While age may very well be “just a number,” here are a few more:
One-fifth of Mainers are now aged 65 or older. By 2030, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, that segment will rise to more than a quarter (28 percent). It’s against this backdrop that the Maine Council on Aging has decided to set a lofty goal: to end ageism by 2032. Daniel Heighton/Shutterstock.com
• $63 billion: The estimated increase to health care costs because of age-based discrimination in the U.S. each year.
• $850 billion: The sum ageism stripped out of America’s gross domestic product in 2018.
• 6.3 million: The number of cases of depression, globally, that the World Health Organization attributes to ageism.
• $90 million: The amount of money paid out by U.S. companies to victims of ageism between 1997 and 2021, under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (by the time a worker hits 40, they are eligible to complain of it).
• 95 million: The projected number of Americans who will be over 65 in 2060 – almost double the 52 million in 2018.
One-fifth of Mainers are now aged 65 or older. By 2030, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, that segment will rise to more than a quarter (28 percent). It’s against this backdrop that the Maine Council on Aging has decided to set a lofty goal: to end ageism by 2032.
Late last year, the council launched a training program, the first of its kind in the U.S., to help business and community leaders identify and stamp out ageism. It’s the kind of precise, trailblazing effort that the oldest state in the nation should be proud to shoulder.
The term “ageism” has only been around since 1969 (should the council reach its goal, its lifespan will not even touch 65). Indeed, “later life” as we know today is also relatively new: the average life expectancy in 1900 was 47. By 2000, it was 77.
Here as elsewhere, society hasn’t kept pace at all. Age-based discrimination is still rampant in our communities; work opportunities, housing, health care and other care all become more challenging to access as the years wear on. Successive studies have shown that everyday ageism damages health and well-being in measurable ways.
As if the imperative to put right historical injustice and bias wasn’t enough, there’s also a growing economic imperative to treat those aged 65 and up with the respect they deserve. The average workforce is getting older. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people 75 and older in the labor force will increase by 96.5 percent over the next decade.
Early retirement, a hallmark of the pandemic, was more voluntary for some than it was for others. According to analysis by job site Indeed, the “unretirement” rate for workers in March of this year exceeded 3 percent – more than 1.5 million U.S. workers who had retired returned to a job.
A return to the work can be beneficial to health and to happiness. At any age, it’s helpful for people to have something to do every day. At this time, it’s also enormously helpful to an economy foundering because of a lack of workers.
The efforts of organizations like the Maine Council on Aging on everything from viable transportation options to food insecurity and financial security, steeped in community outreach and socioeconomic data as they are, seem even more promising when contrasted with the type of agitating on display elsewhere.
Oct. 7, fast approaching, is Ageism Awareness Day. As The Boston Globe reported last week, one group of activists has taken it upon itself to crusade against the content of a select category of birthday cards.
“Birthday cards are among the worst offenders when it comes to ageist rhetoric with their misguided attempts at humor,” one supporter of the campaign wrote. This is a fanciful position that sets back legitimate efforts to end harmful stereotyping and systemic discrimination.
Consternation over terminology doesn’t stop there. Some are now strongly of the mind that “elderly” needs to be wiped from the lexicon; the Maine Council on Aging last week warned against its use. Alarm has also been raised over “sweetie” or “honey,” terms of endearment to which each of us, no matter our age, falls prey now and again.
The Press Herald’s report last Wednesday made note of these ever-shifting sands: “Even the term ‘seniors,’ considered an improvement a few decades ago, offends some older people today.”
The most effective salvos against ageism will not target offense – a moving target – but the despair, deprivation and isolation felt by many older Mainers toward the end of their lives. Insensitivity to and ignorance of that reality is what really stings, and ultimately hurts us all.
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