‘Nontraditional’ work can carry risks

• By Tammy La Gorce New York Times

When retirement expert Alicia Munnell finished gathering data for a study on American workers ages 50 to 62 in jobs without benefits, she was stunned.

“When I looked at the results, I thought, ‘This can’t be right,’” Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said. The study — published in October and titled “How Do Older Workers Use Nontraditional Jobs?” — found that three-quarters of American workers in that age group had positions that fall into the center’s “nontraditional” category, meaning those without employer-provided retirement plans and health insurance.

Freelancers and consultants of all stripes can fit that definition. So can waiters, artists, yoga instructors and anyone who works part time or whose income is generated by the gig economy (including Lyft or Uber drivers and DoorDash couriers).

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