For the first time in U.S. history, there are more Americans over 62 than under 18. With the national workforce getting older every year, many economists argue that having people keep working longer than they used to would help maintain a robust labor market.
But it can be hard for many older adults to stay employed past the age of 62, the year they typically become eligible for early Social Security retirement benefits, even when their health is good. In part that’s because approximately half of full-time workers in their early 50s lose their jobs involuntarily by the time they turn 65, possibly due to age bias and discrimination. And because it is much harder for workers over 50 to get hired than their younger counterparts, many of those older Americans exit the labor force before they’re ready to retire when they unexpectedly become unemployed.
As gerontological social work researchers, we have conducted multiple studies on the career aspirations, workplace experiences and civic engagement of older adults.
We’re concerned about the fate of a federal program that helps low-income and unemployed adults age 55 and older get help with employment. The Trump administration has not released more than $300 million in funds – typically disbursed in May – to its grantees in 2025 from the Senior Community Service Employment Program.
And the Trump administration proposes that no money be spent on it at all in the 2026 fiscal year. The effects of this defunding are already rippling across the country, from Florida to Oregon.
Job training for older adults
This federal program has been running since 1965. It provides on-the-job training to people over the age of 55 who are unemployed and have incomes at or below 125% of the federal poverty level, which in 2025 means $19,563 for singles and $26,438 for couples.
The approximately 40,000 older workers who have benefited from it annually in recent years have earned their area’s prevailing minimum wage as a stipend while working part time. With some exceptions, workers can remain in the program for up to four years, but the average tenure was less than half that in 2022, around 22 months.
The program funds job training that takes place at nonprofits and government agencies, such as Goodwill Industries, Easterseals, local social services agencies, and the network of public and nonprofit agencies that serve older adults and their caregivers around the country, called Area Agencies on Aging.
The Department of Labor funds the program through direct grants to states, as well as grants to 20 national nonprofits, which in turn work with local organizations to recruit older adults and train them to do jobs like clerical, janitorial and customer service roles in all 50 states, Washington and U.S. territories. In most cases, at least 75% of federal funds must go directly to wages and benefits for participants, with the payments usually being made by the local and statewide organizations that recruit the participants and place them into host agencies.
Benefits for individuals and communities
This program helps older Americans balance their checkbooks, enjoy better health and engage more regularly with their own communities.
Many participants consider it a lifeline because it helps them to pay their bills and gives them a sense of purpose. For older adults who have trouble finding jobs, the program gets them out of their homes and back into their communities while boosting their self-esteem.
Once they’re trained, many of them find jobs – as many as 26%, according to the most recently posted estimates from the Department of Labor, and up to 38% in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic upended the economy and labor markets.
For some participants, the government-supported employment becomes an avenue out of homelessness, a way to boost mental health or an activity that strengthens their relationships.
Through working for the government or nonprofits, participants in this program also learn about other ways they can get help, whether it’s accessing affordable health insurance or other job-training opportunities.
The program’s benefits outweigh its costs at the federal level, the Urban Institute has found. And the government and nonprofit agencies that host these older workers are better able to serve their local communities, partly because the program’s participants often share information about the services they learn about with their relatives and friends.
On the chopping block
In the summer of 2025, Senior Community Service Employment Program grant recipients across the country began to furlough their staff. Program participants have exited ahead of schedule, and prospective participants are missing out on job-training opportunities that would have otherwise been available to them.
The White House said it left the program out of its proposed 2026 budget due to what it said was a failure at moving older workers into unsubsidized employment.
We question this rationale because it ignores the constraints that federal regulations place onto the Senior Community Service Employment Program.
Its grantees are required to enroll unemployed and low-income older adults who have trouble getting jobs. Many can’t find work due to severe disabilities, limited literacy, trouble speaking English, homelessness, being 75 or older, having formerly been incarcerated and other challenges.
To require a program designed to help people who are inherently going to have the most trouble landing jobs – and then to criticize it because all of its participants do not successfully and quickly wind up employed – is a Catch-22. The mission and purpose of the program make that expectation unrealistic.
There’s another Catch-22.
On one hand, the Trump administration has mandated work requirements for health insurance coverage through Medicaid and introduced those requirements for food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the first time for able-bodied adults who are 60 to 64 years old.
On the other hand, it is disrupting the only federal program specifically created to help older adults with low incomes find jobs and become better positioned to earn a living.
These policies effectively remove a ladder while insisting that older adults must climb it.
Improvement and innovation
To be sure, we do see some room for improvement in the program.
For starters, we think it needs new metrics of success beyond job placement rates. Remaining employed requires good health, so it’s worth tracking what happens to the physical and mental health of older adults who participate in this program.
We support the Labor Department’s efforts to find new ways to deliver this job-training program. AmeriCorps, the volunteering and community service arm of the federal government, is also testing a new workforce development program for older workers that we think is promising.
But for now, there are few alternatives to the Senior Community Service Employment Program. In our view, it’s well worth preserving it at a time when older workers face growing pressure to earn a paycheck.
Cal J. Halvorsen is an adviser to two research projects on programs to support older job seekers, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and AmeriCorps Seniors.
Ernest Gonzales received funding from Senior Service America Inc in 2015.
Nancy Morrow-Howell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
