Semiretirement: Let's Get Rid of the Shame

We Are the Pioneers Who Have Decided to Work Beyond Age 65

You’re probably reading this post because, like me, you are semiretired or are considering how to earn income from work post-career. And, in a capitalist economy anything other than being 100% productive at work can classify you as “less than.” So, it’s a learning curve on how to enter, talk about and feel about this new state of being. That is, being semiretired.

The good news is that we have lots of company. According to the US Department of Labor, by 2022, almost 27% of us over-65 were still working. The projection was that by 2032, the percentage would be almost 30%.

But there have been two problems with that.

One, the odds are that we had gone beyond our peak earning years. Pro Publica documents that only 10% of us who left or been pushed out of a high-paying job would ever again earn comparable income. The very state of being semiretired screams that we are not where we had been in earning power. Shame Shame.

Two, given age bias and the realities of declining energy levels, we are likely not doing the important work we had been or so much of it or not so quickly. It was Ben Franklin who observed that time is money.

The result: shame.

However, given that we Boomers and members of Gen X are the pioneers in continuing to work beyond age 65, we are in a position of strength to blow up traditional assumptions about who we are and what we are up to. Analogy: The sheer numbers of our Boomer generation - 76 million - changed so much.

Ending shame for being post-career: That’s our collective mission. Already as Coach Jane Genova for Seniors I am helping the working Over-65 embrace the wonderment of getting paid for labor, on their own terms. No longer will they accept the pressures which had been embedded in establishing, holding onto and moving up in a career.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. I have a dream. When the high producers of this era such as chair of law firm Paul Weiss Brad Karp and head of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon ease off and become what we now understand as “semiretirement” they will do so seamlessly, with no apology. Likely, like us, they will not stop working.