Like everyone else, entrepreneurs getting older

Baby boomers throw their weight around in every other form of human activity; why not entrepreneurism?

And indeed, numbers from the Kauffman Foundation show the increasing role of aging boomers in the world of start-ups and self-employment.

Fifteen years ago, only one in seven entrepreneurs in the country was between the ages of 55 and 64.

Today, as boomers swell the numbers of that group, sure enough, almost one in four entrepreneurs is of that age.

But they put a different face on the phenomenon. They're people in second careers, people forced by the stock market to find new ways to bring in money, people fulfilling long-delayed dreams.

They're people like Greg Jodzio, a 64-year-old Hutchinson man who felt the need to add to his income after retiring. So he scraped up some money and started up a hot dog stand, as he explained to MPR News reporter Jennifer Vogel. Check out how he and others are becoming "encore entrepreneurs."

The story is part of our Ground Level series "One Job at a Time."

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