Let’s Retire the Word “Retired” by Hugh Panero

We need a new word to better describe being “retired.” While there are multiple ways to talk about gender, there is only one measly, grossly inadequate word to represent what happens when you leave your job for good, irrevocably altering your life. Thirty-eight million retired people in the US likely agree with me.

In the past, I had no problem using signifiers like Student, Single, Married, and Parent, and my Occupation as a starter shorthand to help people understand what I was about. However, “retired” fails miserably as a descriptive term. It feels more suited to a bold, all-caps red stamp on an expired milk carton. 

I also dislike official forms that ask, “What is your occupation (RETIRED)?” or responding to the question, “What do you do for a living? ” Responding I am “retired” does not cut it. And all I see is the syllable “tired,” which also bothers me. 

It is not surprising because retirement used to be a simple equation. You worked a long time, retired, and soon after entered the pearly gates. However, on average in the US, people now live until they are almost 80, well beyond the average retirement age of 62.

Worst of all, “retired” doesn’t come close to describing the full and rich lives led by many retirees who use their expanded time on the planet to enrich their own lives and those of their families, friends, and communities. 

The word “retire” comes from the mid-century French “Re” (back) and “Tirer” (draw). When used as a verb, it can mean “to retreat,” like troops withdrawing from danger. It can also mean “taking one’s leave,” such as going to bed. As an adjective, it can describe a separation from society or withdrawal into seclusion—nothing you’d want to include in your LinkedIn bio.

To “retire” is defined as “to leave one’s job and cease to work upon reaching a certain age.” It represents the end, or withdrawal, from a career and its corresponding remuneration. However, the word does not fully describe the stage of life that my friends and I now find ourselves in, when people live longer and are physically and mentally healthier, hopefully with twenty years or more of runway left.

Retired became relevant as a life status in the late 1800s when pensions were invented in Germany. Offering a worker retirement plan was a political tool to help fend off socialism. The German government created a retirement benefits system targeting government workers like police, firefighters, and soldiers who deserved to be cared for after years of public service.

This concept sounded great, but the pension retirement age was set at seventy. Unfortunately, most of the population then only lived until their mid-40s and died before reaping the rewards. 

The word “retire” hit the big time in the 1920s, when private sector pension plans arrived to attract and keep employees. It got a jolt in 1921 after the IRS exempted taxes on corporate contributions to employee pension plans. The deal was you work for twenty years, and when you hit 65, you would receive an annual pension payment based on a percentage of your salary. In 1935, as part of FDR’s “New Deal,” the Social Security Act was created as a safety net for the elderly, unemployed, and disadvantaged. 

By the 1950s, about fifty percent of private-sector companies offered pensions, and retirement became a goal for many. Corporations eventually figured out that pensions could also be used to entice aging, higher-paid employees to retire through early buyouts that lowered costs and made room for lower-paid workers. Pensions also became a central point of contention during labor negotiations between management and powerful unions like the United Auto Workers. A pension was and remains an essential benefit for public service and blue-collar unionized workers.

If you worked 40-plus years ago, you likely had a pension. Not so anymore. In the 1980s, companies began replacing traditional pension plans with 401(k) plans, which shifted the cost of managing retirement plans from the company to employees. This move was motivated by corporate fear of millions of baby boomer employees hitting retirement age and the accompanying financial burden. Today, 85 percent of private sector plans are 401(k) plans, and unions are at the top of the shortlist of the remaining providers of traditional pension plans.

While funding for one’s retirement has changed, the definition of “retirement” has remained stagnant. AI noticed the insufficiencies associated with the definition.” I asked ChatGPT for one word that comprehensively best described being retired. According to the AI:

“…If you want a word encapsulating the broader idea of someone who has retired and is now engaged in other pursuits or enjoying life in their own way,  there’s not a single word in English that conveys that fully.”

People lucky enough to have a pension, a healthy 401(k), or who did an excellent job saving for retirement are re-reinventing themselves and indulging their passions. They are traveling, biking, starting new careers, working part-time, taking art classes, gardening, running for office, reading, writing, learning a new language, being active grandparents, volunteering, and yes, playing pickleball.

Some people who like working will do so until they’re booted out the door. Sadly, many people do not have the option to retire because they have debilitating debt, health issues, messy divorces, family to care for, and other financial pressures that force them to keep working and wait for Medicare, Social Security, and a little magic to kick in. 

My retired friends are not withdrawing at all. Kevin Beverly, the former President & CEO of Social and Scientific System, serves on four non-profit boards across Maryland, working as many hours “retired” as he did when running his company. My retired neighbors Susan & Barry Koh play leadership roles in the non-profit Chesapeake Music, Marty & Al Sikes produced a local jazz festival for a decade, and my buddy Scott Cohen, a self-made chef, travels to war zones and other dangerous places to feed people in need. The big difference compared to when they were employed is that these retired dynamos aren’t paid. 

Help me do justice to my retired comrades and find a new term that fully captures life after decades of hard work when we can finally do what we want to do with our time rather than what we have to do.

A recent WSJ article tried coining the phrase “post-achievement years” to describe retirement. However, as one might expect from the WSJ, “achievement years” were defined as the years you made lots of money and had a fancy job—as if being retired and giving back to the community, helping friends, and enriching your own life were not “achievements.”

Please feel free to suggest a replacement for the word “retired.” Until then, when I am asked, “What do you do for a living?” I will quote the poet William Ernest Henley and say, “I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.” 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media and other stuff for the Spy. And please do not call him retired.