Still Working: Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Over 65 Are Employed, and in Some Metros It's More Than 1 in 4

Still Working: Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Over 65 Are Employed, and in Some Metros It's More Than 1 in 4

How many Americans are still on the job past 65, and does it depend on where they live? Across the country's largest metro areas, the share of people past traditional retirement age who remain in the workforce varies by a factor of more than two, and over the past decade it has risen almost everywhere.

Nationally, 18.9% of Americans aged 65 and over are employed. That is 11,566,481 people out of a population of 61,245,283, nearly 1 in 5. But the national figure conceals a wide local spread: at metro level, the share ranges from 12.5% to 27.0%.

According to Pew Research, 56% of workers aged 65 and over said they work both because they need the money and because they want to, 26% said mainly because they want to, and 17% said mainly because they need the money.

Sam's List, a directory and marketplace for financial professionals, compared the share of people aged 65 and over who are employed across America's 100 largest metro areas, and ranked metros by how much that share changed over the decade.

Key findings

• Nearly 1 in 5 Americans aged 65 and over are employed: 11,566,481 people, or 18.9% of the 61,245,283 population in that age group.

• Greater Bridgeport, Connecticut, has the highest share of working over-65s at 27.0%, while Lakeland, Florida has the lowest at 12.5%. 

• Of the 97 largest metros with comparable data, the share of over-65s working has risen in 88 since 2014 and fallen in 9. The largest fall, in Oklahoma City, was only 1.1 points.

• McAllen, Texas recorded the largest relative rise, from 10.5% to 15.1%, meaning 43.8% more over-65s are working than a decade ago.

• A working over-65 is 2.71 times as likely to be self-employed as a worker aged 25 to 39 (19.9% versus 7.3%).

• Farmers and ranchers have the oldest workforce of any US occupation, with 32.2% aged 65 or over, 14 times the share among software developers (2.3%).

• Florida holds four of the ten lowest-ranked metros for over-65 employment, yet three of the ten fastest risers over the decade are also in Florida.

The metros with the highest and lowest shares of working over-65s

Greater Bridgeport, Connecticut leads the ranking, with 27.0% of residents aged 65 and over still employed. The Washington DC metro area follows at 25.1%, and Greater Boston at 24.7%. In Bridgeport, more than 1 in 4 residents over 65 is in work.

At the other end, Lakeland, Florida records the lowest share at 12.5%, followed by the Daytona Beach area of Florida at 14.4% and Stockton, California at 14.9%.

The 14.5-point gap between first and last place means an over-65 resident of Bridgeport is 2.17 times as likely to be working as one in Lakeland. The equivalent gap at state level is only 1.70 times, from New Hampshire (23.5%) to West Virginia (13.8%), meaning state-level data hides about a third of the local variation.

In raw numbers, the largest populations of working over-65s are in the New York metro area (773,721 people), the Los Angeles metro area (453,755), the Chicago metro area (326,900) and the Miami metro area (268,811).

Where the share has risen most since 2014

Of the 97 metros with comparable 2014 data, 88 have a higher share of over-65s working than a decade ago, and 9 have a lower one. Every fall is small. Oklahoma City recorded the largest, from 19.6% to 18.5%, and seven of the nine fell by half a point or less.

The largest relative rise is in McAllen, Texas, where the share climbed from 10.5% to 15.1%, a 43.8% increase, even though the metro still ranks 96th of 100 on level. Winston-Salem, North Carolina follows, up 39.6% from 13.4% to 18.7%.

Who over-65s work for

Two-thirds of working over-65s, 66.1%, are employed by a private company. One in five, 19.9%, is self-employed, 13.7% work for government, and 0.3% work unpaid in a family business.

Among employed 25 to 39-year-olds, 7.3% are self-employed. A working over-65 is therefore 2.71 times as likely to work for themselves as a worker in that age group.

Self-employment among over-65s is highest in Boise, Idaho (27.4%), the San Francisco metro area (27.0%) and San Diego, California (26.0%), and lowest in Augusta, Georgia (12.5%), Baton Rouge, Louisiana (13.0%) and Buffalo, New York (13.1%). Los Angeles alone has 113,757 self-employed workers aged 65 and over.

The jobs with the oldest workforces

National occupation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows which jobs Americans are most likely to still hold past 65. Farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers have the oldest workforce of any occupation: 32.2% are aged 65 or over, nearly five times the 7.0% average across all occupations. School bus drivers follow at 27.1%, then clergy at 20.2% and transit and intercity bus drivers at 19.8%.

By headcount, the largest single group of working over-65s is the catch-all category of managers not classified elsewhere (469,000). Among named occupations, the largest are driver/sales workers and truck drivers (320,000), farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers (261,000), retail salespersons (261,000), janitors and building cleaners (242,000) and chief executives (235,000).

At the other end of the scale, 2.3% of software developers are 65 or over, as are 4.4% of elementary and middle school teachers and 4.4% of cooks. The share of farmers past 65 is 14 times that of software developers.

Bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks skew older than the national workforce, with 13.5% aged 65 or over (169,000 people) and a median age of 49.8. Accountants and auditors are at 8.4% (148,000 people), also above the 7.0% all-occupation average.

The oldest jobs, city by city

The national occupation pattern does not hold locally. Farmers top the national table, but in most large metros too few farmers appear in the survey sample to measure. Where they do, they lead in only one metro with publishable data: the Twin Cities, at 18.4%. Every large metro has a different answer.

The New York metro area's oldest workforce is its crossing guards and flaggers, 47.8% of whom are 65 or over, followed by school bus drivers at 29.4% and clergy at 26.7%. Clergy lead the Washington DC metro area at 42.4%. Real estate brokers and sales agents top the San Francisco metro area at 25.0%, while the Miami metro area's oldest workforces are postsecondary teachers (17.9%), lawyers and judges (16.8%) and physicians (16.7%).

Bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks rank among the three oldest occupations in nine major metros, including San Francisco (24.4%), Tampa (21.3%), San Diego (20.7%), Boston (19.2%) and Washington DC (16.1%). New York alone has 13,669 bookkeeping clerks and 12,966 accountants aged 65 and over still in work.

Which states have the most and fewest working over-65s

At state level, New Hampshire has the highest share of working over-65s at 23.5%, and West Virginia the lowest at 13.8%. The largest populations of working over-65s are in California (1,271,397), Texas (886,816), Florida (875,878) and New York (744,080). State figures are for 2024 only.

Methodology

Sam's List compared the share of people aged 65 and over who are employed across America's 100 largest metro areas, using US Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates for 2014 and 2024 (table B23001, Sex by Age by Employment Status). The share is calculated as employed people aged 65 and over divided by the civilian population aged 65 and over. All 371 US metro areas were computed; the 100 largest are published. Puerto Rico is excluded. Changes are the plain difference between the 2014 and 2024 estimates.

National occupation figures are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey, 2025 annual averages, table 11b. Only occupations with 50,000 or more workers aged 65 and over are included, and group totals are excluded so nothing is counted twice; 58 occupations qualify. Metro-level occupation and employment-type figures were computed from ACS 2024 Public Use Microdata Sample individual records, with a minimum of 30 unweighted records behind any published figure. The employment-type extract differs from the published ACS total by 0.2%.

The figures on reasons for working are from the Pew Research Center report How Americans View Their Jobs (December 2024), based on a survey of workers aged 65 and over conducted in October 2023; they are Pew's findings, not part of this analysis.