Big Government's Oldest Success
MOLLISON, ANDREW
WAshington - USA BIG GOVERNMENT'S OLDEST SUCCESS BY ANDREW MOLLISON Washington First, the good news about aging in this country: Thanks chiefly to much-maligned big government, older...
...And at least 1.2 million elderly, most of them sick and many certifiablv poor, live in institutions or are denizens of the streets...
...Younger adults worry about the system not because they oppose it, but because they fear it will not be around after they retire...
...During the last quarter century the poverty rate for the aged has fallen 22 points, to less than 13 per cent, while the rate for youngsters 18 and under, after dropping from 27 per cent to 14 per cent by 1969, has shot back up to 22 per cent today...
...As recently as 1968,48 cents of every dollar of an average older couple's income represented current wages, salaries and profits...
...In addition, tax breaks have cushioned postretire-ment income shock...
...The elderly can now work less and still enjoy a higher standard of living than the elderly had in the past," reported President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers last February...
...It distributed a 12-page reply arguing "that while therearesome well-off older people, there are many more who live in or very near poverty...
...In fact, elderly households, and households whose members are on av erage three decades younger, have comparable per capita incomes in the 1980s...
...Among retirees themselves, there is still less nostalgia for the days of the old-fashioned multigenerational home where the old folks were stashed away in the spare room or the attic...
...The news is not uniformly good...
...Poverty rates range from under 7 per cent for old white men sharing homes with their wives to above 60 per cent for old black women on their own...
...An ex-Brooklynite in West Palm Beach, Florida, to my frank amazement, recounted her arguments in the 1930s with Norman Thomas about The New Leader's editorial policy...
...Less whining and more bragging about the triumphs of universal, inflation-indexed, non-means-tested programs for the old is now in order...
...Of all the factors contributing to that poignant contrast, one stands out: Older Americans tend to rely on the wealth of society as a whole—that is, on the government...
...They included a legless survivor of a Nazi slave labor-camp who is currently a resident of Miami Beach, and a man inhabiting a trailer in Mesa, Arizona, who lost all his savings when his noninsured bank in Nebraska folded...
...Between 197383, the number of seniors with incomes below 150 per cent of the poverty level remained relatively constant, rising only from 7.5 million to 7.9 million...
...Recent interviews with 5^1 Massachusetts 75-year-olds indicated that if one partner in a marriage entered a nursing home, theother would be impov erished \ndrfw Mouison is the cliicf political writer for the Cox Newspapers...
...But the latter spend $4 a month more per capita for living expenses and $41 a month more for taxes...
...Despite their having no income besides low-level Social Security payments, both men insisted that this was better than relying upon the uncertain generosity of working relatives...
...The truth is that the Council's response was wrong-headed .What Americans need in 1985 is reminders that government programs can actually work...
...Moreover, in every elderly group, conditions are worse for persons, mostly widows, living by themselves...
...Ashade below lOper cent of older widows get survivor pension benefits...
...Second, the budgets of the aged can be demolished by a serious illness or a spouse's death...
...Meanwhile, the number with higher cash incomes soared from 13.2 million to 18.3 million...
...But today it is usually the skeptics, not supporters of government activism, who draw attention to the happy results of the biggest, costliest, most successful, and most popular domestic initiative ever undertaken by Washington...
...Even the President's first budget director, David Stockman, has testified that since Dwight Eisenhower's terms in the White House, government has accounted for 84 per cent, and economic growth for only 16 per cent, of the improved financial well-being of older people...
...Some of those I interviewed were pretty poor themselves...
...A quarter century later, that figure stood at 35 per cent...
...Fi ft y years ago, I wo t hirds of them were poor...
...WAshington - USA BIG GOVERNMENT'S OLDEST SUCCESS BY ANDREW MOLLISON Washington First, the good news about aging in this country: Thanks chiefly to much-maligned big government, older Americans—people 65 and above—are receivi ng and spending more money than ever beforeinU.S...
...Charity—from welfare, private sources and relatives— provides 2 per cent...
...Social Security goes to nine out of 10 seniors, supplying close to 100 per cent of funds for one fifth of them and nearly 40 per cent on average...
...Not long ago I traveled through four quite conservative Sun Belt states—Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona—where I talked for one or two hours each with over 100 older people...
...Notwithstanding the Reagan Administration's " trickle down" philosophy, however, they have not been taking the same slice of a bigger pie...
...Politically they were a diverse bunch...
...and along the way union organizing, protected by the National Labor Relations Act, encouraged a boom in pension plans that have been stabilized by Federal laws...
...Perhaps most interesting, flys oldsters I spoke to agreed that we could do the same for the very young who are in need...
...In 1935, fewer than 200,000 of the 7.8 million Americans 65 and up collected any pension from employer plans...
...Last, although a majority of women, Hispanics and blacks who are 65 and beyond have escaped poverty, they have lagged behind the aged as a whole...
...Among today's 28 million, 33 per cent of the couples, 24 per cent of the single men and 13 per cent of the single women are recipients...
...A General Motors executive's widow defended her decision as head of the library board in a small Texas town to oppose a waiver of the $20 nonresident fee for an impoverished woman dwelling outside the town limits...
...Because that is a flaw in all the Bureau's surv eys, however, it does not disprove the overall upward trend...
...When Social Security w as adopted in 1935, two thirds of the aged were dependent upon day labor, charity or family...
...At present, with over 90 per cent of the elderly retired, current employment accounts for merely 28 per cent of the income of oldsters who live with relatives, including spouses, and it is 10 per cent for their contemporaries living alone...
...Indeed, on balance the elderly take less charity than they give: Typically, they spend 5 per cent of their incomes on cash contributions, and almost half donate volunteer time to community activities of their choice...
...Last March, the Census Bureau's annual survey showed that in 1984 their median cash income had risen to $10,450 for men and $6,020 for women...
...Celebration of this progress must be qualified, though...
...That might increase the amount of public support for similar programs aimed at helping poor Americans who are too young to support themselves...
...Rich or poor, Right or Left, no one I spoke to accepted the fashionable hypothesis that this nation cannot afford to stabilize the income of the retired at decent levels...
...Now it has fallen below 13 per cent, an all-time nadir...
...history...
...With good retirement policies that promote the efficient use of all resources, tomorrow's elderly will be even more secure...
...Fearing these ev entualities, quite a few of them hoard assets, thereby reducing their living standards...
...It is Social Security, which has raised and steadied their earnings, and Medicare, which has paid half of their health costs, that have been primarily responsible for the country's accomplishment...
...The last thing Yuppies want is the elimination of institutions whose disappearance might expose many of them to requests that they share their houses and salaries with mom and dad...
...within six months in 25 per cent of the cases, and within a year in an additional 16 per cent...
...lust 25 vearsago, upwards of half of all senior citizens had cash incomes under $1,000 (approximately $4,000 in 1984 values...
...the economic fate of youngsters depends on the resources of their relatives, especially parents...
...That is simply incorrect...
...The National Council of Senior Citizens was alarmed at the report's possi-bleimplications...
...Fortunately, the nay-sayers contending that the older generation is ripping off today's workers lack broad public support...
...The Council's statement suggests an explanation of its error: "Given the rosy economic status of most of the elderly described in the report [by the Reagan economists], along with positive comments about the growth of Social Security benefits, the availability of pensions and the prevalence of in-kind benefits, the report could easily be used as a justification by the Administration and others for cutting back programs aiding the elderly.' Sure it could, but solely in the perverse sense that the remarkable feat of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in protecting small bank depositors might be invoked to claim that the FDIC is no longer needed because it has been highly effective...
...Still, all segments of the elderly have moved closer to independence and economic security...
...To begin with, the Census Bureau's yearly income and poverty surveys exclude anyone not part of a household...
...In July a national survey of adults of all ages found that in excess of 80 per cent of them opposed any cuts in Social Security...
Vol. 68 • September 1985 • No. 12
