The U.S. saw a surplus of retirees amid the pandemic, and fewer adults than expected have reentered the workforce as COVID-19 threats fade, Bloomberg reported Nov. 6.
As of September, there were about 1.98 million more retirees in the U.S. than predicted by Federal Reserve modeling. Some analysts had predicted this "Great Retirement" trend would reverse in 2023, but data suggests otherwise. The current number of excess retirees is down from 2.8 million in late 2022. However, this figure ticked up this fall from an estimated 1.7 million excess retirees in June.
"While the gap seemed to be closing earlier in the year, it seems to have widened slightly since then," Miguel Faria-e-Castro, economic policy adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, told Bloomberg.
Adults ages 65 and older currently account for 19.3% of the U.S. workforce, down from 20.8% before the pandemic.
In 2022, about 24% of U.S. healthcare workers were ages 55 and older, according to data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.