Over 55 and jobless, Americans face tough hunt

Jean Coyle, 67, has a new kind of ministry.
The former professor had just begun a career as a Presbyterian minister in Virginia when the economic downturn forced her church to let her go in 2007. After that, she found only temporary work. She relied on savings while job hunting, but at 64, had to dip into her Social Security benefits. She officially retired in 2010.
For spending money, she plans to start teaching a water aerobics class to earn $40 a week. "I'm not going to get wealthy on that," she said. "It's not really the ministry I expected to have." Coyle is among the many unemployed, older Americans who, while struggling to reenter the workforce, have growing worries that their retirement security is at risk.
The number of long-term unemployed workers aged 55 and older has more than doubled since the recession began in late 2007. Getting back to work is increasingly difficult, according to a government report being released on Tuesday. For unemployed seniors, the chances of reentering the workforce are grim.
Experts worry that unemployed seniors face a long-term threat as the impact of lost wages compounds. In what should be their prime earning years, these older workers rely on savings, miss out on potential wages and prematurely tap into Social Security - all at a time when Americans live longer and health care and other living costs are rising.
About 55 percent of jobless seniors, or 1.1 million, have been unemployed for more than six months, up from 23 percent, or less than 200,000, four years earlier, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Tuesday. The GAO, a non-partisan investigative arm of Congress, also found that years of lost work significantly reduced retirement income, particularly for those with defined contribution retirement plans.
Overall, older workers fare better than their younger counterparts, with a lower unemployment rate and less risk of losing jobs, the GAO found, even as it highlighted the struggles of jobless seniors. "While Americans were hit hard by this recession, the ramifications for older workers were particularly severe," Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, said at a Tuesday hearing in which the report was released.
Those seniors who continue looking for work amid a tepid economic recovery confront competition from younger, cheaper workers. They also must keep pace with ever-changing technology. Kohl and other lawmakers are investigating ways to counter age discrimination and boost seniors' job prospects. "Left unchecked, long-term unemployment among older workers is a problem that will continue to grow as our workforce grays," he said.