"aging slackers"

Workforce Management magazine recently ran an article about how the recent market crash-- coming on top of the elimination of many defined-benefit pension plans and the inability of many middle-aged workers to save enough money on their own to be able to fund a comfortable retirements-- may mean larger numbers of workers staying in the workforce "well past the traditional retirement age of 65."

At the very least, that could cause bottlenecks in companies’ plans to move people up the corporate ladders. But it might also mean something else: Firms could find themselves with a population of aging slackers—older workers who are doing just the bare minimum to get a paycheck without getting fired, warns Teresa Ghilarducci, the Bernard L. and Irene Schwartz chair in economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York.

Even worse, disgruntled older workers could resort to litigation or work sabotage over their lack of retirement savings, experts say.

"At the very least, employers may be facing employee disaffection," Ghilarducci says. "Employee revenge often comes in the form of work slowdown. It’s not so hard to do just enough to get by without getting fired."

C'mon, now. Is that a realistic picture? What about all the 50+ people who are redefining retirement and pursuing encore careers?

It's interesting to note that Prof. Ghilarducci recently testified at a House Education and Labor Commitee hearing on behalf of a proposal to eliminate the 401(k) "tax subsidy" and to implement a system of government-administered "guaranteed retirement accounts." Sounds like she's exploring a novel way of selling business on the advantages of "guaranteed retirement."