Beneficiaries Prefer to Work by MARGARET L
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Beneficiaries Prefer To Work by MARGARET L. STECKER * OST old people work as long receiving monthly old-age insurance jobs, or they lost their jobs because as they can and retire only benefits was as follows: the employer went out of business or M because they are forced to do for similar miscellaneous reasons not so. Studies of old-age insurance ben- Year Percent related to their personal circum- 1941____---____-_--________________ 20 eficiary “retirements” between 1940 1942--_-------__------------------- 29 stances. Many were let out during and 1947 show that only about 5 per- 1943~___~~~~~__-_~~~-~~~-~~~~~~~-~~ 31 the later years of the depression, cent of the men and women entitled 1944-_---_--___-------------------- 30 when the easy labor market led some to old-age benefits in those years left 1945-__-----___-_-_-_______________ 30 employers to retain or hire only the their jobs of their own accord, in good 1946--_-----__-------____---_-_-__- 36 young and most efficient workers and health, to enjoy a life of leisure. They 1947~__-~~~~_~~__~~_-________-_____ 43 when companies with a compulsory also show that in given years from a 1948_-_---_--__---------_---___- 48 retirement age tended to enforce the fourth to a half of the beneficiaries 1949--_----__-__-_---________-_____ 52 rule rigidly. During the war years, 1950--------_-_------____------------- 59 had some employment after their on the other hand, companies were entitlement. In 1940 the country was emerging incbned to retain their older em- from a great depression; during the ployees, and oldsters who lost their Retirement of Workers Aged 65 next 2 years employment was build- jobs had less difficulty in finding ing up to its 1943-44 wartime peak; others. and Over after 1945, marginal workers had Most beneficiaries whose jobs were terminated during the peak year of From 1940 to 1945-the first 5 years greater dif&ulty in retaining their jobs and in getting new ones. Not all the wartime demand for labor quit during which monthly benefhs were because of their health. They were paid--less than a third of all the men the old people who were eligible for benefits but not receiving them were sick or disabled, they thought that and women aged 65 and over who they were too old to continue working could have drawn old-age insurance at work-some whose jobs were ter- minated, particularly during 1940. did or that their jobs were too hard for benefits by retiring from covered em- them, or they left their jobs for other ployment took advantage of the op- not apply for benefits because they hoped for early reemployment or did reasons related to their physical or portunity to do so. During the next mental condition. 5 years the rate of retirement was not know of their rights under the insurance program-but it is fair to . After the war, dismissal by the em- speeded up considerably, so that on ployer became almost as important January 1, 1950, the proportion of presume that, whether entitled or not, most of them were employed. a reason for job termination as it had fully insured aged workers actually been in prewar years; retirements for receiving benefits rose to almost Reasons for Retirement company reasons were relatively more three-fifths. As of January 1 of each numerous in 1947 than in 1946. year, the proportion of fully insured Most workers who filed their claims In each period a comparatively few persons aged 65 and over who were for old-age insurance benefits did so beneficiaries left their jobs for per- because they lost their jobs or were no sonal reasons not connected with *Division of Program Analysis, Bureau longer able to continue working. The their health. They wanted to retire of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance. reasons for terminating their last 1 Studies of beneficiary “retirements” to enjoy their last years; they had are part of the general study of the re- covered jobs before entitlement as re- sick wives to be taken care of; they sources of old-age and survivors Insnr- ported by 3,500 old men who became had disputes with their employers or ante beneficiaries made by the Division beneficiaries in 8 large and 12 middle- fellow employees; or they quit on their of Program Analysis in 20 cities between sized cities between 1940 and 1947 are 1941 and 1949. See the Bulletin for July own initiative for other reasons. and September 1943: March 1944; Janu- shown in the table, page 16, column 3. ary, April, September, and November 1945; Relatively more of the beneficiaries Ability to Work January 1946; August and October 1947; who became entitled in 1940 than of February and September 1948; November those in the later years lost their jobs. When questioned as to their ability 1949; and April and May 1950. See also These men were released by the em- to work 1 to 3 years after entitlement, the June 1946 Bulletin for & comparison these beneficiaries expressed varying of aged insurance beneficiaries with aged ployer with or without retirement pay assistance recipients and the aged in the because they had reached the com- general population, and the October 1949 pany retirement age or because the 2Entltlemente early in 1940, when issue for a study of public assistance sup- monthly benefit payments began, in- plementatlon of income of Insurance employer considered them too old or eluded men and women who had been beneficiaries. incapacitated to continue in their out of work as long as 2 years. Bulletin, January 1951 15 opinions. Slightly more than two- Return to Work After any qualification, that they were fifths of the ones interviewed at the Entitlement able to work and were actually em- end of the employment years 3 1940- ployed in the 194344 employment 42 and 1948-49 reported that they Although employment within a few year constituted 24 percent of all the could not work at all. Inability to years after entitlement occurred less beneficiaries; the proportion was frequently among beneficiaries who work was much more common among nearly as large (22 percent) in 1946- the men whose jobs were tenminated quit their jobs for health reasons than 42, but immediately after the war, in during the war years, for relatively among those whose employment was 1945-46, it was only 9 percent, and in more of them had quit their jobs on terminated for other reasons, many 1948-49 only 16 percent. account of their health; roughly a of the first group later recovered suf- Regular employment of elderly half to three-fifths said they could ficiently to engage in gainful occu- beneficiaries at full-time wages was not do any kind of work. A fifth to pations of some kind, especially dur- comparatively rare in the earlier a third of all the beneficiaries studied ing the war years when the labor mar- years; in many instances, earnings ket was most favorable. During at the different periods, however, were scarcely more than driblets, 1943-44, for example, 42 percent of the thought they could take part-time picked up here and there in casual jobs or do light work suited to their beneiiciaries studied whose health jobs or other work on their own had forced them to stop working in infirmities or lessened vigor. Finally, account. During a la-month period 194142 were employed at least part there were the old men who said between mid-1940 and mid-1942, half without qualification that they could of the year, compared with 69 percent the employed men studied in seven hold down full-time jobs in their cus- of t,he men who had quit far other large cities earned less than $222. tomary occupations; on the average personal reasons and 63 percent of There was some defense and war work a fourth of the beneficiaries inter- those who had been released by their during this period, but full production viewed over the period 1940-49 said employers, had not yet got under way. In that they were able to work and made Two-fifbhs of the men in t.he sample 1943-44, when war industries were no stipulation as to the kind of work who became entitled to old-age in- taking all the manpower they could they could do. By employment year, surance benefits in 1940 had some em- get and jobs vacated by younger men the percentage with each reported ployment in 1940-42; more than haIf who entered the armed services made work capacity was as follows: those entitled in 1941-42 had some a place for oIder people, full-time em- employment in 1943-44. The per- ployment of beneficiaries was more centages for these men and for those common and the median earnings of who became entitled in later years are the reemployed old men studied in 12 shown in the tabulation below, cla.ssi- middle-sized Ohio cities were $812. fied by their reported ability to work In 1945-46, while industry and com- at the end of the employment year. -______ ---I- merce were returning to peacetime 194042’.~....... loo.0 37. 1 20.8 42.1 labor requirements and relatively 194344 2.. _.._. ~. 1no. 0 27.0 24.3 48.7 I , , 194546 3. .._. .~._ 100.0 15.2 26.7 58. 1 fewer beneficiaries were employed, 194%49 b____. -.-- 100.0 22.9 33.9 43.2 /Able to work was steadier and wages had Employmonc work, Light Unable ye3r Total noqual- work to 1 1940 entitlements, 7 large cities.