is the downward trend in access to retirement-savings plans at work. This means older workers nearing retirement age have less of a safety net, and are increasingly at the mercy of a less than robust labor market. They are facing pressure from two directions: As older workers are losing their pensions and their 401(k) plans have lost value, they feel the need to work more at precisely the time the economy may be leaving them behind.

Regardless of the causes, however, a few things are clear. These numbers likely understate the problem. Early retirement is often involuntary, so places that are unfriendly to older workers also have fewer older people in the labor market. There is a strong positive, 39%, correlation between the median wage for workers over 55 and labor force participation of people over 55 and a lower correlation, 24%, for people under 54.

There are easy solutions to weakened bargaining power. At minimum, we should expand Social Security and create universal pensions to help older workers prepare for retirement regardless of their level of economic stress. Only policies dedicated to affordable and sustainable pensions for all workers—expanding Social Security and creating universal pensions for all, regardless of where they live, are two such policies—will help older workers so that they aren’t desperate to take the first job they might find.