Holly Morris Espy retired two years ago after more than 25 years as a reporter and anchor at WTTG in Washington, D.C.
But the 55-year-old didn’t really retire.
“I graduated,” she told Yahoo Finance.
Last year, Espy co-founded Moorlow, an upscale athleisure apparel line for women with two friends. For her, leaving television wasn’t about slowing down. It was about pivoting to something new.
“The moment you announce you’re retiring, everyone assumes the goal is to stop,” Espy said. “To finally lounge. To finally not have to work. That was never my mindset.”
Espy is part of a growing wave of older Americans who are “unretiring” — returning to work after stepping away from their careers. Some come back because they miss the community or intellectual engagement. Others want a renewed sense of purpose.
But increasingly, the biggest driver is money.
People are returning to work for a range of reasons, according to AARP research, but nearly half said financial pressures pushed them back. Roughly 48% cited everyday living costs or concerns about the economy, while 28% said they retired too early.
And retirement itself is becoming harder to afford. Among those surveyed who are working or looking for work, more than 4 in 10 said their biggest motivation is daily living costs.
“As the job market heated up coming out of the pandemic, combined with the rising cost of living during that 2022 and 2023 period, unretirement hit a peak,” Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, an economics professor at Boston College, told Yahoo Finance. “More than 7% of previously retired people ages 55 to 64 returned to work.”
Today, roughly 6% of retirees are back on the job, according to Sanzenbacher’s research. It might be higher. AARP’s data showed 7% of retirees recently reentered the labor force.
“It reflects that it’s getting expensive to live and to stay retired,” he said.
Work — ‘the only realistic way’ to navigate rising costs
Once workers leave full-time employment, their income can fall sharply.
In 2024, the median income of fully retired Americans over age 65 was roughly $26,770 a year, according to labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci. Half of older Americans received less than about $20,500 annually from Social Security.
“That the median income of retired Americans is under $30,000 per year is why many retirees try to unretire,” Ghilarducci said. “Work is often the only realistic way to increase income after retirement.”
Older job seekers today, however, face a brutal labor market. During the post-pandemic labor boom, retirees had an easier time landing a job.
“In 2022, there were rising costs and a ton of jobs,” Sanzenbacher said. “In 2026, there are rising costs and not a ton of jobs.”
That creates a harsh reality for retirees trying to jump back in.
Education matters. Workers with college degrees are disproportionately more likely to successfully reenter the workforce, Sanzenbacher noted.
Then there’s the issue of ageism. AARP research found that two-thirds of workers over 50 believe it would be difficult to find a new job in today’s market. Nearly a third blame age discrimination as the main obstacle.
They may not be wrong.
According to a recent report, in general employers said whether someone is too old to work or be hired depends on the person. When pressed to pinpoint an age, many said workers are considered “too old” to work at a median age of 68. When it comes to hiring, the median “too old to hire” age drops to 65.
“The good news is that most employers say that it depends on the person,” said Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of the nonprofit Transamerica Institute and Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, the publisher of those findings. “However, among the employers that gave a specific age, the survey findings are quite telling in that they reveal age-related biases.”
Pro tip: Don’t undersell your ‘power skills’
Older workers do have advantages in today’s hiring market, even amid the angst about the demand for AI savvy.
Eight in 10 human resource professionals say their biggest hiring challenge is finding candidates with communication skills, judgment, decision-making ability, critical thinking, and time management, according to a new report from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Nearly two-thirds of HR professionals said it was difficult to find candidates with these “power skills.”
“The focus on critical thinking and decision making is good news for candidates who have decades of experience to draw from,” said Leanne Rodd, chief talent officer at FlexProfessionals, a recruiting and staffing firm.
“The key is not to undersell it,” she said. “Don’t assume a hiring manager will infer those skills from your titles or years of experience.”
Instead, older job seekers should clearly explain how they solved problems, adapted during challenges, and made decisions under pressure.
“A candidate who can walk you through their thinking and actions — and explain how they course-corrected during the process — has an advantage in today’s hiring process,” Rodd said.
That said, you can’t be complacent about showing off what you can do right now with up-to-date skills, Collinson added.
One emerging solution may also help: “returnships.”
These paid, short-term programs are designed for experienced professionals reentering the workforce after taking extended career breaks. Only about 9% of HR professionals say their organizations currently offer returnship programs, according to SHRM. But among companies that do, more than 8 in 10 say the programs are effective at addressing talent shortages.
Several major companies have embraced the concept, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, Moody’s, and Lockheed Martin.
“Returnship programs have consistently high conversion rates — the percentage of participants hired when the returnship completes — averaging around 85%,” said Carol Fishman Cohen, CEO and co-founder of iRelaunch.
Hiring for a designated period of time in order to get a sample of someone’s work “de-risks the hiring process for skeptical managers,” she added.
Cohen expects these programs to grow as many Americans grapple with rising costs and longer life spans.
Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist and the author of 14 books, including “Retirement Bites: A Gen X Guide to Securing Your Financial Future,” “In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work,” and “Never Too Old to Get Rich.” Follow her on Bluesky and X.
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