Older Workers and the Declining Rate of Return to Worker Experience: Accelerating technological changes, lower union participation, and a plethora of older workers mean wages are not rising commensurate with worker experience.

EMPLOYMENT of older people; WAGES; EMPLOYMENT reentry; EXPERIENTIAL learning; LABOR market; LABOR supply; RETIREMENT; SOCIAL security; LABOR unions; UNEMPLOYMENT; WORK; EDUCATIONAL attainment

Experience usually makes workers more productive, in turn raising their wages and earnings. This relationship benefits older workers because they tend to have more experience. However, the relationship between earnings and experience is weakening. Between 1992 and 2015, the impact of an additional year of experience on the hourly wage for full-time wage and salary workers ages 50 to 69 fell from 1.1 percent to 0.6 percent, a 45 percent decline. This decline could significantly harm older workers, reducing earnings and making it difficult to save for retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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