Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 29, 1993 TAG: 9311300358
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PHILIP ASH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It's the most insulting, libelous, demeaning, lying, disgruntled, mean-spirited, yuppie attack on the elderly, senior citizens and Social Security annuitants that I've ever seen in print.
I am a 76-year-old retired university professor, partially disabled, living mostly on Social Security and pension income because the work of the consulting firm I own has shriveled to practically nothing, even though I still try to promote assignments.
Some points:
Her example of the hypothetical $1,000-a-month Social Security annuitant, whose combined Social Security income and putative medical costs factored in `` ... cost us" (emphasis added) more than $320,000, is totally unrepresentative and untrue. In the first place, the Social Security benefit for an annuitant who signed up on Jan. 1, 1993, and who worked 30 years or more, and was eligible for a special benefit because of low lifetime earnings, was $492.50. An employee with average earnings (included in median family income of $35,776 for 1992) would obtain a benefit of $794. However, even this is an exaggeration, because the income distribution in the United States is highly skewed. A 65-year-old Social Security applicant whose 1992 earnings were $10,000 would receive a benefit in the neighborhood of $486.
Senior citizens do have higher medical expenses than younger persons. (I'm surprised Ms. Dowling didn't espouse Goebbel's doctrine of a healthy society: Purge it of the unproductive aged and infirm, which is what the Nazis tried to do. Or perhaps the answer to illness of the aged is Dr. Kevorkian.) But she ignores the fact that the elderly pay a significant and growing part of our medical (Medicare) expenses, directly through premiums (now $36.80 a month deducted from the Social Security benefit) and indirectly through deductions and exclusions (dental care and prescriptions, for example).
It cannot be denied that the elderly will increase in numbers. But she libels us as ``people who retire earlier than they psychologically have to.'' Early retirement has been a tool used by industry to downsize the work force. People no longer retire voluntarily; they are forced into it.
We're accused by Ms. Dowling of adopting ``an entitlement mentality,'' television and a ``high-calorie restaurant diet.'' A mean, false, libelous replay of the Reagan administration's infatuation with the ``welfare queen.'' The Social Security annuitant cannot afford even to enter the chi-chi Los Angeles restaurants she probably patronizes. The decrease cited in the drop of 65-year-olds in the work force is due not to a ``welfare mentality.'' It's due (1) to deliberate age discrimination (sometimes challenged in the courts, but infrequently successful), (2) to the downsizing of American industry that's still continuing, and (3) to competition among age groups. In an academic town like Blacksburg, whenever a fast-food joint, Kroger or Wal-Mart hires a senior citizen (and they do hire a few), a college undergraduate or graduate student who also needs work is left out.
The most obvious misrepresentation, which rises to the status of a full- fledged lie, is: ``Volunteer and paid jobs are all over the place.''
My studies of retirement and work do show that unpaid, volunteer work is available in substantial quantity. Volunteering is an American phenomenon, strongly encouraged by caring citizens, but also, let's remember, by the conservatives to the radical right and all the malefactors of great wealth. For the latter, it's a way for society to duck responsibilities for adequate professional health care or fire protection, for example. Don't tax the well- off; get it done for free. In fact, senior citizens do volunteer in large numbers. (According to a 1988 Gallup poll, 47 percent of those aged 55-64, and 40 percent of those aged 65-74 did volunteer work.)
But the statement `` ... paid (emphasis added) jobs are all over the place'' is arrant nonsense. While our nominal national unemployment rate is now about 7 percent, the actual rate is substantially higher. The Department of Labor is revising the question used in its weekly survey, and, as many newspaper items have noted, that revision will increase the number and rate of the unemployed. Anyone who states that ``jobs are all over the place'' must have been in a condition of oblivion during the recently concluded debate about the North American Free Trade Agreement, during which it was made painfully clear from both sides that jobs were, in effect, in short supply, and were the central bone of contention in the debate.
But senior citizens do want to work, or at least many of them do. About one in four retirees hold paying jobs. Such jobs, however, are not ``all over the place.''
A case can be made for the value of work in contributing to good health, a point of view I subscribe to in my own practice. But, realistically, some people are just tired, worn out, beaten down or seeking relaxation. That is their right. And that is not Dowling's agenda.
She makes that clear in her final whine: ``It isn't fair to make young citizens assume so much responsibility for the care of the entitled, even if they are a politically strong and threatening bloc of voters.''(!) It makes me wonder about her: How did she acquire a medical degree and maybe a board- certified speciality in family medicine? How much, if anything, did her family contribute to that? My two children are graduate-level professionals: my son a leading forensic psychiatrist; my daughter a psychosocial linguistic scholar. For the duration of their college careers, their education consumed at least half of my income. I have no regrets. It was well worth it. But I have earned my ``entitlements.'' And the Dr. Dowlings of our society, too many unfortunately of the ``me only'' generation, will have to live with that.
Philip Ash of Blacksburg is a retired psychology professor and owner of a management-consulting firm.
by CNB