Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290056
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The elderly make up an easily identifiable interest group because, due to the lack of means testing, they qualify for these government programs solely on the basis of age. But within the demographic group covered by programs for "the elderly" are individuals who fall all over the income scale, from wealthy to poor.
So while a new generation of workers is worrying, quite understandably, about how they will ever be able to support families of their own and carry the load for a booming number of retirees drawing government checks, let's take care not to stereotype elderly Americans. That would make it too easy to demonize them so that their benefits might be attacked indiscriminately.
The current generation of older Americans are better off financially than any other in the nation's history - as a whole. That doesn't mean no elderly people are living in poverty or near poverty. And these people seldom have any means of improving their lot by getting a good-paying job or marrying.
A look at the demographics of the elderly by The Wall Street Journal shows that in 1992, while 11 percent of elderly married couples were poor or near poor, 35 percent of elderly unmarried women were. And while 21 percent of elderly white people fell into these categories, 48 percent of elderly black people did.
Contrast the needs of the 89-year-old retired insurance company executive with a good pension and a healthy portfolio of stocks with those of the 74-year-old widow whose main source of income is her $700 monthly Social Security check. She depends on it to live. Forty years of serving cafeteria food and cleaning offices did not allow for investments.
Some of the retired executive's peers might, indeed, be greedy geezers - though many financially secure older people have long said they would be willing to see their benefits pared to help younger generations.
Let's not talk about the folks in that bracket, though, while sharply cutting benefits or increasing co-payments for the folks already budgeting 75 cents a day for a meal at some center for the elderly. Growth in Medicare and Social Security spending has to be cut significantly. But let's not do so without introducing means-testing.
by CNB