When the economy crash-landed in 2008, Dan Meehan didn’t want to again face the income-less years he had endured after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.
“I knew at 59 years old it was going to be very hard to find a job. I decided to hire myself,” said Meehan. He launched a franchise pool-cleaning and repair business in 2009 rather than depend on dwindling commissions at his previous job in sales.
A growing number of jobless Baby Boomers are reaching similar conclusions. Faced with what some say is age discrimination among employers, more folks over 50 are creating their own jobs by launching or buying businesses.
Still, some have found the move to be financially treacherous.
About half of all new businesses fail in five years, experts say, and the survival rate doesn’t get much better after that. In some cases, Boomers have lost life savings, their homes, and more when their businesses crash.
In Sunday's newspaper, the AJC takes a deep look at older workers who have lost jobs and are going into business for themselves. It's a story you'll get only by picking up a copy of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution or logging on to the paper's iPad app. Subscribe today.
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