Paul Kleyman
Social Security, a “Ponzi Scheme”* — really? It’s not only this taint is profoundly false, but I’d expect the 1920s con artist Charles Ponzi would have chafed at being associated with the accusation’s musky lack of originality.
The Ponzi smear is so stale, it first appeared in 1937, two years following Social Security’s enactment. In 1977, former presidential candidate, Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-AZ, repeated the claim in the Congressional Record. Although the system needs updating, this phony charge against it has been thoroughly debunked throughout the half century I’ve been covering issues in aging.
For the record, Social Security is transparently and firmly well-funded by ongoing payroll taxes and has a cushion in its Trust Funds, while they do need additional funding. Oh, and the program has faithfully paid recipients every month since a legal secretary named Ida B. Fuller received the very first old-age pension check, on Jan. 31, 1940.
My theme here, though, is not in defense of the nation’s public pension system alone, but in my fatigue over hearing the same ol’, same ol’ complaints of conservatives and the billionaire class that have put a drag on our ability to realize the potential for older Americans to contribute to the nation’s life and economy.
Whether it’s affordable housing, effective health and long-term care, age-diverse workplaces, income equality, food security, or a host of other concerns, the slouching politics of today is sidelining public investments in the stabilizing elements of people’s lives. These personal and social structures are the building blocks of the longevity economy, the advancements that can enable us to thrive throughout our ever-lengthening lives.
Aging is an issue mishandled by political and media leaders on both the right, which persists in the falsehood that longer lives pose a national financial burden, and those on left, who reflexively get mired in playing defense against threats to old age security without also spotlighting the enormous contributions of older people. A national commitment, literally to the American future, promises gains in trillions of dollars more to the country’s economy, not to mention to securing better lives for everyone.
The “News” for Me Is the Same “Olds”
Although I’m known for my work on the journalism of aging, I never thought I’d age with the topic. My book, Senior Power: Growing Old Rebelliously, came out in 1974. At the time I was a new father, and now I’m very proud of my 51-year-old daughter and 12-year-old grandson.
People are surprised, though, when I tell them that my focus isn’t so much on aging, per se. A child of The Sixties, I came to the issue as an unsung facet of social justice. While the movements against racism and sexism bannered headlines countrywide, “ageism” was newly named in the late 1960s, for the struggles of being old in America. After 50 years, I’m still reporting on the pervasive difficulties that lower- and middle-income seniors have in making basic financial ends meet, as documented by the Elder Index at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, demand continual media exposure and elder advocacy. But these issues are symptomatic of America’s forgotten dream, the aspiration so simply bidden for us by Star Trek’s Mr. Spock: “Live long and prosper.”
It turns out that longer lives, if extended with better health, according to years of study, is key to any nation’s prosperity. Yet leaders on both sides of the political aisle and media outlets have ignored the enormous longevity bonus American society is sure to accrue with the scientific and social advancements at hand.
Shortsighted Policies Risk Longevity Bonus
For instance, AARP’s Public Policy Institute, working with the World Economic Forum and the OECD (representing 32 advanced economies, including the U.S) determined that countries failing to reverse age barriers to employment could lose up to 10% of their gross domestic product (GDP). Alternatively, those who invest in workplace age diversity may increase national productivity by up to 20%. Those are huge numbers.
In the United States, according to the report, The Economic Impact of Age Discrimination, AARP and The Economist magazine found that age bias against Americans 50-plus reduced U.S. GDP by $850 billion in 2018 alone. According to the study, a concerted public-private effort to end age discrimination for 50-plus workers would add $3.9 trillion more to the economy in 2050 (for a total contribution that year of $30.7), than possible have without change.
As social entrepreneur Marc Freedman, author of How to Live Forever: The Enduring Power of Connecting the Generations (Public Affairs, 2018), has stated, “Older people are our greatest untapped natural resource.”
And the growing field of longevity science promises trillions more in increased years of productivity by capable elders through advances, such as from curing or delaying the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and other research areas now being cut. Researchers from UCLA to Harvard have shown, using different approaches, the investment in longevity science would boost U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by from $7.1 trillion to as much as $38 trillion per year.
Crucially, though, Andrew J. Scott, PhD, author of The Longevity Imperative (Basic Books, 2024), and his colleagues caution that society cannot attain these advantages, if life-extending new treatments are available only to the affluent. Instead, economies would “need to ensure widespread access, if the full value of these social gains is to be realized.” That is, diversity, equity and inclusion have a compound-interest effect on this national investment in healthy longevity: We thrive together, or not much at all.
Gray Panther’s Wisdom for Today—50 Years Ago
Good sense about the benefits across all generations from non-discriminatory policies is neither new nor the province of Ivory Tower intellectuals. A half century ago, my book, Senior Power, included this statement by Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, and one of the feistiest of all activists for elder rights.
“When we consider the increasing numbers of people over 65 in America’s future, it is very important that there be a new public awareness of what the elders can contribute to our society. We also need an aroused awareness of the force of institutional policies, which demean and diminish old people—while denying [this country] the rich resources, experience, and accumulated skills that the elders can feed into the political processes of our time.”
Paul Kleyman is National Coordinator of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), which he co-founded in 1993. He edits its e-newsletter, Generations Beat Online (GBONews.org).
Notes:
2. (Ponzi, 1937) https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/social-security-is-not-a-ponzi-scheme/
3. (Goldwater, 1977) https://www.google.com/books/edition/Congressional_Record/Efp8I0jAUBQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22longest+playing+ponzi+scheme%22&pg=PA8631&printsec=frontcover
4. (Urban Institute) https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/social-security-not-ponzi-scheme
[ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/washington-post-joins-wal_b_413279 ]
5. (CJR) https://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/forget_that_ponzi_scheme_stuff.php
6. (UMass Boston, Elder Index) https://elderindex.org
7. (AARP and The Economist) https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/surveys_statistics/econ/2020/impact-of-age-discrimination.doi.10.26419-2Fint.00042.003.pdf
8. (Nature Aging, Longevity Science) https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-021-00080-0
9. (Andrew J. Scott, PhD) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Scott_(economist)
10. (Maggie Kuhn) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/opinion/sunday/gray-panthers-maggie-kuhn.html
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