The 401(k) plan is exhausted, savings have shriveled and that monthly Social Security payout doesn’t come close to covering basic monthly expenses. In Florida and elsewhere around the U.S.
, many retirees are gravitating toward the same solution: They’re “unretiring” and heading back to work. Fort Lauderdale ranks fourth and Hollywood ninth among U.S.
cities with the most working seniors, a national survey has found. And other large metropolitan areas in Florida such as Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville aren’t far behind..
“Whether it’s due to delaying retirement or ‘unretiring,’ one in four seniors in Fort Lauderdale are still participating in the workforce,” said Collin Czarnecki, researcher for LLC.org., a Nevada-based online service provider for small business that surveyed 170 U.
S. cities. “That’s higher than the national average, which is 18%.
” Of a total senior population of 34,756, there are 9,149 or 26.3% employed in Fort Lauderdale. Their median household income: $50,078.
In Hollywood, the survey placed the senior population at 31,526 with 7,814 or 24.8% still on the job. Their median household income is listed at $37,422.
Pembroke Pines came in 95th with 6,526 or 18.9% of its reported 34,541 seniors working. The income median among seniors is listed as $44,024.
Nationally, nearly one in five seniors aged 65 and over are still in the workforce, which is more than 10.6 million people, Czarnecki said. CareerSource Broward, which is part of a statewide system of job search and career development agencies, has encountered similar results when measuring the size of the area’s senior workforce, said President and CEO Carol Hylton.
“The percentage of all seniors 65-plus (working) in Broward is 23.5%,” she said. Traffic among senior citizens aged 62 and above seeking help from CareerSource offices is substantially on the rise.
Job seekers are pursuing roles in office and administrative support, transportation, sales and food preparation “We have seen a growth of 14.5% in the past year,” Hylton said. “Sometimes people want to get back to work for socialization.
They are able to share their talents and be out and about and meet people and have relationships. It’s another way to interact with people.” But the rising cost of living is the main driver.
Senior citizens, among other things, are fighting housing affordability costs driven upward by rising condo assessments, higher rents and maintenance costs, and back-breaking insurance premiums on multiple fronts. Julia Dattolo, president and CEO of CareerSource Palm Beach, said the reasons for returning to the workforce “can be grouped into three main categories: economic necessity, desire for social interactions, and personal interest.” The trend, she said, is known as the “Quiet Return.
” “We see our mature clients coming into our centers to seek part-time employment to supplement their retirement income because of their increased living expenses, insurance premiums, and even rent/HOA fees,” Dattolo said. She agreed with Hylton that seniors also want to stay connected: “Some clients want to return to part-time employment to stay connected with people, socialize, and have mental stimulation,” she said. Howard Fleischer, director of special services at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center in Davie, said his organization is seeing an increase in senior citizens visiting the JCC’s free lunch program, which operates on a grant from the state Department of Elder Affairs.
“We have noticed more seniors this summer attending lunch than in past summers,” he said. “Usually our numbers go up when the snowbirds come down.” “Our program helps our seniors indirectly with the rising costs through the programs and speakers we offer,” he said.
”Our program is designed to combat loneliness, get out of the house, (and) interact with others.” “We know food costs have been on the rise for a long time,” he said. “For some people this may be their only meal for the day.
” “I know some of them don’t even have air conditioning,” Fleischer added.. “Spending the day here — it helps.
” Barry Schoen, a retired Vietnam veteran, had to return to work due to the cost of living in South Florida. He has a wife and a special-needs adult child. Even with retirement payments coming from two sources, he was unable to make ends meet.
He is now working as an intern at the CareerSource Broward’s center in Coconut Creek, helping the unemployed find jobs and apply for unemployment benefits. A former resident of Batavia, N.Y.
, he said he retired at 62 after working in the auto industry. Prior to that he served 17 years in the military working in administration. “My plan was to come to Florida — we had been here before,” he said.
His wife, who has health issues, needs her medications compounded, which is expensive. His son, 43, cannot live independently. .
Schoen worked at a marine supply service in Fort Lauderdale until 2020, and left after being given a five-day-a-week delivery route to Key West as a condition of continued employment. He declined. Then came the COVID pandemic.
Schoen said he upgraded his computer skills and later landed his job at CareerSource. “You have a lot of people in their 50s and 60s out there looking for work now,” he said, adding he knows a woman who at 82 works as a cashier at Office Max. “The economy is so costly.
You get four items in the grocery bag today and it’s 40 bucks,” he said. “My wife’s meds are astronomical. My son is not working.
We’re trying to get him medically qualified for the Social Security system. I can’t put him on a bus to go to work because you never know if he’s going to come home.” Santiago Matheus, a retired investment banker who lives in Dania Beach, says he will turn 80 in January — and he’s in search of a job.
“I am extremely healthy and I want to keep busy,” he said. “But the main reason is I need the money.” “I’m looking for something simple,” he said.
“I am going to visit a couple of the casinos. It’s a very clean environment and seems to be very safe.” His children live in far-flung places: London, Virginia, and Vancouver.
“I have six grandchildren who all live far away.” A South Florida resident since 2003, Matheus said he lived on the upscale Brickell Key in Miami. Life unraveled in the wake of some ill-advised business deals.
He filed for personal bankruptcy. “I lost everything,” he said. “I made a couple of bad investments.
My children helped me. I don’t want to be a burden. I just want enough to meet my needs.
” Chad Van Horn, a Fort Lauderdale bankruptcy lawyer who helped Matheus through his case, said his firm is seeing more senior citizens appearing in his offices. “I am seeing a lot of retirees filing for bankruptcy,” he said. “Part of it is the cost of living increases and they have to go back to work just to survive.
Social Security and whatever retirement they have is just not keeping up. They were relying on IRAs (Independent Retirement Accounts) and 401(k’s).” By the time they seek legal help, Van Horn said, “they have already liquidated their retirement funds.
” People need to accept that their spending habits need to change as incomes diminish in retirement while living expenses go up, he said. “They don’t want to make cuts in other parts of their lives, and it becomes a budgetary issue,” Van Horn said. ”It’s hard to go back to eating at McDonald’s if you’re eating at Morton’s.
And even McDonald’s is getting expensive now.” Sonia Toledo, 60, is a 32-year employee of Sky Chef, which prepares meals for airlines serving Miami International Airport. She wants to retire early, but can’t afford it.
“When one comes to this country, one comes with the idea of working to a certain point,” said Toledo, a native of the Dominican Republic and a member of Unite Here Local 355, which represents aviation and hospitality industry workers in South Florida. But as the early retirement age draws closer, there is less of a possibility of making an early exit from the workforce. Toledo says she is sending money to family members in Santo Domingo.
and the last year has been particularly hard. She buried both her mother and her husband, broke an arm and lost a lot of time at work. “At the moment the company is paying $15 (per hour) which is not enough to pay the insurance including medical, which is nothing.
Miami is becoming very hard to live — very costly,” she said. “It’s pushing people out.” Robert Colton, 72, is a physician who founded Thema Brain Health at The Research Park at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
He says he isn’t doing it for the money. Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are all emerging as burdens on the nation’s aging population, Colton said. Thema Brain Health, a recent startup, focuses on cognitive decline and the early detection and treatment of those diseases.
“Everybody is going to want to know early on whether they have it or what the likelihood is of Alzheimer’s,” he said, “I wanted to be in that space. There is a shortage of neurologists to handle the huge influx of patients that is coming.” He says he’s not in it for the money.
In 2011, Colton says, he sold a medical practice and retired at 59. “I was financially secure at that point and certainly did not need to work so I tried not working and played golf,” he said. “It was kind of a failure for me.
” Then he founded a dermatology business with his wife. It has grown and continues to thrive, he said. “I really wasn’t needed,” Colton said, so he turned his attention to brain health, which has become a hot topic in medicine, particularly for the elderly population.
“I think it keeps me sharp,” Colton said. “I’m having a great time working with young people and learning a lot, and I read a lot about the cause of cognitive decline. I’m sharing my knowledge with people.
I’m not going to do a business just to make money. I want to do a business that will help.” “There is a lot of work done now to understand how this disease came to be,” he said.
When visitors arrive, they can view this snippet of advice from a sign on an office wall: “Aging is inevitable. Cognitive decline is not.”.
