Prime Time - Jane Fonda [126]
Older workers are proven to have good attendance rates and low turnover. This leads to significant overhead savings for the companies that employ them. Labor economists estimate that the cost to a company when an employee leaves and a new employee has to be hired and trained is significant—somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000 per worker. For large companies, holding down turnover rates can result in millions of dollars in savings. As of 2005, companies that sought to hire and/or retain older workers included Home Depot, Walgreens, MetLife, and Pitney Bowes.17
Younger workers need not fear the retention of older workers. According to Kenneth A. Knapp, with the International Longevity Center, in New York City, there is an erroneous assumption that if older workers stay in the workforce, this will prevent younger people from getting jobs. However, Knapp has asserted that higher employment is a positive all the way around. Higher employment leads to greater economic growth, which ultimately leads to job growth.
We deserve flexible work arrangements in discrimination-free work environments.
Special Concerns for Women
Nearly 72 percent of women in their fifties are in the labor force; thus, pay inequity is a salient issue for older women. As of 2008, women in full-time jobs had a median weekly wage 20 percent below that of their male counterparts. Working women are often the sole providers for their families, yet they tend to be concentrated in low-paying occupations. More than two-thirds of the part-time labor force is made up of women, leaving them with less job security and with far fewer employer-provided benefits. Furthermore, many low-wage workers are hired as part-time, contingent, or temporary workers. In these roles, low-paid employees lack job security, paid leave, and sick leave, and have limited legal protections.18
Retired women have different needs than retired men. For one, women live longer than men. Women outnumber men in nursing homes, and roughly three out of every four individuals over eighty-five are female. Women need long-lasting retirement funds, but, compared to men, most of them have earned less and spent fewer years in the workforce.
Our current Social Security program includes adjustments for disparities in pay, but privatized Social Security programs would not. Private savings accounts and investments would likely not provide women, low-paid workers, or the unemployed with adequate retirement savings.
Women deserve equal pay for equal work.
Women deserve a government-run Social Security program that will not penalize them disproportionately, as a privatized system would.
Social and Psychological Difficulties
Many of the difficulties associated with getting older are psychological. While the majority of older people become happier as they age, rates of suicide, depression, and substance abuse among a portion of the elderly are far higher than the public appreciates. The suicide rate for individuals over eighty is higher than the teen suicide rate. However, according to the National Council on Aging, state spending for community programs has been undermined by the current recession, resulting in a 10 percent cut, on average, to services to seniors. While the Older Americans Act includes provisions for lifeline outreach programs such as Meals on Wheels, many states have exceptionally long waiting lists and cannot properly execute the programs, and this leaves many seniors isolated.
The Older Americans Act was enacted in 1965 by Congress and was reauthorized and modified in 2006. The legislation supports older citizens’ health and independence through community programs, including Meals on Wheels, civic engagement programs, senior centers, transportation services, support for family caregivers, health promotion, disease prevention, and service training for employment for mature workers. These well-conceived programs can be highly effective, but citizens need to make sure that they are properly funded and