Chapter Overview

1. What are the voting patterns and preferences of older Americans?
Older people have the potential to exert a significant influence on any election since they comprise a disproportionate share of the electorate. However, there is no evidence that they engage in bloc voting. Often older people have supported candidates or parties that have enacted proposals against their interests. In general, there are few age differences in political preferences. Young and old have similar attitudes toward public spending and similar preferences for presidential candidates. An exception was the 1992 presidential election in which older voters were less likely to vote for Ross Perot, a reflection of the skepticism older people have regarding the effectiveness of third party candidates.

2. What are the major interest groups that represent older Americans, and what have they accomplished?
The American Association of Retired Persons is the largest organization of older people in the United States. Other important organizations include the National Council of Senior Citizens, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the National Association of Retired Federal Employees. Despite the presence of many large organizations representing the interests of older people, it is important not to overestimate their political power. Larger organizations, such as AARP, find it difficult to take a position on any issue, because their members are so diverse. Often the old-age organizations disagree with each other. The greatest accomplishment of these interest groups has been in protecting Social Security and Medicare.

3. What social movements have older Americans participated in?
Although older people are the least likely age group to participate in a political demonstration, there have been two occasions in this century when they have felt strongly enough about an issue to become involved in a social movement. The first social movement primarily composed of older people was the Townsend movement. Townsendites lobbied Congress for a national old age pension. Many observers believe that their influence hastened passage of the Social Security Act of 1935. The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 generated an exceptional kind of protest politics by the elderly because they felt they were being taxed unfairly and because it did not provide the one benefit they needed most-help with the costs of nursing home care.

4. What concepts have been used in debates about government spending on the aged?
Until recently the aged have been considered deserving recipients of social benefits. As improvements in Social Security benefits raised the living standards of the retired, some people began to claim that the elderly were receiving an unfair share of societal resources, especially compared to what children receive. This is the central idea behind the notion of generational equity. Generational equity is primarily an American idea that has had little influence in other countries in debates about government spending. Another concept that is widely used is that there is an entitlement crisis. The notion of an entitlement crisis consists of two themes. The first is that expenditures on the aged are usurping an unfair share of federal resources. The second is that current trends cannot be sustained in the future when the baby boom generation begins to retire.