Every few months, I’m lucky enough to get to get together with a very fine group of women I know through my increasingly long ago newspaper career. Laughter-filled conversations (some occurring simultaneously like a Robert Altman film) ranged from the personal — weight gain, sore knees — to word definitions, specifically what age is “elderly.” Because one of the youngest among us is about to turn 65, it also turned to Social Security and when to start claiming it.
Social Security is once again in the news thanks to politics and a conservative commentator who implied, if he didn’t actually say, that we should all work until we die. Most of the people objecting to that and raises in Social Security age limits, usually and rightly reference people whose jobs wear out their bodies, such as construction workers or miners. What they don’t mention are people, such as my friends and me, whose chosen careers did a vanishing act before their eyes.
I walked out of the Orange County Register newsroom for the last time as an employee in the spring of 2014. I wasn’t alone. Nearly 50 of us left that year. We had all opted for the buyout/layoff, knowing that such options were likely to get worse. There had already been a succession of publishers, layoffs, a bankruptcy, and, eventually, truly clueless owners. By the time that group panicked and left town, it was pretty clear there was little hope.
A few people were able to line up other jobs quickly, possibly because they had seen it coming. I was already 61 and figured my prospects for finding any other kind of job were unlikely. I knew with a little belt tightening we could make it on my husband’s salary and unemployment. If worse came to worse, there was my healthy 401K/IRA or I could start taking Social Security much earlier than planned and for a much smaller payout.
I was lucky and after a few months of unemployment landed a skill-adjacent job that let me work until full benefits were available. Others, including those in their 50s, weren’t so fortunate and spent more time unemployed, cobbling together freelance work that was also hard to find. Guess what newspapers and magazines got rid of first? Freelancers.
Between 2004 and 2023, more than 2,000 newspapers have gone out of business. While that number reflects mostly small weeklies that only employed two or three people, it also includes more than 200 daily newspapers with larger staffs. It doesn’t include the many large newsrooms that are shadows of their former selves. Newsrooms that once employed 200 people are lucky if there are 50 to cover the same geographic area. In all, newsrooms nationwide have shrunk by 60 percent.1
That’s a lot of people, many older, who are unlikely to find a newspaper job. It’s also a lot of people who wonder how the skills they’ve acquired over a lifetime apply elsewhere. It’s not impossible. It can be heartbreaking. Finding a job when you’re 22 may be easy these days. It’s another story when you’re 59, no matter how good the economy.
Those of us no longer working 40 plus hour per week are often happy to volunteer our time in smaller doses or even take on freelance assignments — the ones that are really wanted. I know that there are others who really will work until they die. It should just be their choice.
I look at my group of friends and admire their accomplishments, senses of humor and willingness to adapt to an ever-changing world. None of us qualify as elderly in my mind, no matter our aches and pains or what random strangers might think when they see us. In the end, I can only speak for myself and say I’m very glad I don’t have to work until I die even if, even now, I’m seldom idle.
“People mutht be amutht. They can’t be alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a working, they ain’t made for it.” Mr. Sleary in “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens
Although I hope I am made for “alway(th)s a learning” but not alway(th)s a working.
Yet, sometimes retirement comes at the most opportune time. I wasn’t ready for it, but I was at the right age to get 100%. And only a short time before, my Dad suffered a minor stroke. Mom’s dementia was becoming more noticeable, and they needed a little assistance getting through the day. Number 1, I’m eternally grateful to have both parents still with me. And Number 2, it’s an honor to give back to those who gave me so much. Life is funny sometimes, you know?
Really good post this. I think having options to work or not work is the thing as we age for sure. It is boring but putting things in place before helps towards this. Thanks for sharing.