The impact of Covid-19 on older workers’ employment and Social Security spillovers

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a major threat to health and economic well-being in the USA, especially for older and disabled workers, and may spill over onto Social Security. We use individual-level from the Current Population Survey, state-level monthly Social Security administrative data on disability benefit applications, and national-level monthly data on Social Security retirement benefit applications to assess the impact of the pandemic on older adults’ employment and benefit claiming. State-level monthly Google Trends data are used as a leading indicator of future claiming in the population. We find that employment for older workers dropped substantially more than would have been predicted prior to the pandemic: employment for 50–61-year-olds was 5.7 pp (8.3 percent) lower, while employment for 62–70-year-olds was 3.9 pp (10.7 percent) lower. We find declines in labor force exit due to disability (4–5 percent), applications for disability insurance (15 percent), the average age of disability program applicants, and Google searches for disability (7 percent). We contrast with prior periods of economic downturn and explore potential mechanisms, finding evidence for both supply- and demand-side explanations. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00148-022-00915-z.