America's Silver-Collar Capitals

Ten cities where people hit retirement age and just keep on trucking

Home prices are in the gutter, and despite the recent rally, stocks are still 30 percent off their 2007 peak, so for many people nearing retirement age, plans to kick back and relax have gone out the window.

To repair their nest eggs, many who were looking forward to retirement have postponed their plans for years.

They might find luck looking for work in our Silver-Collar Capitals -- the 10 cities with the highest percentage of workers aged 62 and older as of 2008, the latest period for which Census data is available.

In all of the top 10 cities, more than a quarter of retirement-age workers still come into the office. (Because of the greater uncertainty in smaller cities, we only looked at cities with senior citizen labor forces above 10,000.)

The Silver-Collar Capitals are spread all across the U.S. In Anchorage, Alaska, 31 percent of seniors still work, the highest rate in the country -- and almost none of the seniors looking for jobs are unable to find one, according to the Census data.

In Washington, D.C., and southern Connecticut, 30 percent and 27 percent, respectively, of seniors are still working. In Washington, that translates to more than 200,000 seniors still in the work force. The Texas cities of Dallas and Houston have sizable silver-collar workforces as well.

State capitals are humming with seniors who are still working: More than a quarter of seniors are still on the job in Des Moines, Iowa; Lincoln, Neb.; Tallahassee, Fla.; and Raleigh, N.C.

The unemployment rate for seniors -- meaning those in the labor force looking for work but unable to find it -- is low. The metro areas for Tallahassee and southern Connecticut had the highest unemployment rate for seniors on this list: only 4.7 percent.

Will the recession cause that rate to spike even higher as more and more seniors try to rebuild retirement assets? Not necessarily, say economists Courtney Coile and Phillip Levine. In a recent paper titled "The Market Crash and Mass Layoffs: How the Current Economic Crisis May Affect Retirement," Coile and Levine found that some people approaching retirement will choose to work more after their retirement accounts decline, but others will retire earlier than expected in the face of a weak labor market.

Coile and Levine predict that, on balance, the weak labor market will cause so many people to retire early that it will offset all the people staying in the job market because of the stock market's fall.

That's good news for those silver-collar seniors looking to rebuild -- a bit less competition in a tough job market.

To find America's Silver-Collar Capitals, we looked at data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2008 American Community Survey. Cities are ranked by the percentage of the population, 62 and over, that are still employed. Unemployment rates show how many seniors are seeking unemployment but have not found it; retirees who are not looking for jobs are not included. All data are for metro areas.

America's Silver-Collar Capitals

© Allan Robichaux / iStockphoto

1. Anchorage, Alaska

Working past retirement age: 31%
Retirement-age unemployment rate: 0%
Total population: 280,829
Working seniors: 10,340

Anchorage employs a higher proportion of people ages 62 and older than any other major city in the U.S. Not only that, but seniors looking for work don't seem to have trouble finding it. In the 2008 census survey, unemployment among seniors was nonexistent.

-- Anchorage, Alaska, Metro Area

© Ben Klaus / iStockphoto

2. Washington, D.C.

Working past retirement age: 30.3%
Retirement-age unemployment rate: 2.9%
Total population: 4,204,375
Working seniors: 205,144

Ninety-one-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, is hardly the only Washingtonian working long past the eligibility age for Social Security. More than 200,000 potential Social Security recipients are still heading to their Washington offices.

-- Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria-Va.-Md.-W.Va., Metro Area

© Denis Jr. Tangney / iStockphoto

3. Southern Connecticut

Working at retirement age: 27.6%
Retirement-age unemployment rate: 4.7%
Total population: 696,822
Working seniors: 39,737

Are hedge funds just too lucrative to walk away from? In the Bridgeport, Conn., metro area, which includes hedge fund capital Greenwich, 27 percent of retirement-age people are still working. Of the 10 metro areas with the most working seniors, southern Connecticut has the highest percentage of seniors who want jobs but can't get them.

-- Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn., Metro Area

© iStockphoto

4. Lincoln, Neb.

Working past retirement age: 27.3%
Retirement-age unemployment rate: 1.2%
Total population: 233,496
Working seniors: 10,290

As home to the state government and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln has been a good place to be for workers of any age during the recession. As of this month, the city had the fourth lowest unemployment rate of anywhere in the country.

-- Lincoln, Neb., Metro Area

© Todd Smith / iStockphoto

5. Lexington, Ky.

Working past retirement age: 26.9%
Retirement-age unemployment rate: 1.8%
Total population: 359,323
Working seniors: 15,994

The thoroughbred race horses that made Lexington famous may not have long careers, but the people in Lexington do, with 27 percent of the city's 60,000 people older than 62 still working.

-- Lexington-Fayette, Ky., Metro Area

See the full list of America's Silver-Collar Capitals