Catchen H
Department of Community Health and Biological Sciences, SUNY/College, Old Westbury 11568.
Women Health. 1988;14(3-4):21-38.
Recent attempts to portray the relative affluence of the current generation of older Americans as causing economic hardship for younger generations are examined in this paper. This argument, commonly referred to as the "generational equity" thesis, ignores the basic issues of gender and race. We argue that: the elderly are more sharply stratified into rich and poor than younger groups, the official poverty level used by the federal government underestimates the number of poor older persons living in poverty, and that older women and minorities have disturbingly high rates of poverty. Reducing current federal benefit levels to the elderly would do little to alleviate the problems experienced by younger generations, and would cause severe hardship for many older people. Women and minorities would be especially hard hit by such reductions since they are more likely to be poor than white males.
本文审视了近期一些将当代美国老年群体的相对富裕描绘为给年轻一代造成经济困境的观点。这一观点，通常被称为“代际公平”论，忽视了性别和种族的基本问题。我们认为：与年轻群体相比，老年人在贫富分层上更为明显；联邦政府使用的官方贫困线低估了生活在贫困中的老年贫困人口数量；老年女性和少数族裔的贫困率高得令人不安。降低当前针对老年人的联邦福利水平对缓解年轻一代所面临的问题作用不大，反而会给许多老年人带来严重困境。女性和少数族裔会尤其受到此类削减的重创，因为他们比白人男性更有可能陷入贫困。
