Quote Originally Posted by Yppej View Post
If we had national health insurance provided by the government businesses would have one less excuse to not hire permanently older workers, who they stereotype as sicker.
It is likely a factor but it is not the only thing that is going on that adds to the perception among older job hunters that age discrimination is getting worse, actually in some cases getting into an wall that can't be scaled, and "things didn't used to be like this". They probably didn't for older workers in the economy, maybe the economy has changed (for all workers), sure seems so, but also the laws have been changing. People don't know that, but this is part of why the 50+ job seeker can't find work:

https://www.propublica.org/article/a...-under-the-law

I don't know to what extent I really hit discrimination, early 40s, maybe, not as clear cut as if I was over 50. So I talk to a contractor coworker who has been contracting since 2009 (interesting year, yea), he blames immigration (H1Bs, plus bad immigrant recruiters) and outsourcing. He's not white if you want to think "typical Trump voter" or something (but I do sometimes say: this is why Trump is president, though I have no idea how the guy votes). And my coworker could be right, I mean you would think it would have to have an effect, so I don't dismiss it but at the same time I don't know the scale of it. He mentions he wishes he could change careers but is too old, I ask sincerely "what is too old?" because I wonder, I wonder what the job market thinks.

But as for the very real age discrimination that people are hitting, which makes the "am I too old to change careers" and "am I too old to work period" relevant, yea, it's part health care expenses but also it's become de facto not illegal so companies got the green light to discriminate on age and do.