Public Policy and Elderly Minorities

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the social and economic problems particularly affecting elderly minorities and critically examine related areas of public policy which were supposed to assist with their needs during the past three decades. Additional examples of public policy significantly impacting elderly minorities will also be reviewed.

The problems impacting elderly minorities, particularly in major U.S. urban areas, include many which face other demographic groups below the age of 65: income and employment, housing, medical care and nursing home care and educational opportunities. These areas of critical need are often exacerbated in the case of people who have entered the United States as non-English-speaking, elderly minorities (such as many thousands of Hispanic immigrants from Mexico and Central America and Asian immigrants from South Vietnam) as well as native American Indians and first-generation immigrants from around the world. The language and cultural differences of many elderly minorities often delay the progress they might otherwise make in meeting their basic needs and those of their families, whether on their own initiative or with public assistance. The significance of such minority needs is best illustrated by the volume of Hispanic and Asian immigrants entering California, where since 1975 immigration has accounted for practically all the population growth beyond natural increase since 1975 (Muller a

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e he presents. It would consist of "scrapping the entire federal welfare and income support structure for working-aged persons, including AFDC, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance, Worker's Compensation, subsidized housing, disability insurance, and the rest. It would leave the working-aged person with no recourse whatsoever except the job market, family members, friends, and public or private locally funded agencies" (pp. 227-228). Pro-Welfare State Response Reacting to the sort of critique made of existing welfare programs and policies by Murray are a host of defenders of the welfare state, who both philosophically endorse an ever-larger role for government redistribution of wealth and generally reply to criticisms of specific programs with the view that those programs only need more funding and public support to make them more effective (Block, Cloward, Enrennreich and Piven, 1987, pp. 3-108; Elwood, 1988, pp. 231-243; Piven and Cloward, 1977, pp. 264-361; Newman et al., 1978, passim). A good example of the pro-welfare view is a statement from a book designed to aid the poor in obtaining maximum welfare benefits: "Poor people have the right to receive welfare, free medical care, food stamps, and free or low-c

Category: Government - P