Safeguarding Social Security For Future Generations

This book offers a unique multigenerational approach to saving Social Security. Public programs have adapted to societal aging, but fears overwhelm hopes for Social Security’s future prospects. Conservatives want to privatize operations that liberals seek to expand. Younger workers are happy that Social Security protects their elders, but most do not expect benefits when needed. Achenbaum reframes conflicting perspectives and offers new models of respectful transgenerational dialogue that can mobilize pragmatic reforms. Designed for use in gerontology, social work, and public policy courses, Safeguarding Social Security for Future Generations offers measured hope for leaving a legacy that safeguards the common good.

Long Lives Are for the Rich is the title of a silent ominous program that affects the lives of millions of people. In all developed countries disadvantaged and, especially, poor people die much earlier than the most advantaged. During these shorter lives they suffer ten to twenty years longer from disabilities or chronic disease. This does not happen accidentally: health inequalities – including those between healthy and unhealthy life styles – are mainly caused by social inequalities that are reproduced over the life course. This crucial function of the life course has become painfully visible during its neoliberal reorganization since the early 1980s. Studies about aging over the life course, from birth to death, show the inhumane consequences as people get older. In spite of the enormous wealth that has been piled up in the US for a dwindling percentage of the population, there has been growing public indifference about the needs of those in jobs with low pay and high stress, but also about citizens from a broad middle class who can hardly afford high quality education or healthcare. However, this ominous program affects all: recent mortality rates show that all Americans, including the rich, are unhealthier and dying earlier than citizens of other developed countries. Moreover, the underlying social inequalities are tearing the population apart with nasty consequences for all citizens, including the rich. Although the public awareness of the consequences has been growing, neoliberal policies remain tempting for the economic and political elites of the developed world because of the enormous wealth that is flowing to the top. All this poses urgent questions of social justice. Unfortunately, the predominant studies of social justice along the life course help to reproduce these inequalities by neglecting them. This book analyzes the main dynamics of social inequality over the life course and proposes a theory of social justice that sketches a way forward for a country that is willing to invest in its greatest resource: the creative potential of its population.

Venezuela Social Security System, Policies, Laws and Regulations Handbook Volume 1 Strategic Information and Regulations

Ageing in Place in Urban Environments considers together two major trends influencing economic and social life: population ageing on the one side and urbanisation on the other. Both have been identified as dominant demographic trends of the twenty-first century. Cities are where the majority of people of all ages now live and where they will spend their old age. Nevertheless, cities are typically imagined and structured with a younger, working-age population in mind while older people are rarely incorporated into the mainstream of thinking and planning around urban environments. Cities can contribute to vulnerability arising from high levels of population turnover, environmental problems, gentrification, and reduced availability of affordable housing. However, they can also provide innovative forms of support and services essential to promoting the quality of life of older people. Policies in Europe have emphasised the role of the local environment in promoting “ageing in place”, a term used to describe the goal of helping people to remain in their own homes and communities for as long as they wish. However, while this has been the dominant approach, the places in which older people are ageing have often proved to be challenging environments. The book explores the forces behind these developments and how older people have responded. Drawing upon approaches from social gerontology, urban studies, geography, and sociology, this book will be essential reading for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners searching for innovative ways to improve the lives of older people living in urban environments.

Why Place Matters reassesses what is known and traditionally understood about the relationship older adults have with place over time and in later life. Building from notions that affirm there is no single "right" place to age or grow older, Joyce Weil fixes her analytical focus on older adults’ agency in assessing place, the ways a person's fit in a place evolves over time, and the complexity and nuance of how older adults derive and also attach meanings to place. Even in the presence of a rich literature and ongoing body of research on older adults and their relationship to place, this book argues for more attention to be paid to the ways in which the interaction of person and place is fluid and dependent on personal and individual circumstances as well as societal and structural ones. Drawing upon theoretical explanations and quantitative models, including the author's own integrated measure, and a range of lived experiences and personal accounts of place, this book unpacks and broadens the meanings ascribed to place in later life. Readers across the fields of gerontology, sociology, geography, planning, and health and social care will find a fresh perspective and truly innovative and comprehensive way of thinking about place and aging.

Along with Medicare, Social Security is one of the "rites of passage" older Americans experience. After contributing funds to this program their entire working lives, people are anxious to start cashing in on their monthly benefits. Idiot's Guides: Social Security offers simple and clear explanations of the history of the program, the traditional age requirement, disability and survivor benefits, and the future of Social Security. A bonus decision tree helps recipients maximize benefits based on such factors as how and when benefits are filed, marital status, and future plans.