Aging is unavoidable – it happens to us all.
As we get older, our bodies don’t work as well, and some of us don’t think as well. We remember life when we were younger, and there are things from our youth that we miss. But, generally speaking, we accept where we are in our life’s journey, and we want to make the best of it.
We want to enjoy our families and our friends, stay healthy, travel to different places, follow our passions, and stay relevant. And part of staying relevant is staying involved in the workplace and continuing to contribute instead of becoming a burden.
Older people are an important part of society. We have great collective wisdom and experience. We have a long-term perspective on what is really important in life, we are responsible and reliable, and we appreciate how important it is to have a good work/life balance.
We should be a valued and respected part of society. But in this wonderful country of ours, the opposite seems to be true.
Once we reach the age of 60 or so, our companies want to discard us for all sorts of reasons. To be fair, many jobs require a level of physical strength and endurance that older people may no longer have. Some jobs may no longer be needed, while other jobs may require a new set of skills that older people simply do not possess.
However, very few of our companies seem to have any sense of obligation to their employees, and by all accounts prefer to fire at will and hire new than to make any reasonable accommodations for their older employees.
It has been reported that the Social Security and Medicare programs that many older people depend on as their only sources of income and health care are threatened with insolvency within ten to twenty years. One solution is to reduce the dollar amount of benefits that are being paid out. Another is to require people to work longer before retiring, with 70 being proposed as the new target retirement age.
The first solution will increase the number of older people who live in poverty, and who will no longer be able to afford the level of medical care and pharmaceuticals that they need to stay reasonably healthy.
The second solution superficially appears to make more sense, but if companies have no issue with firing their older employees who are in their early 60’s, no one will ever be able to work until they are 70 years old at their established profession or trade.
Both solutions are problematic because they are too simplistic in their approach and do not take into consideration the realities of becoming older. These solutions are not really long-term solutions at all.
As a society, we need to address aging as an unavoidable, transitional, universally shared experience, and work together to make becoming older less of a burden and more of a fulfilling part of life.
First and foremost, each of us must be responsible for ourselves as we grow older. Individual responsibility for physical and financial health must be part of the long-term solution to achieving a better aging experience. Accepting a diminished life and unnecessarily burdening society should not be.
Companies and corporations must be held accountable for their actions towards older employees that often result in financial hardship and the early end to productive careers. Currently, companies and corporations have little if any responsibility for the decisions they make that negatively affect the lives of so many older people.
Finally, our government must act on behalf of its people to greatly expand research into the causes of aging and dementia, establish realistic legal requirements for companies and corporations to govern their treatment of older employees, and provide many more opportunities for older people to continue to be productive and to thereby reduce the financial burden of Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs.
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF OLDER PEOPLE
Based upon our current understanding of the aging process, it is unavoidable that older people will find themselves experiencing deteriorating health and loss of mobility.
This can be exacerbated by a lifetime of poor lifestyle choices, which over time result in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, liver damage, chronic joint inflammation, osteoporosis, and other maladies.
It has been known for decades that a better diet, moderate exercise, no smoking, limited alcohol consumption, and avoiding social isolation will improve the quality of life for everyone. Older people are no exception.
A lifetime of poor lifestyle choices is not an excuse for continuing them. It is never too late to eliminate unhealthy habits and embrace a healthier lifestyle. There is no better way to experience an improved quality of life, and this is particularly true for older people who can no longer benefit from the forgiving nature of youth.
Improving the overall health of our aging population is a critical part of reducing the cost of the Medicare entitlement program and allowing financial resources to be directed towards older people who really cannot take care of themselves or suffer from debilitating medical conditions that cannot be improved over time.
However, being healthier does not address the need for older people to remain engaged and productive throughout their lives.
Older people should anticipate that once they reach 60 years of age many companies and corporations will view them as expensive and unprofitable liabilities, and in some instances this is going to be true. High salaries combined with obsolete skill sets is an unsustainable combination.
This is just an unfortunate fact of life, and this is why older people need to prepare for a second career that will last for ten years or more.
Very few people will be able to continue in their established profession or trade until they reach the age of 70. Most trades will become too physically demanding, most professions will become too intellectually demanding. New technologies and practices will replace the old and will require an ongoing commitment to keep up, a commitment of time and effort that may be best spent in other areas of life.
It should be expected that a second career will pay less than what a first career did, so financially preparing for this eventuality will be important so as to to avoid becoming financially overextended without an adequate income. The important thing is to remain employed just as long as possible, continuing to be a contributing member of society instead of becoming a burden.
Furthermore, older people should anticipate that a downsizing of lifestyle is likely to be required. Developing new interests that are less costly, eliminating unnecessary expenditures, and making sure that you can live within your anticipated means before being forced to do so are all important measures to take. Some people will have very little flexibility in this regard, but whatever can be done should be done.
COMPANY AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY
Companies and corporations have benefited immensely over the past fifty years by changes in the employment environment that have replaced collective bargaining and unionization with right-to-work laws.
There is a misconception that employees benefit from right-to-work laws. In general, right-to-work laws mean that employers can fire employees at will without notice or cause, pay their employees less and provide fewer benefits, unilaterally change employee work schedules, ignore employee grievances, and employ unskilled or inadequately trained workers instead of certified tradespeople. None of this benefits the employee.
This employer-employee imbalance is a major cause of the decline of the middle class and the de facto rise of a ruling class. In much of the country, families require two or more incomes to be able to afford a life that allows for more than just the basics of food, clothing, and shelter. This was not the case fifty years ago.
Small businesses that represent roughly 50% of private employment in this country are not the problem. Small businesses are defined here as those where the owner takes an active role in the day-to-day operations of the business. These businesses generally do not see the owner making ten times or more what their typical employee is paid.
The problem lies with the larger businesses and in particular larger corporations that also represent roughly 50% of private employment. These businesses have developed into investor/stockholder focused wealth generators. They reward their management team with compensation packages magnitudes greater than what their typical employee is paid, often fifty to one hundred times greater.
Business decisions made by the management team are focused upon achieving short-term profitability and higher stock prices, which is what investors/stockholders demand, and this focus on short-term profitability and higher stock prices is what justifies these exorbitant management compensation packages.
It is pointless to expect accountability towards employees from larger businesses and corporations in this type of business environment. It is more profitable short-term for them to terminate older employees than to reimagine them in a different capacity where their knowledge and experience can be of continued benefit.
This is why legislation is required to force larger businesses and corporations and their management teams to be more accountable to their older employees. Terminating older employees with little or no warning or severance pay is a brutal and heartless way to essentially end an older employee’s career.
Larger businesses and corporations must be made to provide a substantial financial transition period, i.e., one year, for those older employees whom they choose to terminate. Being provided with a one-year notice will eliminate the immediate financial burden on older employees who can then make important decisions about, and necessary preparations for, their lives going forward.
This is the type of socially responsible behavior that should be expected from larger businesses and corporations as part of their social contract with their employees and with society as a whole. Unfortunately, larger businesses and corporations are decades removed from an earlier time when many of them did have a social conscience.
Since it is unlikely to happen voluntarily, legislation is required to force larger businesses and corporations to act as though they have a social conscience.
GOVERNMENT ACTIONS TO BENEFIT SOCIETY
This country is faced with a societal problem that is shared with the rest of the developed world, namely an aging population. It is in this country’s best interest to keep its older population healthy, engaged, active, and contributing in a positive way to society.
The alternative is to accept the burden and expense associated with having an increasing number of older Americans becoming chronically ill, physically infirm, lonely and isolated, and suffering from a reduced mental capacity.
There are a number of ways in which the government can help its older population age gracefully and stay independent:
- Reduce the minimum age for Medicare eligibility to 60 years of age.
- Require pharmaceutical companies to sell medications through Medicare at the average selling price of their 10 largest non-U.S. markets.
- Expand medical research tenfold into preventing and ideally reversing dementia and related aspects of brain deterioration.
- Expand medical research tenfold into preventing and ideally reversing the physically debilitating results of aging.
- Ensure that any pharmaceutical regimens shown to be effective in addressing dementia and age-related physical deterioration are made available through Medicare at the lowest possible cost so that all will benefit.
- Require large privately-held businesses and corporations to provide a one-year advance notice for all employees 60 years of age and older that they have chosen to terminate.
It is expected that most older people will independently develop a rewarding second career and make the necessary life adjustments required to continue to live productively.
However, there will also be those older people for whom a second career is not a practical or even desirable option, but who want to continue to be productive, contributing members of society.
For these people, an alternative employment program such as what follows may be the answer.
AMERICORPS SILVER
The AmeriCorps program could be expanded and modified to include people 60 – 70+ years of age to provide a range of suitable employment opportunities. AmeriCorps employment should pay a minimum income that would be greater than the maximum social security payment, making AmeriCorps employment more financially appealing than living off of welfare or social security.
In this type of private/public program, which would replace social security during the years worked, companies and organizations would hire AmeriCorps employees at a reduced wage, with the balance being paid from the Social Security fund.
Because all AmeriCorps employees would be enrolled in Medicare, medical insurance would not need to be provided by employers. In addition, Social Security contributions would not need to be made by employers either.
What would be a typical AmeriCorps job? Teachers, instructors, home health companions, teacher’s aides, customer service representatives, mentors, tutors – who really knows? The market economy and the inclinations of the AmeriCorps employees would ultimately be the determining factor.
By doing a better job of integrating older people into the mainstream of society, this may end up giving us more opportunities to engage our children and young people in a way that helps them to address feelings of loneliness, isolation, frustration, hopelessness, anger and resentment that lead to anti-social and self-destructive behaviors. Older people have the life experience and patience to do this.
Most importantly, this type of program would provide an alternative way for older people to continue to be active, productive, and engaged, filling jobs that may otherwise go unfilled, and using their life experience in a positive way instead of having it wasted by large businesses, corporations, and society as a whole.
Establishing a new program such as this and integrating it into the existing AmeriCorps, Social Security, and Medicare programs should be relatively straightforward.
OLDER PEOPLE AND REALITY
For a variety of reasons, older people simply lose their economic value. While some are able to position themselves to preserve and even enhance their economic value as they age, that is not the case for most.
The loss of physical abilities, a change in perspective where dedication to work loses its urgency, new and unfamiliar technologies that come to define the workplace, competition with younger people who are impatient with ambition – this is what happens to most people.
This life transition is reality. For most it will be unavoidable, so it needs to be prepared for during the most productive years of employment, and then recognized and accepted for what it is when it happens.
What is also reality is how becoming older brings with it the harvest of a lifetime of habits, both good and bad. This needs to be a cautionary tale, because a great deal of the physical, mental, and emotional problems associated with becoming older can be avoided with better lifestyle habits developed at an earlier age.
Older people should not settle for a diminished life but aggressively and proactively fight for the healthiest, most productive, and engaged life possible. Ultimately, we are all responsible for ourselves.
BEING A CIVILIZED SOCIETY
As a society, we need to change how we view becoming older, because what we are doing now is not a viable long-term solution.
As our system is structured right now, there are few good options for older people to continue to provide economic value to society.
This is a primary reason why our social security system is currently threatened with insolvency.
Lasting changes to our social security system cannot be based upon a reduction in benefits received, a gradual delay in the age of entitlement, and an increase in contributions made.
Older people must be expected to provide an economic contribution throughout their lives to the greatest extent possible, and our society must accommodate this expectation by providing dignified and viable work options for older people to choose from.
We all get old eventually, so creating a society that promotes graceful aging will benefit all of us sooner or later. An aging population does not have to be seen as the bleak future that it is often portrayed as.