Workers over 60 are the least worried AI will take their jobs — but they may have less time than they think

Em Norton

Tue, May 19, 2026 at 10:05 AM EDT 5 min read

It seems AI is becoming more and more a part of our daily lives — and many people are worried about what it means for their careers.

According to data from the Federal Reserve's Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025 report (1), 24% of workers ages 30 to 44 and 23% of workers ages 18 to 29 are concerned they will lose their jobs to AI. On the other hand, workers ages 60 and over were the least likely of all to have this concern, at 14%. And this does seem to make sense – workers of that age have fewer years ahead in their careers than younger ones, so they may think AI won't affect them before retirement.

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But AI may be moving faster than their own retirement plans, meaning there is less time than they think before it affects their own jobs. And many older people may have more years of work ahead than they originally planned.

Should they be more worried?

According to a 2026 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (2) (GAO), the percentage of older workers (55 and up) increased from 15% to 23% of the workforce from 2003 to 2023.

When asked why they were working at an older age, more than half of the people the GAO interviewed "said they were not ready for retirement or were seeking income to meet their everyday expenses." Some also said they "wanted to supplement their Social Security income or were not eligible yet for full Social Security retirement benefits."

One worker said, "I'm 63 years old. Job security is one of my main focuses … because I'm one check from being homeless."

So with an increased cost-of-living leading some people to push their retirement back, AI taking income you might still need could be cause for concern.

Times are changing fast

The World Economic Forum's 2025 Future of Jobs Report (3) found that AI and information processing technologies are the top trends expected to drive business transformation from 2025 to 2030.

The report found that reading, writing, mathematics, big data, and dependability and attention to detail are some of the skills for which generative AI has a high capacity, to the point of being able to potentially act as a substitution for human intelligence.