GBO NEWS: OWL’S Mother’s Day Report; Race, Age & the Recession; Crossword Queen Turns 100
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations
May 8, 2014 — Volume 14, Number 7
Editor’s Note: GBO News, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generation publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. Send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. If you receive the table of contents as e-mail, just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org.
IN THIS ISSUE: Call your Ma! And Your Grandma, too!
1. GOOD SOURCES: OWL’s Annual Mother’s Day “Card” on Long-Term Care; ***Study Shows Recession Deepened Wealth Disparities for Young and Ethnic Americans; *** “Beyond Broke” Report on Racial Wealth Gap.
2. THE STORY BOARD: Top Crossword Creator at 100 and Other Tales from Philly Inquirer’s Mike Vitez; *** “What Do the Suicides of Fifty-Year-Old Men Reveal?” by Margaret Morganroth Gullette in Tikkun; *** “It’s Time to Banish the Word ‘Informal,’” declares AARP policy blogger Lynn Friss Feinberg. But for What?
3. GEN BEATLES NEWS: India West’s Sunita Sohrabji Honored for Story on Suicide Among Indian Americans, also She Publishes “Indian American Widows Prefer Living Alone Than With Their Families”; ***Kerry Hannon’s What’s Next? Book on Encore Careers Released in Paperback; *** The Historical “Noah”? Hysterical.
4. EVENT HORIZON: *** “The Creative Age: Exploring Potential in the Second Half of Life,” will be a conference, June 10-14, in Washington, D.C.
1. GOOD SOURCES
***OWL’s Annual Mother’s Day “Card”: Every year, the Older Women’s League (OWL) puts out its annual Mother’s Day report. The 2014 edition, Long-Term Care: Managing Our Future, updates OWL’s 2006 examination of long-term care, “because of its urgency and importance to the well-being of all Americans. The problems associated with long-term care are only becoming more acute as an unprecedented demographic shift takes place in a nation that is still struggling with the ability to provide basic health care to its residents,” states the 45-page report.
OWL Board President Margaret Hellie Huyck, Ph.D., a veteran social researcher in gerontology, notes in the introduction, “Current estimates show that 70 percent of Americans over age 65 will require some long-term services and supports for at least three years during their lifetime; and many of us may face a decade or more of very expensive care.”
It includes a nifty chart showing “Life expectancy at birth for women in highest and lowest expectancy nations.” At the top, unsurprisingly, are Japan (87) and China (86), but close behind, at age 85, are France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Life expectancy at birth for women in the U.S. of A. is 81—20th on the list, according to 2012 figures from the U.N. At the bottom, sadly, is a cluster of mostly African countries, with Lesotho showing the lowest at age 48.
The report explains further, “In 2014, long-term care continues to be one of the biggest risks Americans face to their financial solvency, independence and quality of life. The U.S. continues to operate without a national long-term care system that provides quality care and insurance against the catastrophic costs associated with long-term care. In addition to the broad array of issues that have not been addressed on a national level, the American public still lacks understanding about long-term care; where it occurs, who pays for it, how to plan for it and why comprehensive, thoughtful and rational long-term care policy is of importance to all Americans.”
OWL’s tribute to Momhood analyzes demographic changes shaping the U.S. response to long-term care practice into the future, as wells as long-term care models in other nations and promising innovations. The report includes a list of key organizations and policy recommendations.
*** “Impact of the Great Recession and Beyond: Disparities in Wealth Building by Generation and Race,” is an analysis released in April by the Urban Institute (UI) showing, “By 2010, one out of every five U.S. families (20 percent) was asset poor, up from 16 percent in 2007.”
UI Senior Fellow Signe-Mary McKernan and colleagues add: “Many families lost their homes through foreclosure. Family wealth was also lost through the stock market decline, and some families made early withdrawals (or made fewer deposits) from retirement savings to weather unemployment. Each of these events further weakened the economic security of American families.” Hispanic families lost 44-50 percent of mean wealth during the Great Recession, African America families lost 31-34 percent, and whites took a 10-13 percent wealth-hit, depending on different data bases used for the UI analysis. “Even with these differences, the studies generally find that Hispanic and African American families lost more in percentage terms than white families, with Hispanic families experiencing the largest relative losses,” write McKernan and her coauthors.
Additionally, says the study, “Evidence is also emerging that the recovery from the Great Recession is uneven, with the wealthiest 7 percent of households benefitting disproportionately relative to the less wealthy 93 percent.”
Further, says the report, “The racial wealth gap grows sharply with age. In their 30s and 40s, whites have about 3.5 times more wealth than African Americans and Hispanics. By the time people reach their early-to-mid-60s, whites have about seven times the wealth of African Americans and Hispanics.”
McKernan and company explain, “The young and families of color experienced the largest percentage declines in wealth as a result of the Great Recession, driven in large part from declines in housing.” But they stress that the recession is only partly to blame: “The young and families of color were not on good wealth-building paths relative to earlier cohorts or to whites before the Great Recession, and they have not benefited as much from the recovery of some markets (mainly stock) since then.”
Although the authors refrain from policy recommendations, they do question “the effectiveness and adequacy of a range of policies.”
For instance, they note that policies aimed at helping low-income families, such as food stamps (the SNAP program), tend to discourage saving, such as for college or retirement, because families can become ineligible if they build up more than a few thousand dollars. Also, policies such as mortgage-interest deduction and retirement savings via tax treatment of money saved in 401(k)s and other retirement accounts, “primarily go to high-income families and do not seem well geared to dealing with particular economic conditions and cycles, nor the low wealth of the young and low-income.”
They add, A common misconception is that poor or even low-income families cannot save, but, in fact, many can and do—especially in homes and saving accounts.”
The UI crew also calculated what would have happened to household wealth had the Great Recession not occurred. Analyzing more than 20 years of Survey of Consumer Finances data and determined that the Great Recession reduced the wealth of American families by 28.5 percent—nearly double the hit from earlier recessions since the 1980s, noted a partial summary of the study in “American Consumers.”
*** “Beyond Broke: Why Closing the Racial Wealth Gap is a Priority for National Economic Security,” to be released later this month, used 2011 U.S. Census data to reveal that in the economic recovery following the Great Recession, “the average African American and Latino household still owns only six and seven cents respectively for every one dollar in wealth held by the typical white family, an increase of a penny per group since 2009.”
The report stresses that most black and Latino households are particularly strapped for cash flow, meaning they don’t have enough liquid assets to “cover their basic living expenses if they are without income for three months.” Only one-third of African Americans and one-quarter of Hispanic households can meet their short-term cash needs, compared with two-thirds of whites. According to the study, “the average liquid wealth of whites ($23,000 in cash reserves) is now over 100 times that of African Americans and more than 65 times that held by Latinos.” More about this study and how it reflects on retirement security in our next issue.
The report will be issued by the Center for Global Policy Solutions’ initiative on Closing the Racial Wealth Gap. Contact lead author Maya Rockeymoore for more information and interviews.
2. THE STORY BOARD
*** “At 100, Crosswords Help Her Keep an Active Mind”: Nope–Michael Vitez’s favorite story this year (Feb. 24) for the Philadelphia Inquirer isn’t merely about doing crosswords for brain exercise—centenarian Bernice Gordon continues to create them for national media.
Vitez reported, “’I just revere Bernice,’ said Will Shortz, the New York Times puzzle editor, who came to Philadelphia Jan. 12 for her 100th birthday party. Three days later, Bernice became the first 100-year-old ever to have a puzzle in the Times — 62 years after her first.”
Vitez, who won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of end-of-life care (1997 for Explanatory Journalism), continues following stories on age and disability. Among other stories he’s done this year, for instance, was extensive coverage of the assisted-suicide prosecution of nurse Barbara Mancini, 58, for handing her hospice father, 93, his morphine. The charge was thrown out of Schuylkill County Court earlier this year, but not before Mancini lost her job, and incurred about $100,000 in legal fees. Vitez wrote that her Dad “was terminally ill and in savage pain when, in his Pottsville home, he consumed the legally prescribed morphine she passed to him upon his request.”
In his last piece on the case, “Guidelines Will Help End-of-Life Oversight,” (March 6), Vitez quoted two key medical experts noting, “This case has a far broader societal impact. Such cases exert a dangerous chilling effect on the appropriate use of [morphine] and even on the use of hospice itself.”
More recently, Vitez, published “Broad Street’s Can’t-Miss Runner” (May 1): “Joseph Farrell got chemotherapy on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then ran the Broad Street Run on a Sunday.”
*** “What Do the Suicides of Fifty-Year-Old Men Reveal?” is a new article by Margaret Morganroth Gullette in the Spring issue of Tikkun Magazine. Gullette, author of Agewise: Fighting the New Ageism in America (University of Chicago Press, 2013), is a resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University.
In the article, says a Tikkun blurb, “Gullette reveals how suicide has become a public health emergency for middle-aged men in the United States, exposing a deeper economic and existential crisis. Gullette explores . . . the widespread phenomenon of unemployment and suicide among middle-aged men.”
She explains, that people who lose jobs at midlife “stay unemployed longer and earn much less afterward.” Unable to re-enter the workforce, many reach their retirement years in debt and blame themselves for problems that really stem from the structure of the U.S. economy and imbedded forms of ageism. She writes, “Many people don’t know about midlife discrimination, which means they blame themselves rather than capitalism.” Gullette adds. “We should fear ageism, not aging.” (Are you listening, Thomas Piketty? David Brooks? Are you getting any younger?)
Gullette concludes, “We need to fight for an aging process that, as we age past youth, entails rising wages, more job security, gains in respect, an ability to help adult children, and the assumption that experience matters—‘seniority,’ broadly defined. The working life course ought to be a story of progress that children can look forward to, workers can appreciate, and elders can look back on with pride.”
Tikkun’s print articles are usually only available to subscribers logged into their website, but they are making this one article freely accessible, although only for the month of May. So get your freebie now.
*** “It’s Time to Banish the Word ‘Informal,’” declares gerontologist Lynn Friss Feinberg, “when referring to the care provided by family members and friends.” In her AARP Blog posting, “Family Caregiving There’s Nothing Informal About It,” she asserts that the word “devalues their essential contributions and fails to capture the complexity of what they do.”
Feinberg, a senior strategic policy adviser for the AARP Public Policy Institute, explains, “Family caregivers usually are not paid for the help they provide their loved ones. For this reason, some describe them as ‘informal’ caregivers. Yet family members, partners, friends and neighbors are the mainstay of support for older people who need help to carry out their daily activities, including complex medical/nursing tasks . . . . These tasks are hardly ‘informal,’ which implies activities that are casual, relaxed, friendly, easygoing and simple.”
Noting a 2012 report, Feinberg emphasizes, “Family caregiving for older relatives or friends with multiple chronic conditions or disabilities is increasingly complex, and anything but ‘informal.’ Compounding the demands on family caregivers is the reality that most are also in the labor force. Maintaining a job while providing care to a frail older relative can be a challenging balancing act, a financial hardship, an emotional roller coaster and a risk to one’s own health.”
Insightful as the commentary is, what’s a poor reporter to do? Although journalists tend not to use “informal” or “formal” (for professional care providers), the term does pop up in copy. GBO e-mailed Feinberg, who says she prefers “family caregivers” in most cases. That works. (“Caregivers” alone can confuse, denoting those who are paid or unpaid).
Drop an e-note to GBONews if you favor another locution, and we’ll pass it along.
3. GEN BEATLES NEWS
***An In-Depth Story on Suicide Among Indian Americans in the U.S. earned India West’s Sunita Sohrabji a trip May 1 to Monroe, N.J.—courtesy of Gov. Chris Christie. There she received a 2014 Honoring Excellence in Media” Governor’s Council Ambassador Award by the New Jersey Governor’s Council on Mental Health Stigma. “Suicide Amongst Indian Americans: We’re Stressed, Depressed, But Who’s Listening?” (July 12, 2013), resulted from Sohrabji’s fellowship from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism to report on mental health disorders in the South Asian American community. She was able to take her bow with her daughter, Geetha Chandroth, looking on.
While the article examines the tragedy of suicide among young people, Sohrabji wrote,
“In 2008, Congress proclaimed July as National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. One out of four adults living in the U.S. and one out of every 10 children struggles with mental health issues, reports the National Alliance on Mental Health, one of the country’s largest nonprofit organizations addressing the issue.”
She continued, “Minority communities are less likely to access health care for mental health issues because of the stigma around depression and other mental health illnesses, according to [the National Alliance on Mental Illness].”
Sohrabji and daughter evidently made it to the awards gala without having to dodge Christie’s traffic cones on the George Washington Bridge.
***On the Senior Side of the Gen Beat, Sohrabji, also a 2014 MetLife Foundation Journalists in Aging Fellow, published “Many Indian American Widows Prefer Living Alone Than With Their Families,” (April 30, 2014). She explains that, defying tradition, studies show that Asian Indian widows may feel isolated and loss of respect even living with their family–and many prefer living on their own. The fellowship is a project of New America Media (NAM) and the Gerontological Society of America, in cooperation with the Journalists Network on Generations, which puts out GBONews.org.
***Kerry Hannon’s book What’s Next? Finding Your Passion and Your Dream Job in Your Forties, Fifties and Beyond has just been released in paperback and updated from its 2010 hardcover publication. Based in Washington, D.C., Hannon is a regular contributor to the New York Times’ Saturday “Retiring” column and a blogger for AARP and Forbes. Also, a MetLife Foundation Fellow, she recently posted “Un-Retiring? Here’s How To Connect With A Career Coach,” on Forbes and the NAM websites.
*** “Historical”? No, But Hysterical: The ultimate story of aging, of course, is that of Methuselah, whose son, Noah, is now a major motion picture—and which some seem to think of as a bio-pic. Here’s how the San Francisco Chronicle lists the flick on its website:
Noah — “Historical drama, 137 minutes, Rated PG-13
“An intelligent take on the story of Noah and the ark, Darren Aronofsky’s film is no silly action movie with a biblical pretext, but a film with lots of application to what goes on in today’s world . . . .”
Hmm. Wonder if they got Doris Kearns Goodwin as a consultant–you know, about when Noah freed the aardvarks.
4. EVENT HORIZON
*** “The Creative Age: Exploring Potential in the Second Half of Life,” will be a conference, June 10-14, in Washington, D.C., exploring the interaction of aging, arts, health, caregiving and social services. Sponsored by the National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA).
The conference sessions will focus on the benefits of and best-practices for developing intergenerational arts program in schools, senior centers and other community locations around the nation. Besides professionals in aging, health and older adult education, seniors and family caregivers will attend, says NCCA.
As “60 Minutes” noted in last Sunday’s (May 4) double “90+” segment, older adults over age 90 constitute the fastest growing age cohort in the United States today. NCCA head Gay Hanna observes that for all the focus on health care, “As the demographic shift continues, the arts have grown as a promising intervention to improve quality of life, increase individual health and wellbeing, and build community connectivity for older adults.” The conference will feature some of the growing body of research showing, for instance, that seniors involved in arts programs visit their doctors less, take fewer medications, have less depression and register better health outcomes overall.
Among the key speakers will be dancer, choreographer and MacArthur “genius” Liz Lerman; founder-director of LA’s model EngAGE program (top quality arts program in subsidized senior housing), Tim Carpenter; NCCA and Elders Share the Arts cofounder Susan Perlstein (once an Alwin Nikolai Dance Company member); Gary Glazner, founder-director of Alzheimer’s Poetry Project; and more.
The keynoter will be geriatric psychiatrist Marc E. Agronin, MD, of Miami Jewish Health Systems (MJHS), “Florida’s largest long-term care institution.” This might be of interest to writers curious about the health and mental health affects of creative activity as we age. His essay in the new issue of The Gerontologist, flagship pub of the Gerontological Society of America, is titled “From Cicero to Cohen: Developmental Theories of Aging, From Antiquity to the Present,” which you can download here for free After a brief discussion of the Roman philosopher (Cicero was the first to comment extensively on old age), the analysis jumps to a summary of modern contributions to our understanding of mid- and late-life human development, starting with Sigmund Freud, who didn’t think there was enough development in that period of life to be responsive to therapy at all, to Eric Erikson and others.
Agronin’s essay concludes with the late Gene D. Cohen, MD, the first to define the phases of positive change in our later years. His book, The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain (Basic Books, 2006) is must reading for anyone writing on things like brain development. Short of that, though, Agronin’s article offers context and a useful précis of Cohen’s work. Just keep in mind that until very recently, the prevailing bias of research on human development in later life was that at best there wasn’t much and that, more likely, getting old meant an inevitable slide into decrepitude.
For the “Creative Aging” conference, journalists can e-mail: conference@creativeaging.org to request a press pass.
If you have technical problems receiving issues of GBO News or if you’d like to be removed from the list, simply auto-reply to this e-mail of GBO News, or phone me at 415-503-4170 ext. 133 (e-mail: pkleyman@newamericamedia.org). GBO News especially thanks Sandy Close of New America Media, and our cyber-guru, Kevin Chan.
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online with in-kind support from New America Media (NAM). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. NAM is an online, nonprofit news service reaching 3,000 ethnic media outlets in the United States. GBO News readers are invited to visit the NAM website, and click on the Ethnic Elders section logo on the right side. Opinions expressed in GBO do not represent those of NAM. Copyright 2014, JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
To subscribe of unsubscribe, or if you have technical problems receiving issues of GBO or if you’d like to be removed from the list, e-mail me at pkleyman@newamericamedia.org or phone me at 415-503-4170 ext. 133.