GBO NEWS: Entitlements According to Trump; Columbia’s 20 Age Boom Reporters; HuffPost’s Global Aging Coverage; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations
May 19, 2016 — Volume 16, Number 8
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. You can subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge simply by sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. You’ll receive the table of contents as e-mail, just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org.
IN THIS ISSUE: Are Healthy Choices “Incentivized” in Your Plan?
1. ENTITLEMENTS ACCORDING TO TRUMP: Sources on Donald Trump and Social Security: *** “A Trump presidency would threaten programs like Social Security. Here’s how we know,” by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times; *** House Republicans Don’t Like Trump, But That Won’t Stop Them From Voting For Him,” by Matt Fuller, Huffington Post; *** “Centrist Democrats: We can work with President Trump,” by Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim, Politico; *** “Trump adviser now says Medicare and Medicaid changes are on the table,” by Harris Meyer, Modern Healthcare.
2. THE STORYBOARD: *** “Aging in Their Own Words: A Global Newsroom Collaboration,” is Huffington Post’s international team initiative on global aging; *** “Disproving Beliefs About the Economy and Aging,” by Christopher Farrell, New York Times; *** “What’s New in Aging: Postponing retirement,” by Gary Rotstein, Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s “Aging Edge” blog; *** “5 elderly holdouts fighting closure of assisted-living home” and “Nursing homes turn to eviction to drop difficult patients,” by Matt Sedensky, AP; *** “Insurance costs are rising, but putting sick people in separate risk pools isn’t the answer,” by Trudy Lieberman, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism
3. EYES ON THE PRIZE: Columbia University Names 20 Age Boom Journalism Fellows.
4. GOOD SOURCES: *** 4 Million Low-Income Older Adults Could Boost Their Annual Budget by Almost a Third, Says New Study; ***“Raise the Floor: Quality Nursing Home Care Depends on Quality Jobs,” is a new report on pay and conditions for America’s 650,000 certified nursing assistant jobs.
1. ENTITLEMENTS ACCORDING TO TRUMP
So (yawn) The Donald quacked again this week that he would not cut Social Security. Yeah, that’s what they all (of both parties) say, keeping in mind that President Obama wanted his unsuccessful Grand Bargain with the GOP to include future reductions. But some generations-beat reporters may want some background, at least to leash in Trump’s day-to-day policy scampering. Here are a few:
*** “A Trump presidency would threaten programs like Social Security. Here’s how we know,” by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times (May 16): “Donald Trump’s supposed commitment to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is one of the positions said to set him apart from Republican orthodoxy, which has the knives out for all such programs. During his campaign launch last June, Trump pledged to “save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts.” During a Republican debate in March, he said, “It’s my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not increase the age and to leave it as is.”
Hiltzik continues, “But as Zaid Jilani of the Intercept points out, the staff appointments of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee point in exactly the opposite direction. Among Trump’s top advisors are two men who have campaigned for years in favor of privatizing or otherwise cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and disability benefits.”
*** “House Republicans Don’t Like Trump, But That Won’t Stop Them From Voting For Him,” by Matt Fuller, Huffington Post (May 13): “Republicans are learning that squaring their positions on issues like debt, Social Security and Medicare with those of the presumptive GOP nominee requires some contortions more complicated than Trump’s combover.”
*** “Centrist Democrats: We can work with President Trump,” by Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim, Politico (May 16): “Some centrist Democrats say they’re ready and willing to work with the business mogul should he defeat their party’s nominee.”
*** “Trump adviser now says Medicare and Medicaid changes are on the table,” by Harris Meyer, Modern Healthcare (May 12): “From the start of his race for the Republican presidential primary run last year, Donald Trump repeatedly has promised that unlike other Republican candidates, he would not touch Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. It’s been one of his core appeals to older working- and middle-class voters. But as the presumptive GOP nominee has shown over and over again, he’s very flexible in his rhetoric and policy positions.”
“… ‘Trump needs a very large portion of the over-60 vote, and he’s not going to go near any change in Social Security or Medicare,’ Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health, said last week. ‘He has said one of the reasons Mitt Romney lost in 2012 is because he took up [Paul] Ryan’s proposal . . . . ‘Trump is a dealmaker,’ Chris Edwards, an economist and budget expert at the libertarian Cato Institute.”
But — “’Before you know it, (Trump) will be back saying he will protect these programs,’ Blendon said Thursday. ‘He is courting conservatives . . . But he will be back on message by the general campaign. He has taken a very strong stand on this issue and cannot afford to have anti-Medicare cuts ads in the general election.’”
*** “How Not to Normalize Trump,” by Bob Garfield, NPR’s “On the Media” (May 15, 6 min. audio and transcript worth reading): “Look, by its nature, journalism subordinates old news to the latest development. But, in this case, being slave to the fresh angle is simple malpractice because every moment spent on Trump policy and process buries the lead. The lead is that a man who wants to build a wall, who wants to ban Muslims, who sees women only as potential vessels for his — “no problem there, I assure you” — could be the president of the United States . . . Every interview with Donald Trump, every single one should hold him accountable for bigotry, incitement, juvenile conduct and blithe contempt for the constitution. The voters will do what the voters will do, but it must not be, cannot be because the press did not do enough.”
But enough about “American exceptionalism.” Back to the real world:
2. THE STORYBOARD
*** “Aging in Their Own Words: A Global Newsroom Collaboration” is Huffington Post’s international team initiative on global aging with seniors interviewed about their lives in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Kenya, Pakistan, South Korea, Spain and the United States. A short write-up accompanies each of the 1-2 minute video interviews, offering concise and sharply written perspectives on aging in every country.
For instance, the article on Beatrice Nyariara, 74, of Nairobi, explains that while she receives some money from the government to care for orphans, she partly copes with the challenges of living by joining with other elderly women in mutual support. “They contribute to a shared pool of money for emergencies, exercise together and share hardships as well as delights,” says the profile. “If someone is hungry, no matter how little money we have, we go and buy food for them,” Nyariara says.
The written story explains, “Elders have traditionally enjoyed great respect in Kenya and are cared for by members of their extended family. The country’s population is still young compared to many developed nations: Life expectancy at birth was 62 in 2014, compared to 79 in the U.S. that same year, and just three percent of the population is 65 or older. Yet significant economic development in the past few decades has brought major demographic, cultural and social changes to Kenya.”
In Japan, Kazuko Kuriyama, 88, says, “I worry about our future.” Noting that in the coming three decades the global population of people 65-plus is expected to grow from an estimated 617 million today to 1.5 billion, or 16 percent of the world total, more than the number of children under age five. “Yet the seniors at the center of this phenomenon — the people who spent their lives building the future we now know — often feel isolated and unseen.”
“These videos are by no means comprehensive,” says project co-leader Savannah O’Leary, in the online introduction. “But these 10 people offer us something we can all learn from: insight into the experience of aging, in their own words.” Her co-leaders of the 12-member editorial, Web and imaging team, are Nicholas Miriello and Eline Gordts.
*** “Disproving Beliefs About the Economy and Aging,” by Christopher Farrell, New York Times “Retiring” column (May 14): Punctures three persistent myths that too often obscure the truth of not only our aging population but our maturing economy. They include:
Myth No. 1: Older adults don’t work, so they weigh down the economy. Farrell notes that the oft-cited old-age dependency ratio, which compares those of working age (15 to 64) with people 65-plus “is alarming since it assumes everyone 65 and over isn’t working. But millions of older Americans are staying employed or looking for work well into the traditional retirement years.”
Reporters need to pay attention to this issue because politicians of both parties, including President Obama, have misstated the dependency ratio for years as a justification for scaling back on entitlement spending. This editor has also seen many counterarguments for years that the dependency ratio fails to account for human capital, the contributions of older people.
Farrell cites economists such as the Brookings Institution’s Barry P. Bosworth, Gary Burtless and George Washington University’s Kan Zhang, who have shown a sharp rise in the U.S. laborforce participation rate of those 60-plus in the last 20 years, up to 35 percent from 26 percent old older people working. He adds that the World Bank’s alternative adult dependency ratio incorporates both older people working longer and compares them with the number of inactive people across ages.
Myth No. 2: Older workers are not productive. Stanford Center on Longevity founder and director Laura Carstensen has stated, “There is no evidence older workers aren’t as good at their jobs.” A Mercedes-Benz truck plant, for instance, found higher error rates for workers under 30, but no evidence of more mistakes as workers age. “Productivity improved all the way up to retirement at 65,” Farrell writes.
Myth No. 3: Older workers are blocking younger workers from the job market. He stresses, “Economists call the belief that there are only so many jobs in an economy the ‘lump of labor fallacy.’” He adds, “Older workers won’t clog up the promotion pipeline for their younger peers, either.” He quotes Urban Institute economist C. Eugene Steuerle: “If labor supply increases, the nation gets additional work and larger output. More output means more income for workers. More income means more revenue at any given tax rate.”
There are more, but the bottom line, concludes Farrell, is: “One way to help get the economy out of its rut would be to embrace policies that encourage older Americans to stay employed and for employers to appreciate their aging work force.”
*** “What’s New in Aging: Postponing Retirement,” by Gary Rotstein, Pittsburgh Post Gazette “Aging Edge” blog (May 12): “Older workers are postponing retirement longer than has been the case in many decades, but not necessarily to continue doing what they’ve been doing for years . . . . Of those still in the workforce past age 65, they’re working an average of 31 hours per week, so for most they’re investing far more time than a few hours here and there just to keep busy. The findings come from a survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The study also identified an intergenerational difference in expectations for remaining with the same employer for many decades.” Rotstein’s blog aggregates many stories on aging from national sources, as well as serving Pittsburgh readers with many local sources.
*** “Nursing homes turn to eviction to drop difficult patients,” by Matt Sedensky, AP (May 8): “Nursing homes are increasingly evicting their most challenging residents, advocates for the aged and disabled say, testing protections for some of society’s most vulnerable. Those targeted for eviction are frequently poor and suffering from dementia, according to residents’ allies. They often put up little fight, their families unsure what to do. Removing them makes room for less labor-intensive and more profitable patients, critics of the tactic say, noting it can be shattering . . . . An Associated Press analysis of federal data from the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program finds complaints about discharges and evictions are up about 57 percent since 2000.” Also see Sedensky’s story, “5 elderly holdouts fighting closure of assisted-living home.”
*** “Insurance costs are rising, but putting sick people in separate risk pools isn’t the answer,” by Trudy Lieberman, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism (May 16): “A nagging contradiction in the Affordable Care Act has finally become visible. During the debate on the health care law, commentators, including me, continued to ask this question: How can for-profit insurance companies whose bottom lines are based on risk selection — the ability to cover only the healthiest people unlikely to run up big medical bills — make money when they have to insure the very sickest Americans. At the time few people wanted to address that question instead dismissing the questioners and essentially saying, “Don’t worry, there are plenty of safeguards built into the law to help insurers ride the rough stretches.” Besides, insurers would do the right thing because they were getting tons of new business from the previously uninsured. So far it hasn’t worked out that way.”
Lieberman asks, “We’ve yet to reach the promised land of insurance rate stability. The question remains: What’s to be done to resolve that nagging contradiction between expanding coverage and keeping insurers in the game?”
3. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** Columbia University Names 20 Age Boom Journalism Fellows: Heading soon to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City will be 20 reporters named for the 2016 fellowship seminar. Over 225 selected reporters have received training in the coverage of aging since the program began in 2000. This year’s Age Boom Academy (ABA) class of journalists comes from a wide range of media, such as the Associated Press, the Washington Post, North Carolina Public Radio and the Louisiana Weekly, covering that state’s African American community. The all-expenses-paid fellowship seminar will be held June 9-11.
The program, focusing this year on issues of retirement, is co-presented by the J-School in association with the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, part of the university’s Mailman School of Public Health. Among the confirmed speakers will be
The Urban Institute’s Richard W. Johnson and Eugene Steuerle, author and Encore.org founder Marc Freedman, the Brookings Institution’s Gary Burtless, and the Columbia’s Dr. Jack Rowe and Linda Fried.
Distinguished age-beat journalist tapped to moderate sessions are author and columnist Kerry Hannon (New York Times, Forbes and others, plus such books as AARP’s Great Jobs for Everyone 50+); Carol Hymowitz (Bloomberg News); Rich Eisenberg, editor of PBS’s Next Avenue website; and Unretirement author Chris Farrell (Next Avenue, Marketplace, NYT).
Now for the drum roll. Here’s the list of 2016 ABA journalism fellows: Adam Allington, Associated Press/NORC; Erin Arvedlund, Philadelphia Inquirer; Tara Bahrampour and Rodney Brooks, Washington Post; Laura Castaneda, USC Annenberg School of Journalism; Jane Clark, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance; Ruby de Luna, KUOW (University of Washington, Seattle) Public Radio; Kelli Grant, CNBC.com; Martina Guzman, Independent reporter formerly of WDET public radio, Detroit; Leoneda Inge, WUNC North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC; Paul Kleyman, New America Media and GBONews.org; Yanick Rice Lamb, FierceforBlackWomen.com and Howard University Department of Media, Journalism and Film; Jennifer Levitz, Wall Street Journal; Brian O’Connor, Detroit News; Beth Pinsker, Thomson Reuters; Katy Read, Minneapolis Star Tribune and NextAvenue.org; Avik Roy, Forbes; Seth Stevenson, Slate.com; Carolyn Whelan, Economist Intelligence Unit; and Nayita Wilson, Louisiana Weekly.
4. GOOD SOURCES
*** 4 Million Low-Income Older Adults Could Boost Their Annual Budget by almost a third, according to a new analysis released May 3, by the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (N4A). The report shows that more than $20 billion in benefits that go unused annually, because seniors don’t know how to access them.
According to the study release, “There are thousands of public and private programs available to help eligible low-income older adults pay for health care, prescriptions, food and utilities.” Without help, “too many make dangerous trade-offs, such as foregoing needed home repairs, avoiding social engagements, skipping meals and cutting pills.”
The two organizations created the “You Gave, Now Save” offering seniors in-person counseling through their local-government area agency on aging to help older adults understand their benefits.” Because people are reluctant to accept what many misunderstand to be “welfare,” the effort aims to convince people that the programs are their and their family’s tax dollars–paid throughout their working years–at work.
You Gave, Now Save combines an updated resource guide for older adults, online tools and one-on-one assistance for seniors and their caregivers.
“Nearly 20% of Americans over age 65 struggle to cover their basic needs,” said Leslie Fried, senior director of NCOA’s Center for Benefits Access in the release. The report shows the percentage of seniors ages 65-plus living in poverty (income below $11,880 for an individual in 2016) “has crept up from 8.9 percent in 2010 to 10 percent in 2014.” In those years, the number of U.S. seniors living in poverty
has jumped by a million to 4.6 million.
The study found, “Older-adult households spend, on average, $28,644 annually on the basic costs of living. Yet, roughly 8.5 million older Americans have annual incomes below $24,000.” Also, debt levels for seniors are double 2001 levels — now with median debt at $40,900. Over 60 percent of households headed by a person aged 60-plus had some form of debt in 2013.
Two free resources for elders and caregivers to help them learn more about benefits they may be eligible for include:
- BenefitsCheckUp, (www.BenefitsCheckUp.org/campaign) NCOA’s confidential online screening tool that contains more than 2,000 public and private programs for seniors with limited income.
- Eldercare Locator, (toll-free 1.800.677.1116 or www.eldercare.gov) a public service of the U.S. Administration on Aging connecting older adults and caregivers to local agencies and organizations that can help them access a wide range of benefits and supportive services.
For more about the new study contact NCOA’s Lisa Cohen, lisa@lisacohen.org, 310.395.2544, or Vanessa Sink, vanessa.sink@ncoa.org, 571.527.3914; or Dallas Jamison, djamison@n4a.org , 720.333.1494.
*** “Raise the Floor: Quality Nursing Home Care Depends on Quality Jobs” is a new report advocating for the improvement of working pay and conditions for America’s 650,000 certified nursing assistant jobs. It examines “the poor quality of nursing assistant jobs, including wages, training, understaffing and on-the-job support.” Released in April by PHI (formerly the Paraprofessional Health Institute, stresses, “Nursing assistants earn a median hourly wage of $11.51, meaning half of the workforce, literally hundreds of thousands of nursing assistants, earn less than this hourly wage. One in three relies on public benefits to supplement their earnings to help support their family.”
This report examines the need to improve America’s 650,000 certified nursing assistant jobs. Besides low pay, these jobs offer poor if any benefits, erratic scheduling and little advancement opportunity, issues linked to the quality of nursing home care.
PHI recommends solutions from “increased reimbursement along with accountability measures that ensure money go to frontline workers, to updated training requirements, and real career advancement opportunities. For more information, contact Karen Kahn, PHI communications director: kkahn@PHInational.org; cell: (978) 740-9844.
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