This city has become a front line in a generational battle for jobs, as older workers increasingly compete against applicants in their 20s for positions at supermarkets, McDonald’s and dozens of other places. And older workers seem to be winning.
With unemployment at a 26-year high and many older workers chasing entry-level jobs like those they held a half-century ago, 70 has become the new 20, as one economist put it.
Millions of older Americans have delayed retirement because of plummeting 401(k)s, soaring health costs, a sense that Social Security benefits alone are too little to live on or all of the above. This delay, economists say, has made it harder for millions of young workers to climb onto the first rung or two of the career ladder, especially since many employers favor hiring applicants with a track record.
“The boomers are staying in the system longer, and that’s clogging the system,” said Mason Jackson, president of Workforce One, a federally funded agency that helps Broward County’s unemployed. “Many want to retire, but they can’t.”
He characterized the dominant attitude among employers now as: “In with the old and out with the new.”
Along the ocean beaches and the Intracoastal Waterway here, retirees in condominiums have long coexisted with a much younger generation, but in the depressed job market, tensions have swelled as each group complains that employers improperly favor the other.
