Age 85-plus workers have nearly doubled over a decade

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More than a quarter million Americans 85 or older were employed over the past year — almost twice the comparable number shortly before the Great Recession — according to an analysis of


census figures by the _Washington Post_. The newspaper reported that the 255,000 85-plus workers who have been employed in the past year represent 4.4 percent of their age group. The rate in


2006 was 2.6 percent. The _Post_’s _Wonkblog_ cites several reasons for the job spike for older adults: longer life expectancy, concerns about retirement income, better education and less


physically demanding work. Their growing ranks include crossing guards, musicians, truckers, funeral home workers and product demonstrators at big-box stores. But the most common job for the


very old is farming and ranching, according to the _Post_, in part because that’s what many have been doing their whole lives. The _Post_ crunched the numbers from Census Bureau data


covering the years 2001 to 2016. While the growth of the 85-plus workforce is most pronounced, older adults  in general  are working more: For every age above 55, the _Post_ found, “U.S.


residents are working or looking for work at the highest rates on record.” At the same time, the trend for younger people is markedly different. Those who are 30 and younger are “staying on


the sidelines at rates not seen since the 1960s and  ’70s,  when women weren’t yet entering the workforce at the level they are today,” the _Post_ reported.