In the not too distant past, it was acceptable that older people could get by on less money at retirement age than when they were working. One could own a home and all of the furnishings of life and manage to live fairly well. Taxes were lower then, utilities were lower then, and the everyday cost of living did not include all of the assaults on the bank account that come now.

In those days of the past, family helped, society was forgiving, and elders were sometimes poor, but respected. In today’s America, living on retirement income could well mean living at the poverty level. An individual would have to save well over a million dollars to be able to have interest income that even begins to approach what many are making in the working world. Saving a million dollars in one’s working lifetime is a big challenge, and impossible for most.

If you are about 65, have been working since you were about 20, and have an income now around 50-thousand or 60-thousand a year (which has been stable for a good while), you might expect that your social security could be around $1400 to $1600 per month, if you decide to retire. If you have saved, you may supplement that with your retirement interest income. If you have been frugal with your saving, maybe that could be another $600 to $700 a month.

Whatever you do, don’t get sick. If you become incapacitated at 70 or 80, and have to go to a nursing home, all bets are off. If you don’t have long term health insurance, the experience will deplete your cash in short time. Insurance runs out quickly in that case, nursing home bills can run $2000 to $4000 or more a month, and you will have to pay for it. If you decide to take the Medicaid option and have the government pay for your nursing home experience, you are allowed to have only just a little more than $2000 in the bank. In other words, you can’t get help until you are broke, and you will be broke in no time.

This leaves most Americans to opt for the “Work 'til ya die" option. Too bad! In a global economy the highly competitive nature of the job market doesn’t make any allowances for the aged. In fact, maturity is frowned upon in corporate America. The “value proposition‿ (as so many jingle-mouthed, young, corporate-speak know-it-alls would call it) package that an employee brings to the table is thought, in today’s market, to be severely compromised by advancing age. You become viewed as a liability to the group insurance plan, a loose canon in the diversity scheme, and too inflexible and irrelevant.

Don't expect any acknowledgement that some of the inflexibility of maturity on the job may come from having learned by doing exactly the thing that is being proposed, and not wanting to make the same mistakes again. Many older Americans are also perfectly willing to accept all of the high moral and philosophical concepts of diversity, until it becomes a code name for shoveling Americans out the corporate door in exchange for hiring the lowest paid foreigners one can find to do the job.

In many countries of the world elders are respected, even honored. Increasingly in America elders are viewed with resentment and intolerance. Even worse, they become almost invisible. Marketing discounts their buying power, focusing on the 18-35, or 35-49 market shares. This means that media content and the commercial world are generally ignoring elders. Elders are certainly treated as irrelevant in the world of technology, where it is assumed that they are simply not going to be players. Many older Americans are frustrated and depressed by where they find themselves. It is a desperation summed up pretty well in Oscar Brown's now famous poem "This Beach."