Unemployment and the AARP…
Many people view AARP as a relatively harmless special interest group. Now this view might become more cemented in the national conscience since Betty White is doing some irreverent and risqué commercials for them. However, I’m not particularly a fan of AARP. During the debate about drug coverage for seniors, they sold out to Mr. Bush and Big Pharma. The result was Medicare Part D with the famous donut hole, that extension to Medicare that confuses many seniors and allows insurance companies to play fast and loose with their drug needs.
In addition, I always have resented the idea that 50+ meant “retired,” which is absurd and probably why the original name was changed to the acronym. Of course, the threshold was put in place in order to latch on to more members. While the cost of membership is minimal, it all adds up to a tidy sum, I’m sure, but not to nearly as much as what they make selling insurance to elders. In many ways, they are part of the medical insurance problem.
That said, I occasionally thumb through their magazine and news periodical. Recently an item there really ticked me off and represents something that should be more generally known. It turns out that on some on-line employment websites like monster.com you will find job listings that say something like “the unemployed need not apply.” There ought to be a law! How can the federal and state governments try to help people out with unemployment checks on one hand and allow this kind of discrimination on the other?
Such practices on the part of employers is unethical and myopic, to say the least, but the fact that government allows them to get away with it is yet another example of bureaucratic stupidity. I commend AARP for bringing this to our attention. Of course, they’re coming from the seniors’ perspective, as employers often want to eliminate older employees, especially before they qualify for retiree medical coverage and other benefits, and replace them with younger and cheaper workers, so the employers that carry out such practices are practicing a veiled form of age discrimination respect to seniors.
Yes, we need a law, something like the ADA, that prohibits this behavior. I don’t want to hear any whining about how to enforce such a law. Sure, it’s hard to prove discrimination. The first reaction of these companies will be to eliminate that phrase and other similar ones from the job posting. It’s even possible that in some cases heir primary motivation for doing it is to avoid hiring more HR people. In any case, the law’s first consequence will be to drive such discrimination underground. However, as with the ADA, large fines, applied in the cases where the government can prove discrimination, will do wonders to keep companies on the straight and narrow.
Let’s hypothesize a particularly egregious example of such discrimination. Consider a veteran returning from Iraq or Afghanistan who enlisted right out of school. His first job was in the armed forces. He returns and is looking to join America’s civilian work force for the first time. Those companies that post their little warning on job websites are basically telling that veteran, “You can never work for us.” Does this make any kind of sense? It would be nearly as egregious as the case where a bank forecloses on someone on active duty in the armed forces, which has happened. Come on, America, where’s your outrage?
Since the Supreme Court has declared that corporations have basically the same rights (and obligations) as individuals, I appeal to these corporate “individuals” to develop some moral spine. In the more likely event that they don’t, government should step in to force the issue. If neither happens, we then have yet another example of capitalism out of control.
As for AARP, why couldn’t they go beyond their report on this behavior and write something like the above? They cry “Wolf!” and there is a really a wolf there, but they make no suggestions about how to kill the wolf. They have abrogated their role as lobbying agent for the elderly. They are simply another organization that exploits them instead.
And so it goes….
