Employment Support for the Transition to Retirement

As workers near retirement, many experience a medical event that limits the ability to work. Public programs provide health insurance and income support for these individuals, but that support is often not adequate to protect against poverty following the onset of a new health condition. Moreover, these policies generally are not designed to encourage continuing work rather than premature retirement. In this article, we propose a new type of program—Employment Support for the Transition to Retirement—designed to encourage older workers with health limitations to remain in the workforce, reducing their reliance on federal disability and early retirement benefits. We illustrate that a simple version of this type of program could significantly reduce poverty in the target population, would cost less per participant than existing programs, and could potentially contribute to greater economic security and reduced growth in federal expenditures as an element of social security policy reforms.