Opinion | 65 Is Not Old Anymore

We have reached Peak 65: There are more than 4.1 million Americans turning 65 each year through 2027, a record surge. Baby boomers will have all sorts of ways to mark the occasion, but underneath the cake and usual Social Security jokes lies the unease about the fact that the birthday boys and girls will now be officially “old.”

American society uses all sorts of markers to define old age. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act began to protect me from ageism in the workplace when I turned 40. I qualified as “near elderly” under the rules of the Department of Housing and Urban Development when I turned 50, and happy day, I started receiving a senior citizen discount at my local Harris Teeter grocery store the day I turned 60 — though for some reason, only on Thursdays.

But if there is a commonly accepted age for becoming old in America, it’s 65. That’s when I will become eligible for Medicare coverage, and it’s been, roughly speaking, the most common retirement age for American men for the last 60 years.

It is strange that we use the calendar in such a deterministic fashion, since we all age so differently. If you’ve met one 70-year-old, you’ve met one 70-year-old. I’m 62, active, healthy and still working. But in the last few weeks, I’ve been shamed on the pickleball court and at the gym by people in their 70s, and also visited with a 70-year-old whose body had betrayed her so much that the simplest acts of showering and toiletry are far beyond her capacities. As life expectancy continues to extend, chronological age is telling us less and less about people’s physical and cognitive abilities.

Sixty-five has long been a generally accepted demarcation for old age. But it’s been with us so long that the definitions make little sense — and now operate to our collective detriment.

Let’s take work and retirement. We have been conditioned to believe that retirement should begin around the age of 65, and that belief holds extraordinary sway over our behaviors and economy. Mandatory retirement has largely been illegal in this country for decades, and yet we treat retiring at age 65 as some sort of biological imperative. The average retirement age for American men in 1962 was a little over 65 (when average life expectancy was 67), and the average retirement age for men in 2022 was a little under 65 (even though their average life expectancy is now about 75).

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