It is easy—and dangerous—to create stereotypes of older adults. Just when you think you have a picture in your head of what a senior is, you realize how very different they are. To borrow a phrase: You’ve seen one older adult and, you’ve seen one older adult. The 50 million Americans over 65 are more economically and racially diverse than [...]
Congress has again frozen funding for most senior services programs, from Meals on Wheels and other nutrition programs to falls prevention and state health insurance assistance programs (SHIPs). This has been the trend throughout most of the Obama Administration. But it may be about to come to an end, as we near a time when federal funding for senior programs [...]
Federal senior services programs are in for another very difficult year. In the 2015 budget he released yesterday, President Obama proposed freezing or even cutting spending for many key programs. And Obama’s blueprint may be the highwater mark for many initiatives, which are likely to see even deeper cuts as the budget works its way through Congress. Key House Republicans have [...]
Congress is about to agree to a bipartisan budget for 2014 that will at best freeze federal spending for many critical senior services. In a few cases, the fiscal plan will increase funding a bit from the low levels driven by last year’s across-the-board “sequester” spending cuts. But for the most part, programs will have to meet growing demand for [...]