Do Older Workers Without Benefits Find Health and Retirement Coverage?

Since World War II, many workers have come to count on their jobs to provide health insurance and retirement plans. Indeed, the presence of these benefits is often seen as a marker of Òtraditional employmentÓ or, simply, a Ògood job.Ó When workers miss out on these benefits through their employer, to what extent do they find alternative sources? This brief, based on a recent study, explores how older workers in Ònontraditional jobsÓ that lack such benefits can gain health insurance and retirement coverage outside the employment relationship. On the health side, workers have several options, including a spouseÕs employer, an individual insurance policy, and public programs such as Medicaid. On the retirement side, workersÕ main options are to save through an individual retirement account (IRA) or rely on a spouse with a 401(k) to save more to compensate. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section describes the measure of nontraditional work and the characteristics of older workers with these jobs. The second section identifies the possible sources of health insurance for the workers in nontraditional jobs, noting an uptick in non-employer alternatives after the introduction of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The third section looks at retirement saving options for the workers in nontraditional jobs, assessing the potential of IRAs and spousal 401(k)s. The final section concludes that, on the health side, most older workers in nontraditional jobs are able to find coverage, often through their spouseÕs employer or, increasingly, Medicaid, but about one-third remain uninsured. On the retirement side, older workers with nontraditional jobs largely end up with no viable savings option.