Abstract: Material representing the first comprehensive, current accounting of the changing needs of the elderly relative to health care is provided for policy makers, the general public, and health care professionals. New survey data are presented identifying the aged, how they live, and their financial resources. Widely accepted myths about the aging are explored. This wide-ranging study provides new understanding of the strengths and limitations of family help and a definitive analysis of the major health and income programs serving the elderly. It is pointed out that the variety of benefits is neither efficient nor fair, subsidizing the larger population of healthy and well-off at the expense of the very old, the poor, and the chronically infirm. It is concluded that current policies need revision to more consistently match benefit programs with needs. (wz).
Modern industrial societies are characterized by long-term declines in fertility and steady increases in life expectancy. Together, these trends result in an aging population. The United States is no exception; since 1969 the median age has risen from 29.4 to a projected 36.4 in the year 2000. This fourth edition of the standard reader on the sociology of aging has been completely revised, with 90 percent new material, to reflect new information and new issues in this rapidly developing field. Students and practicing professionals will find it a lively, accessible overview.
Modern industrial societies are characterized by long-term declines in fertility and steady increases in life expectancy. Together, these trends result in an aging population. The United States is no exception; since 1969 the median age has risen from 29.4 to a projected 36.4 in the year 2000. This fourth edition of the standard reader on the sociology of aging has been completely revised, with 90 percent new material, to reflect new information and new issues in this rapidly developing field. Students and practicing professionals will find it a lively, accessible overview.
America's Midlife Crisis examines the culture of America at a crucial point in its history and development. Along the way something happened to the fundimental nature of American culture: a midlife crisis. From the founding of the republic through the many conflicts over the years, from the Puritan roots to recent waves of immigration, from race to religion. America's Midlife Crisis examines the values, beliefs and behavior of an increasingly complex society that is struggling with its place in the new world order. There has been a seismic shift, far beyond normal cyclic changes, in cultural and political trends in the United States. Following 9/11--no longer as confident in the protection of two vast oceans, a powerful military structure and a dominant economy-- the U.S. government instituted policies and practices that have produced results exactly opposite of what was intended. Rather than making America safer, they have generated great consternantion about its intentions, further enraging America's critics and confusing and alienating its longtime allies. America's Midlife Crisis shows how a superpower got to this point and what this midlife crisis means for the nation's future.
There is a looming crisis in our nation's capacity to provide long-term care. The needs keep increasing while more and more of our aging seniors and large numbers of disabled can no longer gain access to affordable care. The markers are serious--more than one-half of Americans age 65 and older are expected to need help with activities of daily living, whether in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or at home; U. S. seniors are projected to outnumber children under 18 by 2035; dementia increases as our population ages, expected to involve almost 40 percent of people over age 85; one in four Americans has a major disability; and there is a growing shortage of caregivers. Regardless of our age and current circumstances, all of us will face the need for long-term care for a parent, another family member, or ourselves down the road. When that time comes, it is an open question whether most of us will be able to gain access to personal, affordable long-term care when we need it. This book examines the many issues involved in charting a way toward a system of universal coverage that will fix the challenge of long-term care.
Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. But neither Reconstruction nor the New Deal nor the civil rights struggle led to an economically just and fair nation. Today, systematic inequality persists in the form of housing discrimination, unequal education, police brutality, mass incarceration, employment discrimination, and massive wealth and opportunity gaps. Economic data indicates that for every dollar the average white household holds in wealth the average black household possesses a mere ten cents. This compelling and sharply argued book addresses economic injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War and offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery. This new edition features a new foreword addressing the latest developments on the local, state, and federal level and considering current prospects for a comprehensive reparations program.
As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.
The facts are plain: Social Security is headed for massive, unsustainable deficits in the next century. Politicians talk of a Social security "trust fund" but there are no hard assets in it--only government bonds. The reality is that Social Security is really a "pay as you go" system, with benefits to current retirees paid not out any saved trust funds but out of taxes on the payroll of today; s workforce. But what will happen when these employees retire; when, in less than fifteen years, the 76 million members of the baby boom generation -- the largest in our history -- stop paying in and start taking money out? And what can we as individuals and as citizens do now to prevent these catastrophic deficits. The crises towards which we are careening (by 2025, 1 American in 5 will be 65 or older and it will take an already overloaded 1.6 working Americans to support each retired person) will not only be felt personally by the many millions stranded with no savings and without benefits, but will shiver the country's economy as a whole as well as the world financial system. With courage, clarity and incontrovertible evidence, Peterson spells out this huge -- if politically unmentionable -- problem more clearly than ever before and tells us what we must do now for our personal survival and that of our children. According to recent polls, more young Americans believe in UFOs than think they will ever receive a Social Security check. Yet most Baby Boomers, as they approach retirement age, believe they will continue to live their present lifestyle in retirement -- without a fraction of the personal savings or pensions necessary to pay for the future they expect. This agingpopulation -- double today's load -- will depend on as few as 1.6 working Americans to support each retired person. Who will support this nation of Floridas? In this short, powerful book, Peter G. Peterson, one of American's top investment bankers and a leading critic of our entitlement policy, spells out in the clearest possible language, with unmistakable numbers and easy-to-read charts, the disaster that lies ahead if we continue to ignore our low saving rate, our ballooning federal deficits, and our enormous unfunded and unsustainable commitments to retirees. Peterson reveals what politicians are afraid to admit: trillions of dollars of promised benefits for which no funds have been provided. Shattering the myths surrounding this subject with hard facts and eye-opening views of the future, Peterson gives the most comprehensive and candid plan for a gradual, humane, fair, and realistic answer to the greatest challenge of the next century: transforming our political, economic, cultural, and social assumptions to adapt to the realities of the graying of America.
