Mr. Encore Careers Goes to Washington

Posted 07/15/2010 - 9:04am by Terry Nagel

Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, made the case for encore careers today, testifying before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee during a hearing entitled, “Choosing to Work During Retirement and the Impact on Social Security.”

Read David Bank’s tweets from the hearing on Twitter: @davidbank

See a video of the hearing and read the official testimony.

Instead of financing the aging of the baby boom generation through higher taxes, increased borrowing, or cuts to Social Security and Medicare, Freedman advocates tapping the accumulated skills and life experiences of people who have finished their midlife careers and want to continue working in encore careers that help improve communities.

He gave examples of ways that Congress can create new pathways to encore careers through government programs. He also talked about recent research that predicts there will be 5 million job vacancies in the U.S. by 2018, nearly half of them in education, health care, government and nonprofit organizations – ideal positions for encore workers.

Others who testified were Stephen Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration; Marcia Brown, chief operating officer of the National Center for Appropriate Technology; Nicole Maestas, economist and group manager of the RAND Corporation; and Bonnie Shelor, senior vice president for human resources of Bon Secours Richmond Health Systems.