How to afford retirement in America? Keep working.

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by Richard Eisenberg for Market Watch

Growing numbers of workers now plan to work part-time in retirement — also known as “unretirement” — either because they want to, need to, or both.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2025 Retirement Confidence Survey found that 75% of workers plan to work in retirement, and that 29% of retirees are already doing so.

It’s wholly understandable that so many people expect part-time work will be part of their retirement, and that a record level of retirees are already working part-time. Here’s the recipe: Start with the combination of inadequate retirement savings, longer lives, and the virtual end of private pensions with guaranteed retirement income. Mix in concerns about Social Security’s future ability to pay full retirement benefits, ballooning healthcare costs, and forced retirements by some businesses and the federal government. Then sprinkle on top the thirst of many older adults to find purpose and social engagement after leaving their full-time jobs. Serve up: unretirement.

I’m now more than three years into my own unretirement, and it’s been going quite well. But I think it could be a lot better, and a more viable option, for many others.

Janine Vanderburg, chief executive of Encore Roadmap, a consulting firm advising employers on how to leverage the skills of older workers, said rising prices due to the Trump administration’s tariffs and this year’s stock- and bond-market gyrations are likely to boost the trend toward unretirement as a way to bolster retirees’ finances.

How financial advisers could help people unretire

Financial advisers need to think and work differently to foster this nontraditional but increasingly relevant retirement vision for clients, said Surya Kolluri, head of TIAA Institute, the think tank of financial-services firm TIAA.

How employers could help people unretire

Vanderburg, herself a proud older worker, regularly counsels employers and hiring managers about the usefulness of hiring and hanging on to workers in their 50s, 60s, and beyond. But she often finds that business leaders don’t understand how eager many people are to work part-time in retirement. Her advice to employers and hiring managers: Don’t make assumptions about the people who may be in your talent pool.

Sometimes, Vanderburg said, those assumptions are ageist and even discriminatory. AARP found that 64% of people age 50 and older have either experienced age discrimination in the workplace or have seen it.

How older workers can help themselves unretire

Kerry Hannon, a Yahoo Finance senior columnist and the co-author of the forthcoming book, “Retirement Bites: A Gen X Guide to Securing Your Financial Future”  believes some people in their 50s and 60s could find it easier to unretire if they take a hard look at their finances, ideally a couple of years before leaving their full-time jobs.

That means assessing how much income you’ll receive, and when you’ll start to receive it, from any pensions, retirement accounts, annuities, and Social Security, along with what your expenses are likely to be and how much you’d want to earn working in retirement.

Next, Hannon said, determine whether you need to learn new skills or refresh some you already have in order to make yourself a stronger job candidate in unretirement.