Would older workers benefit during the remainder of their careers much from more education now
"You just get sad," Mr. Agati said. "I see people getting up in the morning, going out to their careers and going home. I just wish I was doing that. Some people don't like their jobs, or they have problems with their jobs, but at least they're working. I just wish I was in their shoes."
He said he cannot afford to go back to school, as many younger people without jobs have done. Even if he could afford it, economists say it is unclear whether older workers like him benefit much from more education.
"It just doesn't make sense to offer retraining for people 55 and older," said Daniel Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas in Austin. "Discrimination by age, long-term unemployment, the fact that they're now at the end of the hiring queue, the lack of time horizon just does not make it sensible to invest in them."
Many displaced older workers are taking this message to heart and leaving the labor force entirely.
The share of older people applying for Social Security early spiked during the recession as people sought whatever income they could find. The penalty they will pay is permanent, as retirees who take benefits at age 62 -- as Ms. Zimmerman did, to help make her mortgage payments -- will receive 30 percent less in each month's check for the rest of their lives than they would if they had waited until full retirement age (66 for those born after 1942).
Those not yet eligible for Social Security are increasingly applying for another, comparable kind of income support that often goes to people who expect never to work again: disability benefits. More than one in eight people in their late 50s is now on some form of federal disability insurance program, according to Mark Duggan, chairman of the department of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.