Editor’s note: This op-ed was originally published in The Hill on June 13, 2026. An issue brief related to this op-ed is available here.
Somewhere in America, a 62-year-old couple is sitting at the kitchen table with Social Security statements and a calculator. Both husband and wife have been working for roughly 40 years. They are healthy and good at their jobs, but they ponder leaving the workforce. Travel, time with family, and maybe even some golf beckons. The decision is theirs, and there is nothing easy about it.
Their earnings statements will help with the financial math, but what is not included might surprise them. First, and perhaps most important, early retirement might kill him. Men contemplating retirement at age 62 — the first age of Social Security eligibility — face about 20 percent higher mortality than those who keep working. The evidence for women is less clear but points in the same direction.
That sounds counterintuitive — the popular picture is that retirement is the reward at the end of a long working life. The longevity gain comes bundled with what no statement can capture: the company of a colleague you have known for 15 years, the satisfaction of a problem only you can solve, the confidence of still being needed. People who keep working into their 60s report more purpose and stronger social ties, and the mortality benefits are almost certainly tied with that.
It’s also a myth that their best years are behind them. Getting older doesn’t mean less productivity. Data from the Health and Retirement Study reveal that workers on the cusp of retirement earn roughly the economy-wide average. And the fear that older workers crowd out younger ones is unfounded. Decades of cross-country evidence show the opposite: Where older workers stay employed longer, younger workers do better.
Older workers earn, spend and create demand for everyone else’s labor. Experienced workers also pass on knowledge to colleagues through mentorship and on-the-job learning, as well as encourage the flow of new ideas.
This is not an argument that everyone should keep working, and certainly not that the government should push them to stay. There is a real and reasonable question on the other side: At what point is it better to retire and enjoy the years you have, rather than spend them earning more of them? If the job has become a grind, none of the above applies. These longevity gains are hard to separate from the purpose and engagement that make work worth doing in the first place.
The point is not that one more year is always the right answer. It is that the Social Security statement presents a narrower view than the decision they are making.
The second omission from the Social Security statement is less personal but ultimately affects us all. There are approximately 145 million full-time equivalent workers in the U.S. economy who will produce about $32 trillion in goods and services this year. That’s about $220,000 in output for each worker. If each of the 3.8 million Americans who retire every year worked one more year, the U.S. economy would gain approximately $836 billion in output annually.
The total economic gains are even larger — approaching $1 trillion a year — when also accounting for the timing and financing of Social Security and Medicare benefits among those who choose to work one more year and welfare gains.
Not every American should work longer. About 19 percent of workers between 55 and 64 report health-related limitations, and Americans in physically demanding jobs — construction, manufacturing, home health — may not have the option even if they want it. The decision must remain with the worker, and our figure speaks to those who genuinely have the choice.
After 40 years on the job, no one should feel obligated to continue. At the same time, Americans approaching retirement today are healthier and more capable than any generation before them. When they leave the labor force, we all lose something valuable.
Dana Goldman is the founding director of the USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service and Anup Malani is chief economist of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The Schaeffer Center receives funding from foundations, corporations, individuals, an endowment and government agencies, including a contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to conduct economic and policy analysis.
