More aging Boundary County residents working

Retirement isn’t in Tina Richter’s immediate future.

That’s because the 59-year-old Kootenai River Inn cashier knows she can’t survive on her late husband’s Social Security, which she will begin receiving at age 60. Richter instead will be among the growing number of older workers in Boundary County.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently reported that Idaho’s labor force is aging. Data from the Local Employment Dynamics program, which merges labor market information with demographics, show that more than 16 percent of Idaho’s 2007 labor force  was over 55. That was up almost two percentage points from 2004 and more than four percentage points from 2001.

In Boundary County, 20.3 percent of workers are over 55 compared to 17.7 percent in 2004 and 13.6 percent in 2001.

In Richter’s case, she said she hopes to retire at 65. By that time, between working and collecting Social Security, she believes she can save enough to get by.

“I bought a house when I moved here (in March 2007),” she said. “The longer I pay on the house, the less I will need to make. I need to get my payments down (before I retire).”

Richter believes she could live comfortably on $1,500 a month.

“I won’t bring in that kind of money unless something wonderful happens, like winning the lottery,” Richter said. “The Lord has just made sure I worked my whole life.”

Last year, 83,000 of Idaho’s 644,000 jobs were held by workers 55 and older. That compared to 79,000 of the 567,000 jobs in 2004.

People who continue working after the traditional retirement age of 65 have also increased, rising from 2.3 percent of the work force in 2001 to 2.7 percent in 2004  to 3.2 percent in 2007, according to the Labor Department. But three of every four workers still retired at or before 65 in 2007 just as they had in 2001, and many who continue working do so just part time, based on their average wage typically dropping to between half and two-thirds of what  it had been.

Geographically, the labor force in 16 of Idaho’s 44 counties was 55 or older in 2007. No county had over 20 percent in 2001, and just six reached 20 percent in 2004.  Only Idaho’s two smallest counties — Clark and Camas — saw the percentage of the 55-and-older work force decline from 2001 to 2007.