5 Retirement Jobs to Survive COLA Shortfalls

With the 2025 COLA adjustment potentially falling short of inflation, retirees may need to consider alternative income sources. Here are five flexible, well-paying part-time jobs that retirees can explore to offset Social Security shortfalls: freelance writer, pet sitter/dog walker, rideshare driver, part-time athletic coach, and realtor. These roles offer flexibility, social interaction, and decent compensation, making them suitable options for supplementing retirement income.

Transcript:

Austin, we’ve talked about how the 2025 COLA adjustment, which to be clear, is still up in the air, is currently forecasted to come in short of inflation.

This is a very delicate balancing act, made all the more difficult when inflation whipsaws as it has the past few years.

But the question is, with this much uncertainty looking forward to next year, what should retirees plan for and do?

Yeah, there are many ways to offset this potential Social Security shortfall, not just the funding shortfall, but also from lagging COLA adjustments, which we’ve talked about.

But one of the best is simply just to have a part-time job as a retiree.

So here are five of the best jobs that retirees might want to consider that offer flexibility, benefits, and solid pay.

So number one is a freelance writer.

Tons of benefits here that are obvious. You can work your own hours.

You can work from anywhere. Hey, even on a cruise ship, travel the world, get paid for it. Not the worst situation.

And average estimates here, you can make roughly $20 to $40 an hour on your own time in your own geography.

Number two, this is more if you’re staying local to your community, pet sitter or dog walker.

This gets you outside. This gets you to work with animals.

And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to spend more time with dogs? They’re wonderful.

You can make on average $20 to $30 per hour here, depending on how many pets you walk at once.

Number three, being a rideshare driver.

This is infinitely flexible. You can drive on a Tuesday, take a week off.

You can drive Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, work on the weekends.

You work completely on your own schedule and get to meet some wonderful people.

You get to socialize with all of your passengers, hear about people’s different stories.

It’s a wonderful way to connect with people in your community.

There’s also a low risk of injury due to physical activity.

And you can make $20 to $40 an hour depending on the city and the shift time that you end up working.

Number four is being a part-time athletic coach.

This could be anywhere from elementary school all the way up to high school and even depending on your background, to some extent at the college level, supporting some of these college teams.

But basically help other children and younger individuals find their passion.

Depending on the sport, you might also get to spend some time outside if we’re talking about field hockey or soccer or football.

Now, the compensation is going to vary by sport, region, and schedule, but this is just a fun way to give back to your community, particularly if you’re a sports enthusiast and you’ve understood a certain activity and developed certain strategies over the years, you can pass them on to the next generation.

Number five, this one’s a little bit more work, but much higher upside, and that’s being a realtor.

You’re able to work part-time and you get excellent compensation of, on average, 2-4% of the home transaction costs.

It’s relatively easy to make $50,000 or so as a realtor and more than $100,000 with a little bit of extra effort.

Like our rideshare driving job, you also get a lot of socializing, traveling, and you get to share your expertise about your city or region with others and help them make an informed decision because now they’re going to be a part of your local community.

So there are five wonderful retirement jobs that retirees could consider to help survive COLA and social security funding shortfalls.

Yeah, Austin, I think this is a wonderful list.

And when you look at the average American retirement benefits between contributions and Social Security being around $52,000 annually, you look at these numbers in $20 to $40 an hour, that can become very meaningful, even doing 10 to 20 hours a week.

So I’d recommend people look into these because as you said, a lot of them are very easy to get started and the payoff is pretty lucrative.