Census Also Finds Major Language Obstacles for Many
By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Squeezed by soaring health-care costs and dwindling pensions, ever more Americans are choosing to postpone retirement -- and the Washington region leads the nation when it comes to working past age 65, according to census figures released today.
The annual survey of 3 million households nationwide also found that 24 percent of immigrant households don't speak English and revealed stark differences between the socioeconomic status of Asian and Latin American immigrants. The 2006 American Community Survey of social, economic and housing information reaffirmed that the Washington region ranks among the nation's leaders in education levels, time spent commuting and median home values.
But the sharp spike in the percentage of workers 65 and older was the survey's most remarkable finding. Nationally, the share of people 65 to 74 who were still working jumped from one in five in 2000 to one in four in 2006. And the percentage was even higher in the Washington region, where about one-third of people in that age range continued to work.
Henry Behrens of Alexandria has already retired once -- in 1990, after a military career -- but says he doesn't plan to retire a second time.
"Being handsome doesn't pay the bills," said the white-haired Behrens, 63, who has worked for more than a dozen years as a security guard.
Eileen Masters, an assistant principal at St. Pius X Regional School in Bowie, said she never imagined she'd still be working at 70. Then her husband left her and one of her sons became too ill to work -- and Masters found that retirement was not an option.
"I purchased a townhouse pretty recently, so the payments are still high," Masters said. "Also, I worry a lot because my son doesn't have health insurance. If I didn't have these situations, I'd have retired by now."
Although census statistics offer little insight into the motivation of these older workers, researchers say other data suggest that Masters isn't the only one driven by necessity rather than choice.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the number of private sector workers eligible for an employer retirement plan has dropped from 52 percent to 43 percent since 2000, while rising housing costs have cut into workers' personal savings, according to Christian Weller, a professor at the University of Massachusetts and senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. Since the early 1990s, employers have also severely curtailed the health insurance coverage they offer retirees.
"People are simply hanging on to their job as a way to hang on to their income and to their health insurance so they can supplement their Medicare coverage," Weller said.
But more positive influences might contribute to the Washington region's top ranking for non-retired seniors. They include the propensity of highly skilled, intellectual workers to remain engaged in their fields beyond retirement age, as well as the introduction of laws prohibiting age discrimination and making it easier to draw Social Security when working past retirement age.
Murray Smith, who lives in Alexandria and admits only to being in his 70s, said he would like to continue publishing his magazine for professional pilots "for another 100 years."
"I see a lot of retirees getting bored, but I'll never be," said Smith, who added that his friends urge him to sell his magazine and retire to Florida. "My magazine is not for sale. It's my life. It keeps me happy."
Whatever the cause, the trend toward older workers is all the more portentous because the first members of the baby-boom generation, born in the two decades after World War II, are just four years from retirement age. By 2030, about 20 percent of the population is projected to be 65 or older, compared with 12 percent today.
Although Weller predicted this could give rise to an ever larger pool of elderly workers, he said it was unlikely that they would reduce opportunities for younger workers, who will enter the workforce at lower-level positions.
A more pressing challenge reported in the census data could be the majority of foreign-born residents nationwide who speak English "less than very well." The issue is particularly salient in immigrant-heavy places such as the Washington area, where nearly one of five residents is foreign-born -- with the share reaching almost 30 percent in Montgomery and Fairfax counties.
About 44 percent of the region's foreign-born have trouble speaking English, and in one-fourth of local foreign-born households, members' English is so limited that the Census Bureau has labeled them "linguistically isolated." Add in the 1.4 percent of native-born residents (generally children of immigrants) who speak English poorly, and the result is that nearly one in 10 area residents, foreign-born or otherwise, speaks English "less than very well," as the census described it.
Census data are more limited at the county level, but here, too, the survey found that 13 percent or more of immigrants in Fairfax, Prince William and Montgomery counties, as well as in the city of Alexandria, spoke English less than very well.
One explanation might be that more than 30 percent of the region's immigrants entered the United States after 2000, a figure that increases to more than 40 percent in Alexandria and Arlington County.
The data also show that the linguistic problems are more pronounced among immigrants born in Latin America than those from Asia. Locally, 43 percent of Asian-born people have difficulty speaking English, compared with 56 percent of Latin American-born residents. The difference is even greater at the national level, with 47 percent of Asian-born people reporting English difficulty, compared with 65 percent of those born in Latin American.
Locally and nationally, the Asian-born register far higher than the Latin American-born on every socioeconomic scale. Fifty-eight percent of the area's Asian-born residents have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with 19 percent of the Latin American-born. Fifty-five percent of the Asian-born work in managerial or professional jobs, compared with 20 percent of the Latin American-born.
"There really are two types of immigrants in the United States, and I think it points to the fact that there can't be one-size-fits-all policies to address immigration issues," said Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau, who prepared a report analyzing the differences between the two groups.
The linguistic difficulties faced by Latin American immigrants are particularly worrisome because "they don't just create hurdles for the immigrants who are trying to get jobs or services," Mather said. "It's some of the reason there's a backlash against recent immigrants in a lot of places, and it also creates issues for the children of immigrants whose parents may not be able to interact well with the school system. . . . In the future, this could really create a major divide between minority groups."
Staff writer Pamela Constable contributed to this report.
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