Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life

It is impossible to ignore all the gloomy predictions about what will soon happen to the Social Security system in the next two decades. Newspapers, magazines and television news shows are filled with items about the inevitable collapse of the system as the huge baby boom generation leaves the work force and eases its way into a retirement lifestyle largely dependent on monthly Social Security checks. Experts tell us that the system is bound to collapse under the combined weight of a huge increase in the number of beneficiaries and the massive decline in the number of people paying into the system.

Proposed solutions to the problem have generally fallen into two categories, or some combination of the two: increased payroll taxes on those still working and contributing to the system or decreased benefits to those receiving checks. Marc Freedman, in Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life, offers a third possibility. Friedman argues that the system could be saved, requiring no increase in taxes or decreases in benefits, by simply offering incentives to workers to stay in the workforce longer and continuing to pay Social Security taxes and delaying collection of their checks.

Encore serves as a handbook for those nearing the end of their careers either because they have been pushed out the door into an early retirement or because they have become so burned out by their jobs that they leave voluntarily. Freedman knows that, at that point in their lives, many people begin to think about finding the kind of job that they have dreamed about for years while working at something they may not have enjoyed. They often find that they can afford to trade a certain amount of income for more meaningful work and they are anxious to make that trade. But where do they start?

Freedman is suggesting that potential retirees should not settle for the traditional, and usually low paying, “bridge jobs” that are so common today, jobs that are used to ease a person into retirement over a two or three year period. As he points out, there are increasing worker shortages in fields like education, health care, and the non-profit sector, areas in which a person contemplating a career shift in his fifties still has plenty of time to find a meaningful second career. In fact, some are likely to find that their second career will last almost as long as their first one.

Of course none of this will be possible unless employers and the government join together to make it possible for older workers to stay in the work force. Employers need to understand that retaining, rather than discarding, experienced workers is good for business because that experience will be almost impossible to replace from a shrinking pool of potential employees. The government must offer incentives to workers to keep working at least to their normal retirement age of 65-67 years of age so that Social Security taxes can continue to be collected from them. Those who work beyond that age should be exempt from paying Social Security taxes because, by simply not drawing from the system, they are helping to keep in solvent.

Encore is filled with inspirational stories told in their own words by people who have carved out meaningful second careers for themselves. The book’s appendix is filled with suggestions on how to begin a second career and has contact information for organizations in several fields that offer information and advice on how to do just that. This is an important book.

Rated at: 4.0