In their 80s, and still putting in the hours

By DAVID CARPENTER Associated Press

June 27, 2009, 12:29AM

Adelaide Yanow, 89, jokes that she only wants to leave her job as a judicial assistant on a gurney. Herb Minds still works three days a week at 87, then goes home and logs into Facebook.

Harry Bahrick, an 84-year-old memory psychologist, points out that Michelangelo was still doing fine work as an octogenarian. So what’s the big deal about working regularly at that age, more than four centuries later?

Americans who fear the prospect of having to work longer because of their finances can draw comfort and inspiration from some of the half-million octogenarians in the work force. Among those fortunate to have their health and a willing employer, plenty still have a zest for labor, and life.

“It’s a nice way to end your life,” said Zetta Bauer, who works three days a week as a cashier at a Niagara Falls gift shop at 91. “I’m so happy to be working.”

Helping healthy aging

Within a surprisingly short time, it has become almost commonplace to work not only into one’s 70s but often well beyond.

About 5.1 percent of Americans 80 or older, or 511,000, were in the work force last year, up from 3.7 percent five years earlier and 3.1 percent in 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The numbers are certain to rise as Americans live and remain active longer and often find themselves unable to make ends meet on Social Security and their savings.

“It used to be that retirement was something that everyone universally looked forward to,” said Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “Now I think most people are starting to think twice about whether they want to retire at 55, 65, 75” — or later.

Anyone with a 401(k) or any other retirement plan knows the financial pluses of working longer. Putting in extra years on the job is the fastest way to restore savings depleted by the plunge in stocks and reduce the number of years over which dollars must be stretched.

The need to increase financial security is the primary reason why 72 percent of Americans responding to a telephone survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute this year expect to work after they officially retire, up from 63 percent in 2008.

But more people are discovering the other payoffs to working deep into traditional retirement age. Continuing to work, Kennedy said, supports three pillars of healthy aging: being socially engaged, intellectually stimulated and physically active.

Not only that, he noted, but data from studies suggests that people who are able to work longer live longer.

Yanow, still working virtually full time at the U.S. District Court in Chicago, never gave retirement a second thought. But her longtime wish of working until she keels over appar-ently isn’t going to happen since she finishes work on July 31. That’s only because she outlived her boss of the last 28 years, Judge James Moran. He died in April.

“Had my judge not died, I would not even consider it,” she said. “They were going to roll me out, because I never was going to retire. I figured I’d have to drop dead first.”

A sign on the desk in her 18th-floor office in the court building reads “Things Get Better With Age ... I’m Approaching Magnificent.” She put it there 20 years ago.

Today, Yanow still edits legal opinions and argues with law clerks about proper wording. Her typing speed has slowed, but not her enthusiasm for the job after more than a half-century in the courthouse. The big-time cases, the exciting atmosphere, the appearances of drug lords, white-collar criminals and occasional celebrities — she loves it all as if she were still a young woman.

Being idle? No way

According to Minds, of Northbrook, Ill., working late in life “keeps you in the mix of things.”

Retiring from a career in financial services at 70, he went back as a consultant for a few years and now works half the year at a golf course and the other half writing and publishing newsletters for numerous organizations.

The money, while not much, covers the cost of some basic household services for him and wife Jo Ann. He does it to keep busy — and to keep from “staring at the stupid computer all day long,” including Facebook.

“I think most people would prefer to work unless they are just so lousy rich they can afford to go from one cruise to another,” Minds said. “But even that would get boring after a while.”

These elders in the workplace dread the notion of being idle as much as younger workers might the idea of laboring into their 80s.

David Wolf, an 81-year-old intellectual property lawyer in Boston who still handles a full workload, revels in the challenge of new cases and loves working with young people. He shudders at some popular alternatives to working, such as sitting on the sand in Florida.

“I remember going down there to see one of my relatives, and the big event of the day was to drive down to the beach to see the sunset,” he said. “That’s not exactly my idea of being engaged and doing things.”