5 reasons Americans are retiring later in life

Americans are now retiring three or four years later in life than they did three decades ago, puzzling researchers and reversing a trend that had lasted more than a century.

Several recent studies have confirmed this shift. Gallup found that from 1991 to 2022, the average U.S. retirement age rose from 57 to 61. The American Enterprise Institute said that from 1990 to 2019, the age rose from 62.6 to 65.6. And the Center for Retirement Research, a non-profit research group at Boston College, focused solely on male workers but reached largely the same conclusion: From 1991 to 2021, their average retirement age climbed from 61.9 to 64.7.

What makes this so startling is that for about 100 years, history had been moving in the opposite direction. Starting in the 1880s, American men began retiring younger, possibly thanks to generous pensions awarded to Civil War veterans. In the 20th Century, as the social safety net expanded — first with Social Security in 1935, then with Medicare in 1965 — workers continued to end their careers earlier in life. The average retirement age kept lowering until the 1980s, when it slowed to a halt. Then, in the 1990s, it suddenly started climbing back up.

There have been some exceptions. From 2019 to 2021, the Pew Research Center saw a slight increase in the number of Americans aged 55 to 64 who are retired, from 16.6 to 17.1%. But as Pew noted in its own report, this was a short interruption of a 30-year trend, and was most likely tied to the short-lived pandemic recession of 2020.

The bigger picture is that Americans are retiring later in life, after a century of retiring earlier. What could explain this? Studies point to a number of social and economic changes, as well as cuts to social safety net programs. Here's a look at some of the biggest factors: