The pandemic forced 3 million of America’s baby boomers into unexpected retirement

Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 5 million people have dropped out of the US labor force. Most of them were baby boomers who took early retirement, an analysis by Miguel Faria e Castro, a senior Federal Reserve economist, suggests.

He compared projected retirement trends for baby boomers to actual retirements to get at the number of people who would likely still be working were it not for covid-19. That figure, known as “excess” retirees, was 3 million from March 2020, when the pandemic started, to August of this year.

Garia e Castro, who works out of the St. Louis Fed, said being more vulnerable to covid-19 might have pushed older Americans to leave their jobs sooner than anticipated. Rising asset prices likely played a role as well, by increasing baby boomer homeowners’ sense of financial stability.

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