The Number: 52% - Staying on the job

The number

52% — Staying on the Job … Forever?

In the midst of a recession that has taken a heavy toll on many nest eggs, just over half of all working adults ages 50 to 64 say they may delay their retirement — and another 16% say they never expect to stop working, according to a national survey by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project. Overall, 37% of full-time employed adults of all ages say they have thought in the past year about postponing their eventual retirement; this proportion swells to 52% among full-time workers ages 50 to 64. Members of this so-called "Threshold Generation" are twice as likely as younger workers to say they never plan to retire (16% vs. 8%). Moreover, the Thresholders who do plan to retire someday say they plan to keep working, on average, until they are age 66 — when they would be four years older than the age at which current retirees age 65 or older report that they stopped working.