2026年5月5日 美国东部时间10:02 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
每逢工作日清晨，明迪·弗里德曼都会在大西洋日出时分出门，她家位于纽约州长滩，出门后只需步行一个街区即可抵达公交站。
弗里德曼的第一站是早上7:30的公交车，她会搭乘这趟车前往当地火车站，随后乘坐火车耗时约一小时前往曼哈顿中城。之后她再换乘地铁，出站后步行10分钟抵达办公室。单程通勤总时长两小时，返程同样需要约两小时。
即便弗里德曼还未年近70，这样每日往返的通勤路程也颇具挑战性。
但她没有辞去医疗办公室行政岗位的计划。作为一名寡妇，弗里德曼告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，她每月的社会保障金仅能覆盖三分之一的生活开支。
“我还需要另外三分之二才能维持现有的生活水准，”她说。
“总得吃饭啊”
弗里德曼是越来越庞大的美国老年群体中的一员，对他们而言，退休在经济上遥不可及，或是发现自己不得不重返工作来维持收支平衡。
根据联邦劳工数据和皮尤研究中心的统计，近五分之一的65岁及以上成年人处于就业或求职状态，这是数十年来的最高比例。这类劳动者遍布各个行业、地区和教育水平群体，他们往往将工作视为生存必需，而非个人选择。
2026年，美国社会保障金的平均发放标准约为每月2071美元。但SoFi银行的数据显示，单身成年人的每月基本生活开支平均为4641美元，这还不包括电话费、房屋维修费或给孙辈的生日礼物等额外支出。
对许多美国老年人而言，这一收支缺口堪称鸿沟，迫使他们在本应、至少是本希望退休的年纪重返职场。
“物价上涨时刻萦绕在我心头，而且还会继续走高，”弗里德曼说。“总得吃饭啊，总得有医保。但退休后不该只有‘不得不’的开支。我也想享受生活。”
2024年美国退休人员协会的一项调查显示，20%的50岁及以上美国人没有退休储蓄，70%的人担心物价上涨速度会超过收入增长速度。
这场危机早已酝酿数十年。1985年，美国65岁及以上人群的劳动力参与率创下历史低点，仅略低于11%。
但根据美国疾病控制与预防中心的数据，过去20年间，这一年龄段群体的就业率飙升了117%。美国劳工统计局预计，到2030年，75岁及以上的劳动力规模增速将超过其他任何年龄群体，预计将在2020至2030年间增长97%。
美国疾控中心将美国劳动力的这一变化主要归因于人口老龄化。美国人的寿命越来越长，但许多老年人发现自己的储蓄未能跟上物价上涨的步伐。简单的严峻算术题一目了然：原本可以支撑15年退休生活的储蓄，在拉长至25年或30年后就会入不敷出。
无党派智库全国退休保障研究所近期的一份报告显示，美国普通劳动者的退休储蓄不足1000美元，这一数据涵盖了拥有雇主赞助退休计划的人群，以及约5600万没有这类计划的劳动者。
该机构发现，即便那些拥有退休储蓄的劳动者，储蓄中位数也仅为4万美元。
“这份工作真的很不错”
并非所有退休年龄的劳动者都将工作视为一种负担。70多岁的海伦·乔奇每天大部分时间都站着，在康涅狄格州一家CVS药店补货、为顾客结账。她已经在CVS工作了18年，这份工作是在从事了40年行政助理后才开始的。
在旁人通常已经彻底退休的年纪，乔奇总能看到工作积极的一面。
“我从没想过自己会做零售工作，”她告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻。“我一直以为自己会坐在小办公桌前，喝着咖啡、对着电脑办公。但这份工作真的很不错，你会更活跃，也能见到更多人。”
对乔奇而言，薪水只是考量因素之一。她的丈夫需要服用昂贵的药物，而她在CVS的全职身份让夫妻俩能够享受医保福利，将他的处方药费用降至可承受的水平。
“我们有房，有两辆车，还喜欢旅行，”她说。“如果不在CVS工作，我们根本做不到这些事。”
旧技能，新工作
对许多像乔奇这样的老年人而言，在退休后转向不同类型的工作并不罕见。
71岁的艾伦·伯格曼是纽约州萨默斯的居民，职业生涯大部分时间都在经营一家商业印刷公司。2018年出售公司后不久，他便退休了。
但伯格曼感到无所事事，同时也担心自己的储蓄可能不足以支撑他和妻子度过退休生活。于是他开启了新事业，成为一名私人历史记录者，在家中的办公室里采访其他老年人，为他们私人出版人生故事。
“我从没想过会这样，但这是我迄今为止最有成就感的一段人生篇章，”伯格曼说。
波士顿学院经济学副教授、退休研究中心研究员杰弗里·桑曾巴赫将伯格曼归入日益壮大的“再就业”美国老年人群体。桑曾巴赫表示，当经济形势向好时，老年劳动者最有可能重返劳动力市场。
“劳动者往往会在重返职场最容易的时候选择‘再就业’，”他告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，同时补充道，重返职场意味着要和更年轻的求职者竞争。
对于那些需要重返工作才能负担基本生活开支的老年人而言，这可能意味着要从事与此前职业完全不同的岗位。这也可能要求他们从事体力要求较高的工作，比如需要长时间站立、与顾客打交道的零售行业。
领英职业专家凯瑟琳·费舍尔表示，老年劳动者所具备的技能往往被低估。
“老一辈人拥有如此多可以带到职场的经验，”她说。“沟通能力、适应能力、领导力——这些都是随着时间推移才能积累的技能。”
编辑：阿兰·谢特尔
For some older Americans, retirement today means unretiring
2026-05-05 10:02 EDT / CBS News
On weekday mornings, Myndie Friedman is out the door just as the sun rises over the Atlantic Ocean, a block from her home in Long Beach, New York.
Friedman’s first stop is a 7:30 a.m. bus, which she takes to a local train station for a roughly hourlong trip into Manhattan’s Midtown neighborhood. Then she hops on the subway before exiting and hoofing it 10 minutes to her office job. Total commute: two hours door to desk, along with another couple of hours for the return trip home.
It would be a challenging daily trek even if Friedman weren’t almost 70 years old.
Still, she has no plans to quit her job as an administrator in a medical office. Friedman, a widow, told CBS News her monthly Social Security check covers only a third of her living expenses.
“I need another two-thirds to live the way I’m living,” she said.
“You have to eat”
Friedman is part of a growing cohort of older Americans for whom retirement today is financially out of reach or who find themselves having to return to work to make ends meet.
Nearly one in five adults aged 65 and older is employed or looking for work, the highest percentage in decades, according to federal labor data and Pew Research. Such workers, found across a range of industries, regions and educational levels, tend to describe their jobs not as a choice but as a financial necessity.
The average Social Security benefit in 2026 is roughly $2,071 a month. But the typical single adult spends a baseline of $4,641 a month, according to SoFi Bank, and that’s before a single dollar goes toward a phone bill, home repairs or a birthday gift for a grandchild.
For many older Americans, that financial gap amounts to a chasm, forcing them back to work at a time they expected, or at least hoped, to be retiring.
“Rising costs are on my mind, and they’re just going to go higher,” Friedman said. “You have to eat. You have to have healthcare. But when you retire, you don’t only want ‘have-tos.’ I’d like to enjoy my life.”
A 2024 AARP survey found that 20% of Americans 50 and older have no retirement savings, while 70% are worried that prices will rise faster than their income.
This crisis has been decades in the making. In 1985, the labor force participation rate for Americans 65 and older hit a historic low of just under 11%.
Over the past 20 years, however, the employment rate among workers in that demographic has soared 117%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Bureau of Labor Statistics now projects that the 75-and-older workforce will grow faster than any other age cohort in the labor market, increasing an estimated 97% between 2020 and 2030.
The CDC cites the country’s aging population as a primary driver of this shift in the American workforce. Americans are living longer, but many older adults find that their savings haven’t kept up with rising costs. The grim math is simple: A nest egg that might have funded a 15-year period of retirement falls short when stretched across 25 or 30 years.
The average American worker has less than $1,000 saved for retirement, according to a recent report from the National Institute on Retirement Security, a nonpartisan think tank. That encompasses people with employer-sponsored retirement plans, as well as the roughly 56 million workers who lack access to one.
For workers who do have retirement savings, the median balance is $40,000, the group found.
“This is really nice”
Not all workers of retirement age describe their work lives as a hardship. Helen Cuocci, who is in her 70s, spends much of her day on her feet, stocking shelves and ringing up customers at a CVS in Connecticut. She’s worked at CVS for the last 18 years, a job she took after working for 40 years as an administrative assistant.
Cuocci likes to look on the bright side when it comes to working at an age people would normally have punched out for good.
“I never thought I would get a retail job,” she told CBS News. “I always thought I’d be sitting at a little desk with my cup of coffee and just on my computer. But this is really nice. You’re more active, and you see more people.”
For Cuocci, the paycheck is only part of the calculation. Her husband requires an expensive medication, and her full-time status at CVS gives the couple access to health benefits that lower his prescription costs to a manageable level.
“We own a home, we have two cars and we like to travel,” she said. “Without working at CVS, I couldn’t do all these things.”
Old skills, new jobs
For many seniors like Cuocci, it is not uncommon to shift to a different type of work in retirement.
Alan Bergman, a 71-year-old resident of Somers, New York, spent most of his career running a commercial printing company. He retired shortly after selling his business in 2018.
But Bergman felt restless and was also concerned that his savings might not stretch far enough to support both him and his wife through retirement. So he launched a business as a personal historian, a job he does from his home office, interviewing other older adults to privately publish their life stories.
“I never expected it, but this chapter is the most fulfilling one yet,” Bergman said.
Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, an associate professor of economics at Boston College and a researcher at the Center for Retirement Research, counts Bergman among the growing ranks of “un-retired” Americans. Older workers are most likely to return to the labor force when the economy is strong, Sanzenbacher said.
Workers “tend to un-retire when it’s easiest to do so,” he told CBS News, while noting that re-entering the workforce means competing with younger job candidates.
For older adults who need to resume working to afford basic necessities, this may mean taking jobs in industries different from their previous careers. That can also require working in physically demanding roles, such as retail, that involve a lot of standing and customer interaction.
Catherine Fisher, a career expert at LinkedIn, said the skills older workers bring are routinely underestimated.
“The older generation has so much experience that they can bring to the table,” she said. “Communication, adaptability, leadership — those are skills that you acquire over time.”
Edited by Alain Sherter
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