Jarold A. Kieffer - Gaining The Dividends Of Longer Life

GAINING THE DIVIDENDS OF LONGER LIFE

The Dynamics of Aging: Original Essays on the Processes and Experiences of Growing Old, edited by Forrest J. Berghom and Donna E. Schafer

Aging from Birth to Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Matilda White Riley

Aging from Birth to Death, Volume 2: Sociotemporal Perspectives, edited by Matilda White Riley, Ronald P. Abeles, and Michael S. Teitelbaum

Aging and the Aged: An Annotated Bibliography and Library Research Guide, Linna Funk Place, Linda Parker, and Forrest J. Berghorn

Economic Resources for the Elderly: Prospects for the Future, edited by Christopher Garbacz

Prisoners of Space? Exploring the Geographical Experience of Older People, Graham D. Rowies

Developmental Psychology for the Health Care Professions, : Young Adult Through Late Aging, Howard Feldman and Martita A. Lopez

Social Security: A Reciprocity System Under Pressure, Edward Wynne

The Family in Post-Industrial America: Some Fundamental Perceptions for Public Policy Development, edited by David P. Snyder

The Meaning of Social Policy: The Comparative Dimension in Social Welfare, Bernice Q. Madison

Medicaid Eligibility: Problems and Solutions, Marilyn P. Rymer, Conchita Gene Oksman, Lawrence N. Bailis, and David J. Ellwood

Available in hardcover and paperback

Gaining the Dividends of Longer Life: New Roles for Older Workers Jarold A. Kieffer

Not all older people are unfit for work. Indeed, most people over age 55 remain physically and mentally able to work, and rather than suffer the pressures of inflation or the boredom of idleness, many would prefer to stay productive longer. Dr. Kieffer says that their extensive experience and education qualify most of them to remain self-reliant well past current retirement ages. If they are enabled to do so, it would delay and reduce the time when they are forced to be financially and, in some cases, physically dependent. He argues that unless policy leaders in both the public and private sectors act quickly and imaginatively to gain the financial and social dividends that can accrue from longer life, our country, by default, will find itself preoccupied over the next thirty years with unnecessarily high costs of supporting its longer-living and rapidly increasing older population.

Dr. Kieffer explains why current retirement policies are no longer economically and politically manageable, and he suggests a cost-effective strategy whereby public and private funds could be used to enable millions of older people to remain active in jobs that serve unmet community needs. He also outlines a strategy for helping young workers build retirement income assets during their entire work lives so that the unintended burdens that have fallen on the Social Security, pension, and public assistance programs can be eased and made more manageable in the future. Lastly, he describes the roles that government agencies, businesses, educational institutions, foundations, and older people themselves can play in carrying out the jobs and retirement income strategies.

Jarold A. Kieffer was staff director of the 1981 White House Conference on Aging and earlier was director of the National Committee on Careers for Older Americans, He also has served as the Deputy Commissioner of Social Security (1976-1977) and staff director of the President's Panel on Biomedical Research (1975-1976).

New Roles for Older Workers

Jarold A. Kieffer

First published 1983 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright 1983 by Jarold A. Kieffer

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kieffer, Jarold A.
Gaining the dividends of longer life.
Includes index.
1. AgedEmploymentUnited States. 2. Life span, ProductiveUnited States. 3. RetirementUnited States. 4. AgedGovernment policyUnited States. I. Title.
HD 6280.K53 1983 331.3'98'0973 83-6597
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-01846-7 (hbk)

This book is a direct outgrowth of the 1979 report of the National Committee on Careers for Older Americans, Older Americans: An Untapped Resource (New York: Academy for Educational Development). The committee identified the retirement income, health care, and other needs of the rapidly swelling older population and pointed out the severe problems the economy will face in attempting to meet these needs. It also suggested that the older population could be a resource for reducing these problems if its considerable skills, capacities, and experience were tapped in employment roles that would help strengthen national productivity and reduce the growing costs of problems in our communities. The committee recommended ways to increase the numbers of jobs that older people could fill and proposed steps that could be taken by public and private institutions both to create more job opportunities and to help older people prepare for longer work lives.

As director of the committee's activities and later as staff director of the 1981 White House Conference on Aging, I tried to look beyond the committee's recommendations for ways to establish credibility for the idea that our economy could manage to keep and reabsorb large numbers of older people into the work force. Specifically, how could enough cost-effective (not "make work") jobs be found and maintained to employ large numbers of older people as well as the still expanding group of job seekers born during the "baby boom" from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s?

I was struck by the fragmented way policymakers have been approaching the implications of longer life. With public and official attention focusing increasingly on the huge deficits in the Social Security Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, policymakers and advisory groups have been proposing various ways of inducing older workers to stay on the job longer so as to reduce the years they take benefits and add to the years they are subject to the payroll tax. Such actions, among others, would eliminate mandatory retirement, postpone the Sodal Security retirement age past age 65, provide higher benefit bonuses for workers who delay retirement past age 65, and reduce further the benefits paid to workers who retire before age 65. Whether these proposals are intended to compel or simply encourage older workers to stay on the job longer, their implementation presupposes that enough jobs would exist to meet the needs of both older and younger workers. Unfortunately, these ideas for extending the work life of older people are being considered in isolation in the government and the Congress, with little indication being given of how the job needs of the young and the old would be met. It is also unclear how the total stock of jobs will be expanded to enable more retired people to reenter the work force and more older workers to stay in the work force but move to another job.