The pandemic-induced Great Retirement has resulted in the United States having roughly 2 million more retirees than predicted, Bloomberg reported.

That number is derived from the divergence between the actual number of retirees and the number predicted by a Federal Reserve economic model. While the divergence was up to 2.8 million late last year, it remains high and has even risen from 1.7 million in June.

St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank researchers estimated in June that there were approximately 2.4 million excess retirees in the United States in April 2023. One of the authors of that study, Miguel Faria e Castro, told Bloomberg that, as of September of this year, “we estimate about 1.98 million excess retirees.”

The participation rate for workers 65 and older is 19.3 percent, below the pre-pandemic high of 20.8 percent. To counteract worker shortages, Michigan modified a state law to make it easier for teachers to “un-retire” without risking their pensions.

Bloomberg reported that a projected wave of “un-retirement” never materialized. Older Americans who retire tend to stay retired. While some may miss their jobs or want to resume work for financial reasons, they may find that rejoining the workforce is not easy.

In 2022, the mean duration to find a job for people 65 and older was 31.6 weeks, nine weeks longer than the overall average. Before the pandemic, from 2017 to 2019, roughly 3 percent of retired workers on average got a job a year later.

To learn about ways business owners can benefit by using the ideal qualified retirement plan for their business, attend the Foundation for Accounting Education's Rockland Chapter: 2023 Tax Planning Using Qualified Retirement Plans Tech Session Webinar on Nov. 14.