Ageism and Unemployment

It appears that the problem of being old and unemployed is starting to get its due. There may once have been a time when it was possible to retire tidily and in a timely fashion and never experience age discrimination in the workforce. In addition, the commonality of corporate pensions would have taken the pinch out of a forced retirement --- it wasn't a layoff with a few months' severance, but an income stream for life. Therefore, the phenomenon of ageism and employment appeared to be more of an exception than the rule and would have carried a tremendous stigma ("He really wasn't functioning on the same level anymore," "She just couldn't take the hint and retire..."). Considering that most of the rule-makers and policy setters in our country come from this ilk - the college educated, white-collar job-set, the relative invisibility of age discrimination in the corporate world insured that there was a lack of appreciation for the problem in general... until now. Because of the economic downturn and the timing as it relates to the anticipated retirement of aging boomers... the problem is much more evident.

I'm not sure if it's just that my awareness is now heightened, or that, because of the conditions of the moment (lots of people approaching retirement age with wiped out retirement savings and high numbers of joblessness), but the issue seems to be coming up a lot more in the media. 

Just today, I noted it in this article on local homeless services:

"These people are desperate," O'Mara said. "They've paid taxes all their lives; they've never not been able to work. They don't qualify for much of the aid that's available because they have too many assets. But what do all these assets matter when you're 50 years old and you can't find a job?"