I work for state government and we hire a good number of older developers (younger ones too). Because our projects are mostly dull (with a few key exceptions),

I work for state government and we hire a good number of older developers (younger ones too). Because our projects are mostly dull (with a few key exceptions), the technology largely prescribed, and the salary somewhat low, we tend to get either the lower-quality developers, the very inexperienced developers, or the developers who value stability more than other aspects. We hired one former consultant recently who basically told us, that at his age, nobody wanted to hire him for consulting jobs anymore. He took a (presumably) big pay cut to work for us, but at least it's a steady job as he approaches retirement.