The plight of the aged has come to be regarded as a major social problem in the United Sta
tes. In a sense, the elderly (conventionally, those aged sixty-five and over) are a "newly-discovered" minority group. Like other minority groups, the old are subjected to job discrimination; they suffer nigh rates of poverty; they face prejudice founded on inaccurate stereotypes; they are excluded from the mainstream of American life on the basis of supposed group characteristics; and they are offered few meaningful roles in their society. In addition, the aged may face such problems as nigh rates of victimization by criminals, a heavy, burden of chronic illness and medical expenses, and psychological problems that result from their loss of independence and their sense of being unwanted. In America, childhood is romanticized, youth is idolized, middle age does the work, wields the power and pays the bills, and old age gets little or nothing for what it has already done. For many elderly Americans old age is a tragedy, a period of quiet despair, deprivation, desolation and muted rage. The tragedy of old age is not that each of us must grow old and die but that the process of doing so has been made unnecessarily painful, humiliating and isolating through insensitivity, ignorance, and poverty.
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