America is Getting Older. Maybe That’s a Good Thing.

Most of the public conversations we hear about aging baby boomers are rooted in fear. Stories include that a “silver tsunami” of aging adults is poised to bankrupt those same retirees and their families, cripple our workforce with unending caregiving responsibilities and drain public resources. Terrible, right? But what if we talked about aging differently: that our aging population is a triumph of public health initiatives and medical advancements? What if we talked about it as a win for feminism? Baby boomer women were the first generation to have access to legal birth control and abortion, which allowed them to choose their family size. Maybe if we thought of aging demographics this way, our conversations about getting older in America would have a different tone—one that’s about celebrating our achievements and building on progress rather than a narrative that America is staring down an unsolvable catastrophe.

The Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age by James Chappel, a history professor at Duke University, challenges this conventional thinking. The book feels relevant as I think more about the long game of narrative change around care and how to mobilize people around big public policy asks. In my discussion with Chappel, we talked about how completely impractical ideas can significantly impact politics, why some of our poverty prevention and subsistence programs need a success story rebrand, and what our narratives about people who refuse to retire distract us from.

Here’s an edited and condensed version of my conversation with Chappel.

We are allowing Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Mitch McConnell to inform a story we have about the older population in general. A much more common story would be an 80-year-old woman living alone who has to work at Taco Bell. That's the actual story of older people in the workforce.

Katherine Goldstein: Your book contains many fascinating stories about advocacy and social movements that helped build support for some of the important poverty prevention and subsistence programs we have today. Can you talk briefly about the Townsend Clubs and how bold ideas can impact public policy even if not enacted?

James Chappel: It often feels like we're told social movements must have realistic ideas. I think history shows that crazy, unworkable ideas can have a lot of impact. A hundred years ago, the Townsend Movement was one of the most significant social movements in American history, with millions of members. They had town hall meetings with music and dancing, and they’d write letters to Congress about a totally nuts plan. The idea was that every older American when they turn 60, gets the equivalent of today's $5,000 a month. A couple would be getting $10,000 a month, or $120,000 a year—for all older people. It was going to be paid for by this kind of baroque tax system. So, it was a lavish, universalist old-age pension movement.

This played a role in creating Social Security because Franklin D. Roosevelt knew he had to do something for older people. Social Security makes no sense as a response to the Great Depression until we realize that the Townsend Movement was the most significant, most radical movement that Roosevelt had to confront. So Social Security, I think, was FDR’s attempt to provide a politically feasible version of the Townsend Plan.

It's a really interesting example of the importance of dreaming big in your public policy. So Medicare and Social Security, you argue, are imperfect programs that have largely been effective at poverty reduction. Why have they been so vilified and targeted for reform over the decades?

On the left, we should celebrate these programs. They are great, very efficient, and very well run.

The downside is they're both very complicated. And there needs to be more clarity about how they work. Americans don't even believe they're going to get that money back, even though they will. Social Security has been around for almost a century now. And even if it does hit that fiscal cliff, it's not like we'll get nothing. We're just going to get less than we thought we would. But since the 1970s, there's been an ideological assault against these programs that has convinced people that the government can't do this stuff, but the history of Social Security shows that it can—rebranding the Social Security Administration as one of the great achievements of the 20th century could be useful for the left or people who care about the care economy.

Another important thing to note is that when there was big progress in old age policy in the 1930s and 1960s, it was framed as being for everyone, especially for the kids of older people, just not older people themselves, because there weren't enough of them back then. There are now, but the discourse around Social Security and Medicare was if your parents get hurt, it could mess up your family.

That's still true. Back then, there was a pitch that old age policy is not just for older people as an interest group—that it's really for middle-aged adults not to have to deal with the crises their parents go through—that's the political genius of what old age policy can be.

So, I hear a fair amount—it’s not exactly ageism, but I would call it “age resentment” toward baby boomers and older generations. It has to do with their unwillingness to retire from positions of power. It has to do with holding on to these very large family homes, which is impacting housing stock. It concerns how their past and current economic, political, and environmental choices are impacting our world now. How do you think these things are impacting how we are thinking about our aging population?

You're right. A lot of people are talking about them as impediments to progress. The thinking goes, “People need just to sell their house, give us the car keys, and retire from the Senate.” But most older people are not senators. We are allowing Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Mitch McConnell to inform a story we have about the older population in general. A much more common story would be an 80-year-old woman living alone who has to work at Taco Bell. That's the actual story of older people in the workforce.

But, the issue we need to confront is not older people holding on to power for too long. Millions of older people need home healthcare aides but can't afford them. I would rather talk about that stuff.

In your conclusion, you argue that older Americans need to see being old as an identity worth organizing around politically. However, this faces obstacles because our society continually wants to reject being old. I see a lot of potential organizing around paid and unpaid caregivers. That framing concerns older adults, which is an economic issue for people in the workforce. So, through a historian's lens, where do you see the most opportunity for organizing or coalition building now?

The intersection between old age and housing policy is a fruitful place to be thinking. People invented the idea of retirement around the same time as we invented the idea of the suburbs. So, it became presumed that older people should live in their own houses, which became an index of successful aging.

That preposterous idea has kept us from seeing many more exciting and flexible arrangements, like granny units. Intergenerational living has often been ostracized, but it has much potential to solve the care and housing policy crisis. How many old people live in houses they don't need anymore?

To the question before about where I see potential, I see that there needs to be a vibrant movement for older people organizing themselves right now. What the node might be in the 21st century is the one you're talking about, which is an alliance of caregivers, hopefully with older people themselves, because, as any reader of your newsletter knows, these issues are all connected. There are so many middle-aged women in this country whose emotional and financial lives are fraying because they have to care for aging relatives. Labor organizing for these sectors would have so many benefits for so many of us.

You can purchase a copy of The Golden Years: How America Invented and Reivented Old Age here.