GBONEWS: Trump Aims to Dump Seniors’ Jobs Program; New Ganja Grannies Podcast; Age Beat Journalism Fellowship Deadline; Seniors and AI; Dem’s Plan Eldercare Reform; Brain Health; Retirement Costs for Latinos; Crises Facing Grandfamilies
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.
June 2, 2026 — Volume 33, Number 5
EDITOR’S NOTE: GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. If you have difficulty getting to the full issue of GBONews with the links provided below, simply go to www.gbonews.org to read the latest or past editions. Send your news of stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. [pfkleyman@gmail.com]. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply send a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, we’ll email the table of contents and links to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities.
Vote your conscience! (Conscientiously, of course.)
1. THE STORYBOARD:
*** “This federal program trains older workers. The Trump administration wants to cut it,” by Lorie Konish, CNBC;
*** “Senate Democrats Vow To Develop A Long-Term Care Reform Plan,” and “Understanding How Older Adults Think About AI And Related Tech,” both by Howard Gleckman, Forbes;
*** “Help for Medicare Advantage Patients Who Lose Doctors Is Shelved, for Now,” by Susan Jaffe, New York Times “Retiring” column;
*** “Two Brain Health Journeys, One Mission,” by Liz Seegert, Chicago Caregiving;
*** “La Jubilación Trae Una Presión Financeria Cada Vez Mayor” (English: “Retirement is Bringing Increasing Financial Pressures”), by Daschel Chavez, Telemundo Oklahoma;
*** Black Heart-Health 2-Part Series by Cassandra Spratling, Detroit Free Press;
*** “A look at ‘super agers’ and the science behind longer, sharper lives,” host William Brangam, PBS NewsHour.
2. EYES ON THE PRIZE: *** June 15 Journalism Fellowship Deadline at Wayne State University’s Institute of Gerontology.
3. GEN BEATLES NEWS: *** Changed Next Avenue Site Declining New Pitches; *** NPR’s Pulitzer Finalist Joseph Shapiro Takes Buyout; *** Double Duty for Jatika Hudson at The Atlanta Voice and EDU Ledger; *** Karen Michel’s New Ganja Granny cannabis Podcast.
4. WORDS FROM THE UNWISE: *** Minnesota Nice Meets (Ageist) Minneapolis Cranky at TSA.
5. THE BOOKMOBILE: *** Grandfamilies: Stories of Children and the Loving Relatives Who Raise Them, by Generations United Founder Donna M. Butts with Foreword by Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary(Simon & Schuster).
1. THE STORYBOARD
*** “This federal program trains older workers. The Trump administration wants to cut it,” by Lorie Konish, CNBC(May 16, 2026): Key Points – “The Senior Community Service Employment Program [SCSEP] provides low-income people ages 55 and over with a paid opportunity to train for work. Now, the Trump administration wants to eliminate its funding.”
What: “SCSEP provides both job training and community service opportunities for older adults through grantees, including state agencies and national nonprofit organizations such as Goodwill. Participants are paid the highest of the state, federal or local minimum wage and work an average of 20 hours per week, according to the Department of Labor.”
The Cost: “Totaling around $405 million in fiscal year 2025 and $395 million in 2026 — is worthwhile. For perspective, the Congressional Budget Office projects total federal outlays will be $7.4 trillion in 2026.”
DOGED: “Last year, the Department of Labor held up more than $300 million of the SCSEP funding. As a result, providers halted their services for roughly four months, prompting “tens of thousands” of seniors nationwide to be “suddenly furloughed,” according to a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of four program participants.”
And, “Now, the Trump administration’s 2027 budget proposal, released in April, calls for the full elimination of the program’s funding. The document refers to SCSEP as ‘an earmark to leftist, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)-promoting organizations instead of helping seniors in need.”
A Quote: “At Legacy Link, a nonprofit organization in Oakwood, GA, that provides support to older adults, the eldest SCSEP participant is 86 years old, according to Christine Osasu, the program’s director. ‘For some people, that will absolutely result in employment,’ she said. ‘For others, that will result in just teaching them how to operate modern technology so that they can navigate their life with less assistance.’”
New Barrier: “The proposed elimination of SCSEP comes as people up to age 64 face new work requirements for Medicaid and for SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, as part of President Donald Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ enacted last year.”
Laborforce Need: “Workers 65 and older are now nearly 7% of the workforce — more than double what it was in 2000.”
And, “In a research paper published in the journal SSRN in 2023, Halvorsen and fellow researchers said more SCSEPfunding is needed to accommodate a high demand from unemployed and low-income seniors who want to work. The demand for work among older people may be poised to increase: In 2024, the U.S. had more people over age 62 than under age 18, Halvorsen said, and the population will continue to get older.”
*** “Senate Democrats Vow To Develop A Long-Term Care Reform Plan,” by Howard Gleckman, Forbes (May 21, 2026): The Lede: “In an important symbolic step, 17 Senate Democrats announced they will work together to develop a plan to improve long-term services and supports in the US.”
Who: “The effort is led by the Senate Finance Committee’s top Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, a long-time supporter of services for older adults and younger people with disabilities. Many of its participants are members of the Finance and health committees, the panels that would write such legislation. . . . They have no more than a framework that builds around three key ideas: A robust home-based care system, more support for family caregivers and paid care workers, and higher-quality nursing homes.”
What’s Proposed: “Their long-term care initiative is a tied to a broader Wyden project to build a Democratic ‘affordability’ agenda that also includes lowering drug costs and reforming health insurance. The long-term services and supports [LTSS] piece . . . went nowhere, even when Democrats controlled Congress.
Still, the combined support of key Senate Democrats could jump start a moribund congressional debate over long-term care. Perhaps their most ambitious idea: ‘Finance Committee staff will develop policies to invest in Medicaid home- and community-based services and establish a home care guarantee for people with Medicare.’ That last element would be a huge step since Medicare generally does not pay for long-term care.”
Insurance?: “One idea not on the senators’ agenda: A public long-term care insurance program. . . , being developed in the House by Representative Tom Suozzi (D-NY) [and] has gotten little traction among these Democratic senators. Nor has Washington State’s WA Cares public insurance program that will begin to pay modest benefits starting in July. . . The senators dislike any model that mimics private insurance, they don’t want to create an entirely new federal program.”
Medicare Or Medicaid?: “Two recently released ideas may provide some hints about where these Democrats are headed. One is a major expansion of Medicaid home-based care introduced by Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Il). The other is a plan designed by a group of Brookings Institution experts that would create a Medicare home care model while retaining Medicaid for some home-based services as well as nursing home care.”
Who’d Pay: “[President Joe Biden’s] enhanced home care plan would have cost about $400 billion over 10 years—a price tag that was unacceptable even to a Democratic Congress. The Brookings plan contemplates about a 5% income-tax surcharge for people over age 55. Any cost likely be pushed higher by . . . [the plan to] pay [direct care] workers more and toughen staffing requirements for nursing homes—rules proposed by Biden but scrapped by Trump.”
Prospects for Passage: “At this stage, the senators are talking about what would likely be more of a message bill than passable legislation. They’ll eventually need to find a way to thread the needle between the Medicare LTSS advocates and the Medicaid LTSS supporters.”
And, “The positive message is that a mid-sized cadre of Senate Democrats believes long-term care reform is important enough to highlight as part of their affordability agenda . . . Given the past unwillingness of most lawmakers of either party to confront this massive need, that counts as progress.”
* ALSO See “Understanding How Older Adults Think About AI And Related Tech,” by Howard Gleckman, Forbes(March 10, 2026): “Academics have created various models. But none have been especially satisfying. University of Florida professor Stephen Golant, has developed a new framework published in the journal Frontiers of Public Health to help think about how consumers make tech-related choices.”
*** “Help for Medicare Advantage Patients Who Lose Doctors Is Shelved, for Now,” by Susan Jaffe, New York Times “Retiring” column (April 16, 2026): The Dek – “Nationwide, hospitals and other providers are leaving private Medicare Advantage plans, putting thousands of seniors at risk of higher costs and of losing trusted doctors.”
In a Big Nutshell: “Last November, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS] proposed a regulation with a solution for Advantage members ‘who experience provider network changes midyear” and “may want to stay with their current provider,’ according to a C.M.S. fact sheet.
“Officials would streamline a complicated process “to allow these enrollees to change their coverage more easily.” State insurance officials, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, along with other provider and patient advocacy groups, generally supported the idea. But early this month, CMS abandoned the proposal, which would have taken effect in 2027, even as disruptions in provider networks continue.”
*** “Two Brain Health Journeys, One Mission,” by Liz Seegert, Chicago Caregiving (April 27, 2026): The Dek — “A daughter’s fight for medical attention and cognitive justice.”
The Lede: “Chicago area caregiver and patient advocate Shon Lowe is navigating two cognitive impairment journeys at once: her mother’s dementia and her own mild cognitive impairment. And she says she’s done waiting for the medical system to catch up. Lowe learned about brain health while watching her mother navigate a health system that often didn’t listen, was slow to act, and failed to see the urgency facing Black women.”
Who: “Lowe is understandably frustrated with a system that frequently gaslights and ignores women, particularly Black women. She wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune in March, describing her disappointment and exasperation. Lowe spoke with Caregiving magazine about what it means to be a caregiver and a patient at the same time, and why Black women must insist on being taken seriously.”
In Fact: “The statistics show that [older] Black Americans are nearly twice as likely as white Americans to develop Alzheimer’s. I could either avoid the conversation and hope for the best or do something most people in our communities are discouraged from doing, which is ask questions early and insist on being taken seriously. I chose to pursue genetic testing before anything got worse. That was the turning point.”
*** “La Jubilación Trae Una Presión Financeria Cada Vez Mayor,” by Daschel Chavez, Telemundo Oklahoma (May 11, 2026, En Español; English PDF headlined “Retirement is Bringing Increasing Financial Pressures” is available by request from pfkleyman@gmail.com):
Lede En Español: “Para muchos adultos mayores en Oklahoma, la jubilación trae una presión financiera cada vez mayor. Los medicamentos, las visitas al médico y la atención continua cuestan más cada año. Muchos adultos mayores viven con ingresos fijos del Seguro Social o con ahorros limitados. Pero para los inmigrantes indocumentados, la situación es diferente. Muchos no califican para Medicare, Medicaid ni Seguro Social, incluso después de años de trabajo y pago de impuestos.”
Lede in English: “For many older adults in Oklahoma, retirement brings increasing financial pressure. Medications, doctor visits, and ongoing care cost more every year. Many older adults live on fixed Social Security incomes or limited savings. But for undocumented immigrants, the situation is different. Many do not qualify for Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security even after years of working and paying taxes.”
*** Black Heart-Health Series – Part 1: “WSU study zeroes in on stress in effort to boost Black heart health,” by Cassandra Spratling, Detroit Free Press (May 15, 2026): The Lede — “Before retiring in 2012, Melvin Bishop worked almost from sunup to sundown every day — even on weekends — as a maintenance supervisor for the Detroit Public Schools Community District. He began feeling tired and sluggish and was having headaches. And he felt stressed all the time. A visit to the doctor revealed he had high blood pressure. But even though high blood pressure runs in his family, Bishop didn’t fully understand what it meant or why it mattered. ‘I just know I was always stressed out,’ Bishop, 69, of Detroit, recalled.”
The Study: “Researchers at Wayne State are taking a close look at the role day-to-day stress plays in high blood pressure. . . . ‘Local data also shows a significantly higher rate of heart-related deaths for Detroiters compared with people statewide and nationally,’ said Dr. Phillip Levy, a co-investigator on Wayne State’s The Heart of Detroit Study.”
Solutions: “The Bishops, who have been married for 34 years, learned healthier ways to cook foods they enjoy, particularly cooking with less salt. Melvin Bishop says he’s much more conscious of eating vegetables and shies away from fast food . . . He’s also meticulous about taking his blood pressure medicines daily. The couple also exercise regularly.
* Part 2: “Dangerous diagnoses turn heart patient into a heart health advocate” (May 28, 2026): The Lede – “There are moments that change your life. James Young II had one such moment late in 2011. . . He had been feeling sick — tired and breathless — for about three years before his mother and sister convinced him to see a doctor. . . . His heart was failing.” He recalled, “The doctor told me, ‘Had you waited one more week, we’d be talking about you in the past tense.’”
His Journey: “In the 14 years since his troubling diagnosis, Young, 55, of Detroit, has gone from heart patient to heart health advocate. In 2014, he lost his father to heart disease. . . . ‘Drinking alcohol and smoking was a daily habit, which I used as a Band-Aid to cope with the stress and unhappiness I was experiencing,’ Young said. ‘After being hospitalized, I immediately stopped drinking and eventually stopped smoking.’ “
Success: “Word of his success caught the attention of the American Heart Association, which began inviting him to speak at events, participate on panels and do other volunteer work. His advice to others who want to improve their heart health: Take one step at a time. ‘Instead of eating fried pork bacon and eggs fried in pork grease for breakfast every morning, I started sautéing kale in avocado oil,’ he said. ‘It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon.”
*** “A look at ‘super agers’ and the science behind longer, sharper lives,” host William Brangam, PBS NewsHour (April 17, 2026, 26:46 mins): For once in national media, a measure discussion of the current state of longevity science, beyond the death-defying ambitions of immortality investors, such as Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, who has said “death makes no sense.”
As the PBS NewsHour summary says, “Science has started to zero in on some proven techniques.” Brangham, moderator of the program’s “Horizons” segment, spoke with cardiologist Eric Topol, MD, author of the bestselling Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity, and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, and clinical neuropsychologist Sandra Weintraub, PhD, of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
2. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** Yearlong Journalism Fellowship at Wayne State University’s Institute of Gerontology (IOG) on aging and related issues, in the Detroit area, has a June 15, 2026, application deadline.
Says their website, “The IOG is an interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to the social and behavioral sciences, and the cognitive neuroscience of aging and urban health. We work closely with community partners and experts to promote successful aging in Detroit and beyond. The part-time 12-month program will pay an $8,500 stipend “directly to the journalist or their news organization.”
Additional travel awards are available to attend a scientific meeting on aging, such as the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America. Click here for details. For questions, contact IOG Director Ana M Daugherty, PhD, ana.daugherty@wayne.edu.
3. GEN BEATLES NEWS
*** “Next Avenue is not accepting pitches for new stories.” That sad but expected line was buried in a May15 posting by Twin Cities PBS (TPT). The full notice finalizes the 50-plus website’s decoupling from national PBS, following its defunding by the Trump administration. TPT, which originated and oversaw production of the digital publication for its huge national audience, “can now be found on our newly refreshed website at tpt.org/nextavenue.”
The site was one of the very few paying outlets for freelancers on aging, , if modestly, including this editor now and then. It was circulated to well over a million public media viewers. It’s staff of five was laid off earlier this year. Curiously, and inconveniently for many of its writers, TPT posted, Recent and popular past stories on our monthly Next Avenue newsletter and highlight stories on our Next Avenue Facebook page at facebook.com/NextAvenue.”
*** NPR’s Joseph Shapiro Takes Buyout: The multi-award-winning reporter on disability issues (of all ages), announced he’ll be moving on from NPR News after 25 years, on May 28, he noted, a day before NPR planned to “lay off colleagues. Talented journalists will lose jobs. But fewer laid off, we’re told, for each who takes buyout.”
He added, “Next for me? A follow up to NO PITY, I hope. My book on the disability civil rights movement is 33 years old this month and still in print.” His influential 1990 book, NO PITY: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (Random House/Three Rivers Press), is widely read in disability studies classes.
GBONews’ editor has followed Joe’s impactful dedication to quality investigative journalism on disability and aging since we first met in the 1990s. At the time he was in the midst of a major focused on long-term care and end-of-life issues as a participant in a 1997 Kaiser Media Fellowship, program. Before that he explored the changing world of people with disabilities as an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow.
His coverage of aging and disabling conditions appeared in U.S. News & World Report where he spent 19 years before going vocal at NPR. (With his permission, we quoted him in this new digest about an editor’s standing order not to include more than one photograph per story of anyone over the age of 50.)
Among Joe’s major NPR News investigative reports, in a 2014 series, Joe exposed how rising court fines and fees create an unequal system of justice for the poor and the rise of “modern day debtors’ prisons.” He led a 2018 team that uncovered the epidemic of sexual assault of people with intellectual disabilities, His “Child Cases” series, reported with PBS Frontline and ProPublica, found two dozen cases in the U.S. and Canada where parents and caregivers were charged with killing children, but the charges were later reversed or dropped.”
Some of his many honors, Joe was as a 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for National Reporting. He’s also received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, George Foster Peabody Award, George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Award, and an Edward R. Murrow Award.
*** Spring Has Double-Sprung with two new editorial positions for Jatika Hudson, who was laid off last January. In April the former Journalists in Aging Fellow became the new contract health reporter for The Atlanta Voice and its Voice News Network, one of Geogia’s major news outlets for the Black community.
Then starting in June, she’ll become the managing editor for the publication, EDU Ledger. Based in Fairfax, VA, it covers “higher education professionals, especially underrepresented populations.” Hudson wrote, “I’m so very excited to start this role and tell the important and impactful stories of the higher education institutions of this nation.
She emailed us, “So many great opportunities are coming my way, and I wanted to share because I believe my experience with [the Fellowship] is a direct influence on these career blessings.”
*** Karen Michel’s New Podcast ID — “The Ganja Granny”: The Peabody Award-winning public radio producer (and former Journalists in Aging Fellow among many honors) emailed GBONews, “At long last, I’m adding to the overabundance of podcasts with It’s aimed at the over 50 year olds who are now or were consumers of cannabis and want to traverse the new territory.” Episode One dropped recently, focusing on what to expect when going into a (legal) dispensary.
The website says, ” ‘Ganja Granny’ is an experimental podcast combining a sonic environment and auditory exploration with solid information aimed at seniors and curious others wishing to explore the new cannabis territory.”
Michel notes, “Older adults (50+) are the fastest-growing population of cannabis users — and the most underserved when it comes to real, no-nonsense information. No scare tactics, no hype. Information, not advocacy.”
Each episode runs about 15 minutes. Michel, based in New York’s Hudson Valley, emailed GBONews, “I’m open to ideas, to questions you’d want answered, areas to explore, and short pieces of audio art you may have that would like an audience and would work with this subject matter!” Don’t bogart your curiosity. Reporters can reach her at ganjagrannypodcast@gmail.com.
4. WORDS FROM THE UNWISE
*** Minnesota Nice Meets Minneapolis Cranky: With a tip of his fedora to our colleague Liz Seegert, who endured the dimmer shade of “nice” in this editor’s hometown, I’ll concede that those warm covered dishes may arrive at times with an unneighborly sagging jowl.
Liz, also co-director of out Journalists in Aging Fellowships, was returning from the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), for which she edits their blog on aging, when the “cranky TSA agent scolded me for not standing exactly on the footprints on the floor, while I waited to come to his desk. (I was one step in front of them.)
“He said something to the effect of, ‘You look like you’re old enough to understand directions,’ when I didn’t step back fast enough. There was one person ahead of me and one behind me. I assume he was commenting based on [my] gray hair. What an ageist attitude! I didn’t say anything because you just never know but found that comment really offensive. (What happened to Minnesota nice?)’”
Please understand, good reader, that’s only Minnesota’s acknowledgement of its peculiar notion of diversity: “Nice” occupies only one spot on the mood-swing spectrum.
The crank in question, a TSA agent at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, was evidently that day’s grump, the Twin Cities’ acknowledgment of its famously woebegone demeanor. And there were those unpaid months, padlocked this year by the congressional shutdown.
The scowl-in-charge, Liz wrote, was “middle-aged (hard to tell but not a kid—maybe early 40s) balding white guy, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there.” I admit it: Even before moving to California in my college days, I could have fit that lingering post-winter, grumpy-guy stereotype. Well, except for balding. And the ageism. (I loved my grandparents.)
I’d like to think there aren’t so many like that, in or out of uniform, who could permanently sully my home state’s sunny reputation. Perhaps, TSA had honored him as Sourpuss of the Month, sort of like being the presidential cabinet’s Designated Survivor, only in this case being asked to reassure visitors, much as every exceptional North Country child is told, “Really, we’re not better than anyone else.”
I mean, we come from a place called Minneapolis. Not even Bruce Springsteen could rhyme that. (OK, he sorta got close: “Minneapolis . . mist.”)
As for being offended, yeah, but as a once-and-always Minnesotan, I’ll willingly defend my home state’s right to defy its cheery stereotyping with its own version of DEI (Depressive, Edgy, Insecure). Of course the dyspeptic TSA martinet was cranky with Liz–and likely everyone else boarding flights to destination far from the mosquitos soon to be on the hunt for doughy white flesh! I betcha he could almost hear them hatching in the too-early swelter.
That’s a Minnesota cliché, whose bites I knew well. Whap! Just thinking of it makes me want to ask that TSA guy to pass me some of the big Calamine lotion he confiscated last summer, probably from somebody’s grandmother?
5. THE BOOKMOBILE
*** Grandfamilies: Stories of Children and the Loving Relatives Who Raise Them, by Donna M. Butts, founder of Generations United, with a Foreword by Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary (Simon & Schuster, June 2026):
The Stat: “Today in the US, more than 2.4 million children whose parents are unable to care for them live in grandfamilies, where they are raised by grandparents or other loved ones. Until recently, their experiences have been all but invisible.”
The Cause: Butts, who recently retired following 27 years as executive director of the nonprofit, addressed the decades-long struggle for recognition and resources for these families. “Grandfamily members across generations and many backgrounds reveal the personal and policy hurdles they have had to overcome in taking on the care and love of their grandchildren,” says the website. (All book sale proceeds will support Generations United’s work with grandfamilies.)
The Quotes: In an interview with Mark Swartz, editor of Aging in America News, Butts commented, “The biggest battles right now are ones we’re all facing — this effort to pull back some of the supports that exist for families in this country. The only source of federal dollars for these families is TANF child-only grants, and there are efforts to cut TANF or impose stricter work requirements. If you’re 70 or 80 years old and raising a couple of kids, you’re not going to be able to work. And then there are the attacks on healthcare and access to Medicaid.”
The Past and Tomorrow: Butts continued, “I wanted to share that building a movement, enacting real change, takes tenacity and stick-with-it-ness — almost 30 years of it. That’s why I included the policy timeline in the book, to show the milestones, but also to encourage people not to be discouraged if everything doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication and determination to keep the issue in front of people. And it takes time to build trust with the families.”–
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. Copyright 2026 Paul Kleyman. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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