Public Policy & Aging E-Newsletter

Volume 1, Number 6, November 2007

This bimonthly e-newsletter highlights key developments and viewpoints in the field of aging policy from a wide variety of sources, including articles and reports circulating in the media, academy, think tanks, private sector, government and nonprofit organizations.

The goal of this email publication is to reach teachers, students, and citizens interested in aging-related issues, especially those who may not have access to policy information disseminated both in Washington and around the country.

A. Social Security Announces 2.3 Percent Benefit Increase for 2008: According to the Social Security Administration, monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for more than 54 million Americans will increase 2.3 percent in 2008; the average Social Security check will see an increase of about $24 per month. Click here to view.

B. Consumer Groups Form National Alliance to Improve Assisted Living Care: Fifteen elder care, elder law, and senior advocacy groups have formed the Assisted Living Consumer Alliance, a national non-profit organization advocating for stronger consumer protections for assisted living residents. Click here to view.

II. WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND THE COUNTRY?

A. Nation's First Baby Boomer Files for Social Security Retirement Benefits: At an event hosted by Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, the nation's first Baby Boomer, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, filed online for her Social Security retirement benefits. Casey-Kirschling, who was born one second after midnight on January 1, 1946, will be eligible for benefits beginning January 2008. Click here to view.

B. Caring for America's Aging Population?a Profile of the Direct-Care Workforce: Today, paraprofessional workers provide the majority of paid hands-on care, supervision, and emotional support to the elderly and disabled in the United States. This article from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides an economic and demographic profile of the direct-care workforce: low-wage compensation with correspondingly low levels of health insurance coverage and high levels of turnover.

C. Medicare Part D Plan Characteristics, by State, 2008: From the Kaiser Family Foundation, this fact sheet contains 2008 state-specific summary data about available Medicare drug benefit options, including premium ranges, the number of stand-alone plans with gap coverage in the "doughnut hole," and the number of plans available at no cost to qualifying beneficiaries.

III. THIS ISSUE'S MAJOR POLICY STORY: THE FISCAL IMPACT OF AGING

As the presidential race heats up, candidates are scrambling to accentuate the distinctive features of their health-care proposals and how they might contain the costs of existing entitlement programs in the face of population aging. Thus far the debate has been free of doomsday scenarios. Equally encouraging has been the acknowledgement that there is no free lunch. What many readers of the Public Policy & Aging E-Newsletter need is a clearer sense of the "big picture." The following five articles offer a variety of perspectives-local and global, immediate and long-term-on the fiscal impact of population aging.

- Andy Achenbaum

A. Assessing the Fiscal Impact of Aging: The Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) Program of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) has for many years sponsored research that has contributed to our understanding of how an aging population impacts the fiscal health of the United States. This brief highlights some of the variations in demographic projections, regional economics, and technological innovations impacted by societal aging.

B. The Demand for Local Services and Infrastructure Created by an Aging Population: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has released an article that highlights the increased demand for age-related services and infrastructure among a growing senior population in upstate New York. The authors project that local governments and other regional institutions that service the senior population will need to anticipate and address the significant challenges they may face meeting this demand, while simultaneously facing cutbacks at state and federal levels. Click here to view.

C. Defining Our Long-Term Fiscal Challenges: Click here to read Urban Institute Senior Fellow C. Eugene Steuerle's testimony before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee in which he explains how in recent decades the government has wound a straightjacket around federal spending and tax subsidies. The main culprits have been in the broad areas of retirement, health, and taxation.

D. Population Aging, Labor Demand, and the Structure of Wages: Econometric estimates imply that the size of one's birth cohort affects wages throughout one's working life, with members of relatively large cohorts earning a significantly lower wage than members of smaller cohorts. The results of this study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston suggest that cohort size effects are quantitatively important and should be incorporated into public policy analyses.

E. Global Aging Pressures-Impact of Fiscal Adjustment, Policy Cooperation, and Structural Reforms: This study examines the macroeconomic impact of alternative fiscal adjustment and structural reform strategies to address global aging pressures using the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s Global Fiscal Model. The results suggest substantial spillover effects of aging through international financial channels.

IV. WORTH NOTING

A. Trend in Disability at Older Ages: In the future, older Americans may spend more years healthy and disability-free than the current population aged 65 and older. The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has sponsored research to project the impact of conflicting trends-declining old-age disability and increasing obesity-on disability rates and health care costs. Click here to view.

B. The Silver Book: From the Alliance for Aging Research, the Silver Book is a searchable database that is constantly updated and expanded in order to highlight the latest research and data on the burden of chronic disease and the value of investing in medical research. Click here to view this site that contains more than 1,000 facts, statistics, graphs, and data from more than 200 agencies, organizations, and experts.

C. A Statistical Profile of Hispanic Older Americans Aged 65+: By 2028, the Hispanic population aged 65 and older is projected to be the largest racial/ethnic minority in this age group. This report from the Administration on Aging (AOA) covers various aspects of this growing population, including education levels, living arrangements, access to medical care, and more.

D. The Gerontological Society of America's annual meeting is being held this year from November 16-20 in San Francisco. Several sessions at the meeting relate to public policy and aging issues. Click here to view policy-related sessions.

A. AARP Profit From Experience-Perspectives of Employers, Workers and Policymakers in the G7 Countries on the New Demographic Realities: Among the challenges and opportunities created by aging workforces, one of the biggest is the need to redefine both employees' and employers' notions of how and when a career evolves and transitions to retirement. With its comprehensive overview of aging workforce issues in the countries comprising the Group of Seven (G7), this AARP study breaks new ground by exploring how key stakeholders in these nations are responding to the aging workforce dynamic. Click here to view.

B. Grow Old Along With Me-And 690 Million Other People by 2030: For many millions of people worldwide, longer lives are providing opportunities for pleasures and satisfactions denied to countless previous generations. However, these extra years could also mean extended suffering and disability for elderly people unable to obtain adequate care. The outcome may depend on whether rapidly aging nations get to work developing the health services and health promotion strategies that will allow older citizens to remain healthy as long as possible. Click here to view this report by the Disease Control Priorities Project.

VI. PERSPECTIVES ON POLICY: ROB HUDSON, EDITOR, PP&AR

The current issue of Public Policy & Aging Report turns its attention to "structural lag" and "policy stagnation," twin constructs whose pairing has had major implications for aging-related policy. Over a period of several decades, major societal-level changes have left aging policy in what might be termed an "incongruent state." Demographic changes center on extended longevity, heightened well-being, and new levels of expectation among older adults. Social and economic changes include shifting retirement and marital patterns, and the "dated" impact of longstanding transportation, housing, and land use policies and practices. Against these developments stands federal policy on aging, a formidable institution in its own right. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a broad array of other domestic programs, and provisions in the tax code direct roughly one trillion dollars to aging-related concerns.

The $64,000 question (non-inflation adjusted) is how well these expenditures comport with the needs and desires of contemporary older Americans. Five analysts examine this conundrum in the latest issue of PP&AR. Janet Wilmoth and Charles Longino introduce the concepts and set forth arenas where social realities and policy postures seem out of line with one another. Richard Settersten enumerates ten reasons why "shake-ups" in the life-course now, in turn, call for shake-ups in policy approaches. Debra Street speaks to disconnects in education, health care, and income maintenance policies, paying particular attention to provisions in the tax code. Madonna Harrington Meyer centers her analysis on growing incongruities between contemporary marriage patterns and historical assumptions Social Security makes about marriage, gender roles, and family life. Finally, Amanda Lehning, Yuna Chun, and Andrew Scharlach investigate what it would take to create "age-friendly" communities in America, emphasizing how longstanding land-use, zoning, urban renewal, and transportation policies have rendered many communities inhospitable for older people.

Most contemporary discussion of aging policy centers on retrenchment; these analyses show that reform and modernization are every bit as important.

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Newsletter Editors: Ellyn Emsley and Greg O'Neill, National Academy on an Aging Society; Andy Achenbaum, University of Houston.

The Public Policy and Aging E-Newsletter is supported in part by a grant from the AARP Office of Academic Affairs.