One out of every four U.S. workers is age 55 or older. But age discrimination persists in offices, keeping many of those people out of jobs. Older workers face long periods of unemployment, stressful job hunts, and mounting bills. 

Many older workers left their jobs during the pandemic, but now inflation is squeezing bank accounts and prompting many to un-retire.  The labor market, while robust overall, has deteriorated for older workers.

According to an analysis of federal data, workers over the age of 50 are unemployed for three times as long as their younger counterparts. Employers admit they're looking for younger talent. Forty-seven percent say they're worried about older workers' tech skills, and 25% say they'd pick a 30-year-old over a 60-year-old if equally qualified. 

"Ageism is the last acceptable 'ism,'" according to Carly Roszkowski of AARP.

Employers are missing out on an entire generation of life experience.  Older workers often have skills especially valuable to struggling industries. For example, some 300,000 accountants have left the workforce in the last several years, chiefly due to retirement, so the pipeline of new accountants has run dry. The talent is concentrated among older workers, but older workers are discouraged in their job searches at almost every turn.

I don't have a dog in this fight. I retired at age 65 and am not looking to get back on the treadmill. While I recognize that a rewarding career can give some people meaning to life, I am no longer among those people. In fact, I would caution younger workers to not overly identify with their professional lives - you are who you are, not what you do.

But I do encounter ageism, frequently. Almost daily. "How old is it, sir?" I'm asked when I have a tech problem with some device or another, because naturally, any device I own - cell phone, television, laptop, etc. - must have been purchased back before the tech support was born. Opinions are summarily dismissed, advice ignored, and experience considered irrelevant.  It's as if I retired in 1919, not 2019.

We don't dismiss people because of their gender.  We don't dismiss based on race. It's not cool to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Why, then, is it still acceptable to generalize based on age?

Someone should ask Joe Biden.