The Future is in Florida

...He has left his wife Ida because he is over 60, and he wants to make sure he doesn’t miss out on anything in the time he has left...

...Of course advertising also encourages price competition, which can lower consumer costs...

...The fact is that while fear of crime is pervasive among many older people, national crime statistics show that the older population is victimized less than the population as a whole...

...It is the time of life in which we become more dependent on others...

...Nearly one fourth of the state’s total population (two million out of eight million) is over 60...

...In the Tampa-St...

...When Rhoda and her sister Brenda travel to Florida to persuade him to return, they do not find him engaged in any of the exotic activities he supposedly yearned for...

...Like most generalizations, these don’t hold up very well on inspection...

...Higher on the scale of social tensions than these irritants is the reverse age discrimination practiced by the elderly in many cities...

...We oppose it because it would not be fair...

...Vocal, Vigorous and Potent E v e r y b o d y k n o w s F l o r i d a is America’s retirement capital...

...The result has been the Great Traffic Light Wars...

...Although the poor are not charged, those who can afford to pay are expected to...

...It is terrible to have someone drive up in a Cadillac and demand a meal,” one administrator complains, “and then have the gall to try to skip putting any contribution into the envelopes we use to avoid embarrassing those who can’t afford anything...

...Petersburg area southward...

...In 1970 the AARP and NRTA established lobbying groups in Florida and four other states, called Joint State Legislative Committees...

...What is less well-known is that Florida’s population is already approaching the proportion of elderly citizens that will constitute the national average in 25 years...

...In Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, senior groups convinced the county commission to give them reduced bus fares, something that was probably an economic necessity for some seniors, but certainly not for all...

...The optometrists, following the example set by pbysicians, dentists, and lawyers, had lobbied the legislature into prohibiting advertising on the grounds that advertising “degrades” professional serviFes...

...The cantankerous old man on the park bench, railing about Jimmy Carter giving away the Panama Canal or the pampering of criminals, may not be as concerned about national defense or law and order as he is about the much more immediate fact that he can’t pitch horseshoes with the fellows whose game he is watching...

...This brought an angry reaction from the Miami Herald, which said in an editorial: “. . . Our objection to the proposed program is not based primarily on economic feasibility...

...There is an “us against them” mentality, cutting across economic lines, that pervades much of Florida’s elderly community...

...Before long, county officials gave them their light...

...The meals (which run about $1.34 for an average hot lunch) are not intended to be free...

...And we shouldn’t expect the “entitlement syndrome” among the elderly to fade...

...Other recent triumphs of the group include passage of a bill outlawing 99year condominium recreation leasesa device used by condominium developers to fleece buyers by providing for automatic increases in fees for the use of recreational f a c i l i t i e s . U n d e r t h e s e leases, condominium owners often ended up paying more for the use of such facilities than they did for the condos themselves...

...Even here, however, Florida’s elderly lobby has pushed for special breaks for all older people regardless of income level...

...Whether or not the scriptwriters had meant to do it, their story line sums up what most younger people think about aging: older people have unrealistic ideas about what they want, and often they are pitiable relics engaged in silly pastimes...

...The WPA helped their fathers put bread on the table...

...This is an ominous prospect...

...Shoplifting by o l d e r customers is a considerable problem in malls and supermarkets...

...Not all the special interests of old people, however, coincide so well with everybody else’s, and in Florida, that has led to some troubling problems...

...Yet because the language of the law is vague, many well-to-do older people show up and demand free meals as a right, offering only proof of age as their claim to entitlement...

...At the northern end of the state, in Jacksonville Beach, residents of a lowcost high rise for older people are lobbying the Civic Roundtable, an organization of 80 community groups, to press city hall for a traffic light to help them cross the street in front of their building...

...They have lived their lives in the American version of the welfare state, as has everyone else who has come after them...

...Looking out at the affluent society, they say, “Our efforts created this, but they put us on the shelf before we could enjoy the $40,000 salaries the 29-year-old White House aides make...

...rather, he is leading a group of fellow seniors in a game of musical chairs...

...Composed of volunteers chosen by local AARP leaders, these groups W0i-k as diligently as the professionals employed by oil companies, airplane manufacturers, or pharmaceutical laboratories...

...When they speak with one voice, politicians listen...

...The Florida example shows that elderly behavior has been surprising in auother, more visible way: rather than being timid, unseen shadows on the fringes of society, they are fast becoming a vocal, vigorous, and potent special interest group...

...in Florida they are opposed to paying taxes for the support of schools, day care centers, and playgrounds...

...By looking south, to Pop Morgenstern’s Florida, it is possible to preview what an American society that is not predominantly young might be like...

...In town after town, elderly Floridians are demanding special traffic lights located for their walking convenience...

...They have the potential of making the National Rifle Association look like pikers...

...Increasingly Demanding What is important to keep in mind, as gerontologists and thoughtful older citizens point out, is that even without the formation of elderly special interest groups, older people will become increasingly demanding as the years go by...

...When senior residents of the huge Lauderdale Oaks condominium in Broward County wanted a traffic light, they formed a coalition with condo leaders from all over the county...

...Many people cannot f u n c t i o n physically as well as they once did, and activities that were once second nature-driving a car or crossing a street-are now often difficult to perform...

...Young couples in the Ft...

...more often it’s the old on one side and everyone else on the other...

...We pointed out that Americans have turned away from the concept of patriotism-away from the idea that there are times when the interests of the nation must come before the desires of individuals or interest groups...

...In an area where the cost of single homes is over $50,000, being shouldered out of lessexpensive condominiums and apartments is a serious blow to the under-30 generation...

...If a light were placed where the Jacksonville Beach elderly want it, people returning from Sunday outings on the beach would spend hours trying to move past the new light to the present one just down the street...

...Older people, for example, often don’t get around as well as the rest of us, and in places where there are a lot of elderly, everyone has to live with the consequences of this problem...

...One of the more glaring cases is the hot meals program, a federally funded effort to ensure that poor elderly people get at least one nutritional meal every day...

...They’re all of us-in IO, 20, or ‘40 years from now...

...People who turn 65 next year and thereafter will have had a social conditioning that today’s old people largely missed...

...They have become accustomed to-and in many cases p a r t i c i p a t e d in-movements by m i n o r i t i e s t o claim r i g h t s and privileges in America...

...In the county there are 125,000 condominium units with an average occupancy of 2.4 adults...

...But they do reflect the stereotype associated with growing old in America...

...This last became law in Florida, thanks, in part, to the elderly’s lobby efforts...

...the “baby boom” is becoming the “senior boom...

...A few months ago, The Washington Monthly ran a series of articles on what we labeled “the politics of selfishness” of the 1970s...

...The elderly legislative committee got this law repealed...

...They saw that groups of people who stuck together for a common goal, who were willing to flex political muscle, could change things...

...On the other hand, younger residents of Florida are becoming aware of-and angered by-the high cost of the programs that are paid for with their tax dollars but that support the interests solely of the elderly...

...The residents’ committees in apartment .complexes and the condominium owners’ associations don’t want people of child-bearing age living in their midsts...

...For many older people, life can be full of frustration and rage...

...There is evidence in the Miami area, in fact, that old people are relatively frequent perRetrators of petty crimes...

...In Broward County, where the fight for the light was won, traffic jams now occur regularly where once they didn’t...

...This will be a new kind of world for us, but it need not be one for which we are totally unprepared...

...be 65, and a person who lives that long has a better-than-even chance of living to be 81...

...These are the kind of distinctions that can cause tensions and frustrations in a society, and in South Florida in particular, where the political activities of the elderly have been numerous, a generational clash seems always to be simmering...

...In Florida, they have the numbers, and the votes, to drive politicians from office who refuse to bend to their wishes, and it won’t be long before they have that same kind of power all over the country...

...At some point, their needs become survival needs-physically, the old are often like children in the sense that, to greater or lesser degrees, they cannot survive without help...

...We’re entitled to all the benefits the government can provide...

...In Florida, the senior movement has already arrived...

...many older people can’t afford to own cars, and of those who can, many should not be driving...

...Indeed, while many of the elderly have established a stubborn position that they deserve all society can provide in the way of special services, including low-cost public transportation and extra tax relief, many younger people are beginning to complain that they can’t afford the social security tax and other tax increases required to keep the system working...

...Florida shows that old people, banded together as a special interest group, could be the most powerfuland the most selfish-of the political i n t e r e s t groups...

...It is estimated that within the next 50years, the number of people under 20 and over 65 will be roughly equal, each accounting for between one fourth and one third of the population...

...national no-fault auto insurance...

...Petersburg region alone, there are 944 people that age per square mile...

...Those who will turn 65 in 1979 graduated from high school during the darkest hours of the Great Depression...

...Today, three fourths of our population lives to Joseph Burkholclfr Smith is u Florida writer...

...There is a good reason for us to begin the process of getting beyond the stereotype: we live in a society that is aging quickly...

...The transportation needs of older people should not be taken lightly...

...In five Gulf counties, 40 to 50 per cent of the people are over 60...

...I told them we didn’t plan to have any children,” one young wife said, “and they looked at me with greater suspicion than ever...

...The plan, were it to be enacted, might have cost taxpayers about $6 million annually, but that did not deter the Concerned Citizens...

...It was against the latter, in fact, that the Florida elderly lobby won its first big victory, a victory that showed the kind of clout it has when it chooses to flex its political muscle...

...As a result of the lobby’s efforts, Florida became one of the first states to require pharmacists to offer less expensive generic drugs as substitutes for brand name products...

...There was the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the end-the-war movement, all effective to varying degrees...

...This increasing dependency, the increasing need to be selfish, is resented deeply by the old-if rankles them...

...It would discriminate against all persons under 65...

...Nearly half of the almost two million elderly in Florida are members of the American Association of Retired Persons or its parent organization, the National Retired Teachers Association...

...The light would be just one block from a major intersection...

...The elderly can remember when this was not the case...

...Not only don’t the elderly want children living near them, in many places...

...In these cases and a host of others, AARP’s legislative goals benefit everyone, young and old...

...The lobby has backed the establishment of a consumer advocacy agency...

...Among the many myths about the elderly is one about how sick most of them are, how frail-how they are either forgotten residents of institutions or cowering from criminal assault in dingy tenement apartments...

...If we turn away from the politics of selfishness today, we will find it a lot easier to live together as we grow gray...

...Lauderdale area trying to establish their first homes will find they will be turned away by most apartment complexes and condominiums...

...The best way to prevent it from being realized is to understand who the elderly lobbies of the future are...

...The old folks also clobbered Florida’s optometrists...

...A serious conflict, pitting old against young, could well become a major characteristic of a gray America-a division potentially more painful than the generational clash of the 1960s...

...Rare is the issue on which the political machine of the elderly makes distinctions between poor and well-to-do older people...

...l,n both cases, the elderly showed little concern for the other people who use the street...

...They could not use the service, regardless of need, yet would have to subsidize it for the elderly, all of whom would be eligible, also regardless of need...

...In 1960 40 per cent of Americans were under 20, while only 6.8 per cent were over 65...

...The greatest concentration of elderly is on the Gulf Coast, from the Tampa-St...

...The Future is in FLORIDA by Joseph Burkholder Smith In the opening episodes of “Rhoda” for the new television season we learned that Pop Morgenstern has gone to Ft...

...They all spoke on behalf of Lauderdale Oaks,” said a Broward official, “and the muscle worked...

...insurance reform, including a life insurance disclosure law to allow price and benefit comparison between policies...

...In Miami, the Concerned Citizens of Dade County took transportation matters a step further, twice storming the county courthouse in angry protest to demand that the county provide everyone over 65 with virtually free taxi service...

...There is one enormous difference, however...

...and revisions in the criminal code, including legislation providing indemnification for victims of crimes...

...Admittedly, many of the elderly are driven to steal because they are poor and inflation has wiped out t h e i r e c o n o m i c r e s o u r c e s . However, that is not the only reasonquite a few well-off old people are regular shoplifters-and explanations for the phenomenon so far elude the mental health specialists studying it...

...Can the senior movement be far behind...

...The daily life of Florida’s elderly is full of examples of the entitlement syndrome at work...

...Instead, the interest groups have taken over, pushing for tax breaks and other favors from government no matter how detrimental to everyone else...

...Other older people rationalize their resentment, and the form of rationalization with the greatest social significance is t h e e n t i t l e m e n t syndrome...

...that’s only natural, because parts of the human machine are wearing out...

...Uncle Sam paid them t o complete their college educations or learn a trade after World War 11, paid them bonuses on their GI insurance, and assured them cheap interest rates to buy their first homes and start their first businesses...