The average age of Vita Needle's workers is 74 years old, and that's no accident. The Needham, MA manufacturing company has intentionally hired seniors — a decision that has increased profits and benefited older workers who often have a harder time finding a job.  PBS News Hour (2013)

When Tina Marshall got laid off in 2014, she was confident that she’d quickly find work again. A few years earlier, she'd gone back to school to get her bachelor’s degree, so she had a recent graduation date on her resume and solid experience in her second career in manufacturing sales and operations.

And sure enough, the Charlotte, North Carolina, woman had no troubling landing job interviews. Her phone interviews always went well, she said, with recruiters all but promising her a job. Until, that is, she showed up for a face-to-face interview, and it became clear the hiring manager was expecting someone else — someone much younger. Marshall is 60 and, thanks to a knee injury, she walks with a pronounced limp.

Like the US population overall, the American workforce is aging. According to a 2014 report by the US Census Bureau, the labor force participation rate for people older than 65 reached 22.1 percent for men and 13.8 percent for women at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, compared to 17.7 percent and 9.4 percent, respectively, in 2000. Many of these workers say they have experienced or seen age discrimination in the workplace: In three surveys of older workers conducted by AARP since 2002, roughly two-thirds of respondents reported such discrimination.

All states, with the exception of Arkansas and South Dakota, have laws barring age discrimination, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many of these laws mirror the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. In some states, such as California, Michigan and Minnesota, the prohibition against age discrimination is included in a broader law barring discrimination based on race, religion or sex.

But some economists and legal experts say that while these laws protect older workers from being fired, they offer little protection from hiring discrimination, which is more difficult to prove.

In fact, there is some evidence older workers are less likely to be hired in states with strong age discrimination laws, according to Joanna Lahey, an associate professor of economics at Texas A&M University who has investigated the phenomenon. "Employers just don’t want to mess with them," Lahey said. They’ll keep the older workers they have on staff for a little longer, but won't take anyone else on."

The trends have prompted a handful of states to consider how to help older people who want to keep working.  

In Minnesota, the state Department of Employment and Economic Development helps older adults prepare for the modern workforce with on-the-job training through paid community service assignments. Other states have similar programs, most supported by federal grants. Meanwhile in New York, a pending proposal would create a task force to assist older adults who want to continue working or re-enter the workforce after retirement.

No Smoking Gun

Between the 1960s and the 1980s, many Americans retired relatively early, a phenomenon made possible by Social Security and the introduction of Medicare. But that began to change in the 1990s for men and in the 2000s for women. One major reason was that many employers replaced traditional pensions with 401(k) plans and other retirement savings plans, giving people an incentive to work longer. The Great Recession exacerbated the trend, because many older workers delayed retirement to replenish their decimated 401(k) plans.