A longer working life could help economic goals, but not all workers have the flexibility to delay retirement.
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Key Takeaways
Some economists say adding older workers may not boost productivity and that output isn’t the only measure that matters.
The Idea Behind Working 1 More Year—and the $3 Trillion Claim
Dr. Oz wants workers to delay retirement so they can generate more value for the U.S. economy.
At an event last month, Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, suggested that if Americans worked an additional year, it would help reduce the federal debt and keep Medicare and Social Security solvent.
“Medicare doesn’t hit you until age 65, so [many Americans] are retiring before they get Medicare benefits, before Social Security kicks in,” Oz said. “If we could get the average American—because they feel healthy, they’re vital, they’re strong [and] have agency over their future—to start working a year earlier out of high school or work a year later before they retire … it would generate $3 trillion to the U.S. economy.”
What This Means For You
Even if working longer could benefit the economy, it may not be realistic for everyone. Health challenges or job changes can make delaying retirement difficult.
Would Working Longer Actually Boost the Economy?
Data from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR) indicates that, as of 2024, the average retirement age was 62.6 for men and 64.6 for women.
However, some experts, like Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at the New School who has studied proposals to encourage people to work longer, disagree with the idea that working longer will help boost the economy.
“If you’re adding workers whose productivity is falling [because they’re older] and not fully employing younger people, you’re not gaining productivity,” Ghilarducci said in a December 2024 interview with Investopedia. “We would have a higher GDP if seven-year-olds worked, but we’ve decided our economy’s wealth is not just dependent upon our output, but our quality of life.”
Americans Are Already Retiring Later—But That Trend May Be Reaching Its Limits
Over the past few decades, the average retirement age has increased due to factors like rising life expectancies, a decline in physically demanding jobs, and an increase in the full retirement age for Social Security.
When Americans do leave the workforce before age 65, many middle-class retirees report doing so for employment-related reasons (54%), while 31% cite health-related reasons, according to a 2025 Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies survey.
As for whether people will work longer in the future, Alicia Munnell, a senior advisor at the CRR, has pointed out that the average retirement age is unlikely to budge unless there are incentives for people to work longer.
“The gains to date in working longer have been great, but we probably have gone as far as we can go without some new development to change people’s incentives,” Munnell wrote in a 2025 report.
Read the original article on Investopedia