3. We are concerned about the discouragement process by which older unemployed workers become unemployable in the eyes of employers and employment service personnel, which then leads to their dropping out of the labor force. Economic and technological changes have displaced mature employees from the older industries. The industries which have had the sharpest declines in manpower needs are those which, in earlier years, utilized many older persons agriculture, mining, and railroads. Older workers constitute a disproportionately high percentage in these declining industries, but a small percentage in expanding fields. Even when older workers become aware that employment is declining in their industry, they do not usually separate from their jobs until the jobs abandon them.4 I do not believe this has to be. The fact that this has happened has been interpreted wrongly as proving that the decreasing labor force participation of older persons is a natural law, equal to that of the law of gravity. Second, the displaced older person may find himself disqualified from newer fields because he lacks the education required by employers. In one study, for example, men over forty-five years of age with less than eight years of schooling, showed an unemployment rate of 7%, compared to only 3% among high school graduates, and 1% among collegeeducated men. While the years of schooling for older men have been increasing, they are still below the educational levels of younger men. Rashelle Axelbank, "The Position of the Older Worker in the American Labor Force," Washington, D.C., National Council on the Aging, April 27, 1970. Ibid. Third, the private pension plan system has served to work against the older workers. It has intensified age discrimination in the hiring process, curtailed job opportunities for older men and contributed to their longer perfods of unemployment.5 - Growth in private pension plans have, unintentionally or not reinforced the preference for younger workers; the added cost of pension coverage for newly hired older employees is the usual reason given. The total cost of such discrimination, to companies and to individual Americans as taxpayers, has never been calculated, but I have a hunch that such cost is greater than the alleged cost of keeping older persons in the labor force. The current Congressional interest in pension plans, we hope, will force a re-examination of the entire private pension plan system and the extent of its discriminatory policies. This re-examination should result in an enlightened philosophy and program which will ease the burden for older workers, and for the general society. But perhaps the most devastating factor in the unemployed-tounemployable syndrome among older workers, is the deep psychological harm that is inflicted by unemployment. The trauma becomes further aggravated by sociological changes in life style that result from being out of work. We can only speculate on this point, but it is my personal opinion that in comparison to the overt signs of unrest and discontent manifested by the young on our campuses and on our streets, P. 11. 4. the unrest among the unemployed adults of America will show itself election times. in the silence of the secret polling booth at Thus, the unemployed older worker often falls into an irreversible cycle: his feelings of self-worthlessness and depression mount, his family relationships become strained, his frustration leads to withdrawal, and society is left with an unemployable alienated citizen.6 We are concerned about the thousands of unemployed older persons who " want and need to work for increased income and for the satisfaction and dignity a job can provide. The Labor and Public Welfare Committee Report on the recently enacted Emergency Employment Act provides us with the disturbing facts about the lack of job opportunities for older people. The Report states: By whatever barometer one would choose to use, persons forty-five and older have been under-represented in our nation's manpower and training efforts. Mature workers now constitute 38% of the civilian labor force; they represent close to 22% of all unemployment in the U.S.; they account for 34% of the long-term joblessness; and they comprise 40% of all unemployment for 27 weeks or longer. Yet they account for only 4% of all enrollees in present work and training efforts. Even in the one program which emphasizes employment for the disadvan taged elderly, Operation Mainstream, persons forty-five and older Terry Kaplan, "Too Old to Work: The Constitutionality of Mandatory Retirement Plans," Southern California Law Review, Vol. 44, No. 1. P. 158. Senator Frank Church, Congressional Record, March 24, 1971. P. 3784. For these reasons, the Labor and Public Welfare Committee included provisions for the older worker in the public service employment program. While we heartily support the intent of the Act's provisions, past experience should warn that without specific statutory requirement and effective monitoring, the special training and manpower needs of the middle-aged and older workers will be ignored. We should not be misled about the small percentage of elderly participants in today's manpower programs. Do not think that these figures indicate the older worker's lack of interest in entering, remaining in, or re-entering the labor force for it is quite the contrary. There are very few regular programs explicitly designed to provide employment for middle-aged and older workers; most of these are demonstration-type programs and their budgets are small. The real question is, how many demonstration projects have to be carried out before we institutionalize programs for adult and older workers, as ongoing programs? NCOA's Senior Community Service Project employs over 500 older persons; they found, however, that they had eight applicants for every one of these job openings. So the desire or need to work is there. The latest income figures show that about one out of every four older persons live below the poverty level. And, as we have seen in our programs by the numbers of older persons being turned away, many would be working today if the jobs were there. 5. We are concerned about our under-utilization of our "National The NCOA theme for this year, which coincides with that of the upcoming White House Conference on Aging, is "The Mature American as a National Resource." NCOA has focused on this theme in its national and regional meetings and in our publications. They have circulated this poster I am holding to organizations across the country along with an invitation to write to NCOA for information concerning ways to creatively involve this resource. The theme reflects a major shift in thought about our older Americans. We have gone from a problem-oriented focus to a potentialoriented one. The reality is, of course, that older persons are both a national resource and a societal problem. But the degree to which they become more of a resource and less of a problem or vice versa really depends as former NCOA Board member Charles Odell has stated "upon the level of priority given by the society to dealing with their needs and at the same time helping them to help themselves."8 hence the To date, they have been given the lowest priority attention to their "problems." It is time to change that priority level. 8 Charles E. Odell, "Our Older Population A National Resource and/or a Societal Problem." Paper presented before the National Conference on Social Welfare, Dallas, Texas, May 18, 1971. p. 1. 70-641 O 72 13 |