For James Jones, leaving the work force initially didn\u2019t feel like a choice.<\/p>\n
He retired from his job as a cook at a hospital in 2021, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and, later, lung cancer. Now 72, Mr. Jones, who lives in the college town of Norman, Okla., said returning to work didn\u2019t feel like a choice, either. His cancer in remission, he found a job in the kitchen of a local program that delivers meals to people his age.<\/p>\n
Most mornings he rises before the sun to get to work, where he starts preparing specialties like Salisbury steak or goulash at 6 a.m. He earns $10.06 an hour, a few dollars above the state\u2019s minimum wage of $7.25. His Social Security comes to $1,200 a month. When he\u2019s not at work, Mr. Jones likes to rest on his couch and watch reruns of shows like \u201cDateline\u201d and \u201c48 Hours.\u201d Cable television, he said, is one of the small joys of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven that is becoming almost too expensive,\u201d he said of the cost of cable, especially with elevated gas prices that in recent weeks have taken a larger chunk of his income.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do like my job, because I get my steps in,\u201d Mr. Jones said on a recent afternoon. \u201cThere\u2019s some health benefits to working at this age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in New England, Ms. Archer is grateful that the assisted living facility where she works is only five miles from her home. If it were a longer commute, Ms. Archer said, she would need to reconsider because of gas prices.<\/p>\n
She knows her Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation, but it doesn\u2019t feel that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like there is no going back to prices we saw five years ago or even two years ago,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ben Casselman contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For James Jones, leaving the work force initially didn\u2019t feel like a choice. He retired from his job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[11386,79,208219,73953,18,5321,202688,208220,19,17,208217,190596,234,235,202687,3887,208218,208216,208221,187],"class_list":{"0":"post-475147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-aarp","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-center-for-retirement-research-at-boston-college","11":"tag-donald-j","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-elderly","14":"tag-fees-and-rates","15":"tag-ghilarducci","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-labor-and-jobs","19":"tag-oil-petroleum-and-gasoline","20":"tag-personal-finance","21":"tag-personalfinance","22":"tag-prices-fares","23":"tag-retirement","24":"tag-retirement-communities-and-assisted-living","25":"tag-social-security-us","26":"tag-teresa","27":"tag-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116540332159470498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}