In Brief
by Andy Humm
High Court Makes Landmark Ruling for Older Workers
The United States Supreme Court has ruled 5-to-3 that employees who sue claiming age discrimination do not have to prove that their employer’s bias was intentional, only that the hiring and firing policy had a discriminatory impact. The suit in this case was brought by older police officers in Jackson, Mississippi, over the larger raises given to younger officers with less experience.
The decision was a rebuke to lower courts that have increasingly decided workers must demonstrate that employers evidenced discriminatory intent. That more stringent standard led to the dismissal of many age discrimination suits. The New York Times noted that in such cases, “proof of motivation [is] highly elusive.”
The majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, did say that employers are covered if they can prove that the disparate impact on older workers was attributable to “reasonable factors other than age.”
In the Jackson, Mississippi, case, the court said the police department did make a reasonable argument that the raises provided to younger officers were justified as a method of keeping the department competitive. So, while the older cops did not win their lawsuit, they did win the right for all older workers to raise the legal issue of disparate impact. Federal laws against age discrimination kick in at 40, the Times noted, and half the American workforce will be that age or older within the next five years.
Bush Rule Allowing Cut in Benefits to 65-plus Retirees Overturned
A federal judge has stopped the Bush administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from enforcing a rule that let employers cut health benefits to their retirees who became eligible for Medicare at 65. Judge Anita B. Brody called it “contrary to Congressional intent and the plain language of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act” of 1967. AARP was the lead plaintiff in the suit against the rule and argued that the agency was guilty of “executive arrogance” in essentially rewriting a law. The Bush Justice Department is appealing the judge’s decision.
The EEOC rule, adopted last April but not put in force until after the presidential election, let employers cut benefits to Medicare-eligible retirees while maintaining them for retirees under 65. While many employers have cut retiree benefits entirely, Judge Brody said that they may not distinguish between employees on the basis of age. The commission argued that the exception they were seeking to the congressional act was “necessary and proper in the public interest,” in order to maintain benefits for younger retirees who have no access to Medicare.
Politics Skewing Older
The Washington Post reports that while just 11 CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are over 70, there are 22 members of the United States Senate who have reached that age. In 1981 there were 20 senators over 60 and none older than 80. Today, 54 are in their seventh decade, or will be in 2005.
The nine members of the United States Supreme Court, a lifetime appointment, are even older, with only Justice Clarence Thomas (56) younger than 65.
Senator John Warner (R-VA) (pictured above) told the Post that senators hold on to their jobs as long as possible because with seniority comes more power in Congress. He said he has told his constituents that he believes in “an old-fashioned honor system” whereby he will step down if he is no longer up to the job.
Crisis in Retirees Looms for State Workforces
InfoZine Reports that a study by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government finds huge numbers of state government employees across the country are set to retire by 2015, causing “acute shortages of state healthcare workers, legal professionals, natural scientists, engineers, educators, and managers.”
Within the next ten years, Washington State will lose 64 percent of its state workforce to retirement, followed by Maine at 59 percent, Tennessee at 58, Michigan at 56, and Pennsylvania at 54. These rates are much higher than in the private sector, compelling the states to face a crisis in filling jobs and suffer a loss of institutional memory, not to mention exploding pension costs.
More Schooling May Protect Against Brain Disease
The more higher education you’ve had, the less likely you are to suffer from maladies of the brain, a study out of the University of Toronto’s Rotman Research Institute has found. “More years of education were associated with more active frontal lobes, areas known to be involved in problem solving, memory, and judgment,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The researchers theorize that a more active life of the mind may provide a “vaccination” against Alzheimer’s and other neural disorders.
Building Brain Capacity with Software
Posit Science Corp. of San Francisco has come up with a new software program to help prevent and in some cases reverse “some symptoms of aging, such as memory loss, declining vision and hearing, and reduced motor control,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Participants use the Brain Health Training Program, which includes computer games and other computer-guided tasks for a total of 40 hours over eight weeks.
“The brain is just as deserving of a workout as the body,” Posit’s co-founder, Michael Merzenich, a professor of neuroscience at the University of California at San Francisco, told a conference. “The brain needs progressively challenging learning that is intensive, effortful, and repetitive.”
The software, still in the testing stage, will cost from $50 to $1,000 depending on “intensity levels.” A module to enhance hearing is also scheduled to be released before the end of the year.
Costs of Incarceration
America’s penchant for locking up criminals and throwing away the key is translating into an increasingly older inmate population with a greater need for medical care. KFOR in Oklahoma City reports that in Oklahoma, 1,200 prisoners are now more than 55 years of age, sending health care costs skyrocketing to $25 million annually.
Never Too Late to Pump Iron
Dr. Miriam Nelson, director of the Center for Physical Activity at Tufts University, pictured here, says it is never too late to start strength training. The co-author of the Strong Women books told NewsTarget.com that when she began stressing the need for vigorous exercise for adults over 50 in the 1980s, the assumption was that such people should not attempt it. “Now women in their 80s and 90s are building muscle,” she said, insisting that most of the symptoms we attribute to “old age” are stem from a lack of exercise and bad eating habits.
Among her books are Strong Women Stay Young, Strong Women Eat Well, and Strong Men and Women Beat Arthritis.
Old Rockers Never Die, They Just Get Rich
The Times of London’s annual list of top music millionaires in Britain is riddled with older performers. In the top 20 were Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, both 61; Ringo Starr, 64; Eric Clapton, 60; Phil Collins, 54; Tom Jones, 64; and David Bowie, 58. “I’m forever amazed by the way wrinkly rockers hang in there,” Philip Beresford, compiler of the list, told Bloomberg News. “People like me get older and wealthier and buy their records or go to their shows and get bathed in nostalgia and come back with lots of merchandise.” Topping the music industry’s rich list was Paul McCartney, 62, with wealth of $1.5 billion.
