D.C. Pension Geeks
Welcome to DC Pension Geeks, a conversation with top retirement-related policymakers and regulators in and around Washington. Hosted by Brian Graff, an attorney, accountant, former Capitol Hill staffer, and now CEO of the American Retirement Association, it’s an inside view of the ups and downs, ins and outs and sometimes surprising turns Washington takes on the road to ensuring a secure retirement for millions of hard-working Americans.
D.C. Pension Geeks
Debra Whitman - How to Make it Easier to ‘Age Well’ in America
How long will we live in retirement? Will we be healthy? How long will we work? Will we have enough money? These are common, and heavy, questions we’d all like answered.
Self-described “Pension Geek” Debra Whitman, EVP and Chief Public Policy Officer with the 30 million-member strong AARP, joins ARA CEO Brian Graff for a discussion of her new book, The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond.
She describes all the things that need to happen to make it easier for people to age well in America and the AARP-supported policies and programs to make it happen.
We're always surveying people and when we ask people are you retired? We get a huge percentage yes. And then we ask are you still working? A huge percentage of those that just said yes, they're retired say yes, they're still working.
Speaker 2:DC Pension Geeks brings you exclusive conversations with top retirement policymakers and regulators in and around Washington DC. Hosted by Brian Graff, an attorney, accountant, former Capitol Hill staffer and CEO of the American Retirement Association. If you're looking for an insider's view of all the twists and turns that Washington takes on the road to ensuring a secure retirement for millions of Americans, you're in the right place. Series of DC Pension Geeks podcast.
Speaker 3:Really fortunate to have with me today Deborah Wimman, who is Senior Director of Policy at AARP.
Speaker 1:Executive Vice President and Chief Public Policy Officer.
Speaker 3:That's a lot better title than what I came up with. So thank you for correcting me, debra, and actually is it okay I call you Deb, because I know that's pretty much what I've called you for years.
Speaker 1:Yes, of course my friends call me Deb and we have been longtime friends.
Speaker 3:So charting the policy course for AARP is a huge undertaking. Aarp, as many of our listeners know, is the largest association in the entire world with, I think, over 50 million members. Am I in the ballpark with that Over 30. Over 30 million? It's bigger than Canada million members. Am I in the ballpark of that Over 30. Over 30 million? I was-.
Speaker 1:Bigger than Canada.
Speaker 3:Rounding up, but more importantly, deb just published a new book, the Second 50, answers to the Seven Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond, which you can obviously find on Amazon and other major booksellers, and it's a big hit. Deb's been making the rounds. I saw her on the Today Show, which has got to be a thrill. I'm sure you've done some other TV as well as radio and podcasts. You've been very busy and I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today, so thanks.
Speaker 1:Well, I am a pension geek, so I'm very delighted to be part of the conversation.
Speaker 3:You are a pension geek. Yes, you definitely qualify. So, as our listeners know, we like to kind of get a little bit of background about our guests and why they ended up working in the retirement policy field. That you know, most of us kind of came across this by accident and you know what's your story. You kind of indicated when we were talking before that maybe you've been dreaming about this since you were in grade school.
Speaker 1:Not really dreaming about it since I was in grade school, but I grew up in a small town in eastern Washington state and my big dream was to get out of there and to travel and to see the world. And so I did my undergraduate degree at Gonzaga University in Spokane, washington, go Zags.
Speaker 3:Great school.
Speaker 1:And they had a study abroad program in Florence, italy. That was just incredible and I knew I had to graduate in four years. My parents couldn't pay for more than that, and so I looked at what are the courses that they offered in Florence and I picked my major based on that, and it was economics. They had a whole bunch of great economics classes and I was good at math. I had a math minor and I just really enjoyed thinking about how we can make our society better, and so I ended up going to graduate school at Syracuse to get my PhD and focus on public policy. It is the best public policy school in the country. But really it started because I wanted to go live in Italy for a year.
Speaker 3:That's okay, I mean that's. I mean, you were young.
Speaker 1:What an answer for a 19-year-old is. You couldn't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally legitimate. But I mean, I think the positive part of that is what you discovered was a desire to make a difference right and to make the world a better place through policy. Not everyone sort of you know a lot of people go to college and they want to go to Florence and then they want to make money so they can move, have a house in Lake Como. I mean, you know, that's not where you, that's not the direction he went.
Speaker 1:No house in Lake Como. But the nice thing about Syracuse they, it was actually an aging center. The, the national Institute of aging, had funded a research center so we had a lot of lectures about aging and, um, I really found, you know, looking at the second half of life, like I do in my book um is fascinating because it's all of the decisions that you've made across your life, um and and people are complex, um and uh, hugely varied. So, um, I left Syracuse, went to work at the social security administration, did research there, um got a chance to go on Capitol Hill, uh, as a fellow Um. So I worked on the health, education, labor and pension committee, the health committee at the time, but I did the Health Subcommittee and that was during Medicare Part D, and I worked for Ted Kennedy and then I ran the Senate Aging Committee for five years and did a lot of hearings on retirement stuff and then have been here at AARP for over a decade.
Speaker 3:Well, you've really contributed a lot to the national discourse on the topic of aging and retirement and health. So what drove you to want to write a book, and particularly this book?
Speaker 1:So two things Even though I'd worked on aging for 25 years, I realized there was still a lot I didn't know and I wanted to learn, and, more importantly, I had questions.
Speaker 1:I wanted to learn for myself, and so I wrote down what are the things that I want to know, and it was basic things like how long am I going to live and will I be healthy? And some more practical things like will I have have enough money and how long will I work, and then some more scary things like will I lose my memory or how will I die, and so each of those chapter is all the things we need to do to make it easier to age well in America. And really that could have been a full book in and of itself and my mom still hasn't fully read that chapter, but it is. It's remarkable how hard it is to age in America and how many holes there are that people fall into, and so that's really been my life's work is trying to fill those holes, but helping people understand the second half of their life is really what this book is about.
Speaker 3:What do you think I mean? Let's drill down that a little bit. So what do you think are the biggest challenges that Americans face as they are going into towards those retirement years, those quote, unquote retirement years?
Speaker 1:Several. You know, again, each chapter faces its own challenge. So we have huge disparities in how long we're going to live and how healthy we're going to be 20 years healthy we're going to be 20 years difference in life expectancy between counties in America and people getting health conditions 20 years sooner in some states than others. We have problems with people not being able to save for retirement. I'm sure you've had lots of guests talk about the fact that half of Americans can't save through their paycheck. We have problems. We have no real long-term care system in America, even though the number of people and the needs are getting bigger and bigger every day.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I could go on and on. So there isn't just one thing that's facing us, and that's one of the reasons why I have the sort of lay it out as different chapters. We also have a housing problem. We don't build houses for that are forever homes. We build them for single families with kids, with lots of stairs. So you know there's there's opportunities for the private markets to solve these. There's opportunities for individuals to do better, and then there's opportunities for the private markets to solve these. There's opportunities for individuals to do better, and then there's opportunities for policymakers to make things easier.
Speaker 3:And obviously long-term care and the adjacent medical care issues associated with that are real challenges for American families because it's gotten so expensive for American families. Because it's gotten so expensive, there's accessibility issues, as I know, you know, and oftentimes that burden falls on family members, which further kind of creates a cascading issue in terms of the economic impact of those challenges.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have many, many family members who have to quit their job if their mom falls and breaks their hip because we just don't have a system. And the cost of care is really stunning. The average nursing home is over $100,000. Memory care is easily $200,000. Home care is close to that.
Speaker 3:And if you look at how much people either have in many Americans who lack access to a workplace savings program and I do want to touch on that with you in a little bit. But I've always, you know, when I was on the Hill since then, because when I was on the Hill I worked on HIPAA. I don't know if you knew that I was on the Hill, I worked on HIPAA. I don't know if you knew that that it was remarkable to me how little real effort has been accomplished. Let's put this a lot of conversations about the issues of cost and healthcare, but Congress really hasn't accomplished a lot yet, or to date, on that issue. And I think you can't address one without the other, don't you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll say on the issue of healthcare costs, there was a huge win a couple of years ago that AARP. I'm really proud of how hard we fought and we got punched by the pharmaceutical industry for doing so, but how how much it took to get the ability to negotiate prices by the government in order to reduce.
Speaker 3:And that was just a fairly limited list, right, I mean fairly limited list, but it saved billions and billions of dollars because, unlike every other country out there, we don't negotiate.
Speaker 1:So we pay two, three, four times what other countries pay for the cost of prescription drugs. So so there you know again. It's not that nothing is happening to improve our policies towards demographic change, but I'm there's a, there's a lot more, there's a lot more that needs to be done, and I'm there's a lot more. There's a lot more that needs to be done, and I'm an impatient person.
Speaker 3:I'm with you. I'm the same way, deb, and I know that this PBM legislation has been percolating a little, particularly in the Senate, for a while and I'm sure, like you, hopeful that it makes progress but impatient that they have not. You know, everyone I talk to has had an awful experience where they've had to buy something that, for whatever reason, wasn't covered by their insurance company, because they went to the wrong pharmacy and the price for it is just ridiculous, like I got COVID and the pharmacy made a mistake and didn't file correctly the claim but they wanted to charge me $1,438 for Paxlovid.
Speaker 1:And you're sick and you know you can't wait a lot of days to take it Right.
Speaker 3:Right and so Right, exactly, but that's I mean at least. I mean I was in a position where I could, it was urgent, I had to do it, but there are a lot of people who can't do that and that's just ridiculous. For something that you know, if I went to Canada it would cost $75. Anyway, so the problem with cost and expenses is another reason why a lot of people are re-evaluating what retirement means. Right, you know the fact that there are these disparities, that there are these issues that come up. You know we have this sort of I think we've had this sort of glorified vision of what constitutes retirement, namely that I go to work turn 65, magically, I walk out of the office with my box, you see the commercials, particularly the financial services companies, and I go and play golf or I go on a boat. And the truth is most people either can't afford to do that because of costs or issues that come up or, frankly, they don't want to Do. We need to rethink what retirement really is.
Speaker 1:So I lead our research team here at ARP and we're always surveying people and when we ask people are you retired? We get a huge percentage yes. And then we ask are you still working? A huge percentage of those that just said yes, they're retired, say yes, they're still working. Yes, so what is retirement is sort of changing in people's mind, and part of that is I've quit my 40-year career and now I'm doing some gig work I've always been passionate about.
Speaker 1:So work and retirement. We have twice as many people 55 and older who are working or are looking for work than we did in the 1990s. So people are working longer and many are doing it because they love their job and are really enjoying the work that they do and they get value and purpose and they have a social connection to the people that they work with All things that improve health and we can talk about that. But other people are doing it because they have to. So I spoke to one woman who had retired from her job as a medical tech and Cindy had needed some dental work.
Speaker 1:Medicare doesn't cover your teeth or your eyes or ears three things that tend to wear out when we age but not covered by Medicare, and so she blew through a big chunk of her retirement account and then needed some car repairs and blew through the rest of it, and so she's working very long hours on her feet and can't even pay for the down payment of a rental unit. She's living in a hotel. So the reasons that people are working longer really vary and people's experience of whether they've set themselves up in retirement. A lot of people don't check how much their Social Security benefit will be and expect that to be enough to live on. But your Social Security check gets your health care premiums taken out of them and so you're you're living on what's left and by the time you, you know, pay your mortgage or rent and other out-of-pocket health costs and other things. It really doesn't go as far as many people had dreamed that it might that it might.
Speaker 3:So two, two, two things I want to follow up on with respect to what you said. First is the issue of mental health and, um, we, that was a big part of what you talked about in your book. Um, it's not something that we spent a lot of time talking about more certainly so now than we've ever done before, but still certainly nothing like the same level of attention physical health gets to. Why is it so important and what is working part of it, or what other steps can people take to ensure that their mental state is as strong as their physical state going into retirement?
Speaker 1:So I'll take it in a couple of different directions. I'm glad you asked this for me because I'm really passionate about these issues. I grew up with my grandmother in my home. My mom was her caregiver for 50 years and my grandmother had schizophrenia. So I feel like we don't talk enough about mental health in this country, and particularly mental health as we age. So I'll say one thing Many people, as they age, lose the social ties, either because they're less able to get around, because they have physical issues, or maybe their best friends were in the office and when they retired they lost some of those connections.
Speaker 1:So isolation and loneliness is as detrimental to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and so finding ways to stay connected to others is really important, and that can be done through volunteering. It can be done talking to people in the checkout line or even waving at people from your porch. All have been shown to increase people's feeling of connections and increase their mental health and physical health. We also know that depression is barely screened, even though it's supposed to be part of the Medicare screening. Only 6% of doctors actually do the depression screening, and some of that is, I think, ageist, where we view people should be depressed when they're older because they're old, when the data shows, actually, our happiness goes way up as we age. We're twice as happy in our 80s as we were in our 40s. We're at the bottom of the happiness curve, really.
Speaker 1:And then lastly and I just if there's anybody listening that needs it, please understand there's a suicide hotline. The rates of suicide among older adults, particularly older men, older men over 75, have rates of suicide that are twice as high as teenage boys, which we know is a crisis in this country. And so all of these things whether you're feeling lonely and isolated, which leads to depression, which leads to suicidal thoughts, you can get help and it's something that we need to take seriously from our family and loved ones and make sure we check in on them, and even just neighbors, you know, just showing that you care can make a huge difference.
Speaker 3:So you said something that you know you talk about, but I think it's going to be surprising to people because it isn't talked about frankly at all, and that's the suicide rates for older individuals and particularly older men. Has there been research kind of trying to attribute the causes of this?
Speaker 1:It's a hard thing to do research on and particularly one of the problems is that many older people are more likely to actually die by suicide because they have guns and know how to use them. So I did talk to an expert I just wrote an op-ed on this issue that you know access to firearms, loneliness, all of these things are compounding events for older people, and some, you know, have fear of dementia or poor health that may or not be true or feel burdened or can't afford the care that they need. Again, there's lots of reasons. I don't think it's.
Speaker 3:One. You know, one individual I spoke to about this indicated a feeling of a lack of purpose, that there's somewhat societal that they've been driven to. You are represented or you reflect the work that you do, and when you stop doing the work that you principally do the fact that you do and when you stop doing the work that you principally do, the fact that you don't have it anymore something is lost, that sense of purpose that can exacerbate the loneliness that you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, purpose and meaning are also really good promoters of good health. So if you have a sense of purpose, you live healthier and you live longer. And we can get purpose from our work and many people did throughout their careers. But you can get purpose from volunteering. You can get purpose from caring for a pet or taking care of somebody else that needs help. You know there's even people have been connected to plants and greenery of. You know I need to water my plant every year. So to finding out again what's what's purposeful in your life is a good thing to connect to. There was a big few years ago.
Speaker 3:I guess it was this big a few years ago. I guess it's been more than a few years, maybe 20-ish years ago. There was this whole discussion about phased retirement and this notion of transitioning from full-time to some type of part-time role, but it seems like employers have gotten away from that and there has been issues around workforce management and efficiencies that have taken a lot of very talented people with a lot of experience. Do you feel the employers? Corporate America as a general matter, hasn't really figured out the best way to utilize those assets so that they're getting the benefit of it, but also the people that want to work on a phased basis or a part-time basis have that opportunity as well.
Speaker 1:So we need to work on the demand side.
Speaker 1:We need to work on employers to make sure there are jobs for older people that want to work longer or that need to work longer.
Speaker 1:We've been doing a project called Living Learning, earning Longer, where we've been working with over 100 companies to think about the multi-generational workforce and to get them to think about things that happen throughout the life course, like caregiving, that can happen when you're younger or older, the need for workplace flexibility. The flexibility since COVID have brought tons of people who had disabilities or caregiving responsibilities back into the workplace. And then we also show them that there's a bottom line argument for this in that firms that have multi-generational teams are actually more productive than ones that don't. And so you know, pairing wisdom and experience with of older workers with younger workers that may bring in new ways of doing things or new ideas is actually a real win for companies. And so I think helping companies to be able to think across tenure, across age, all of these things is something we're going to see more and more of, because as the baby boomers retire, we're going to need more workers. We're going to need to keep people working longer.
Speaker 3:Absolutely really highlights the critical importance of Social Security, which is a cornerstone issue for AARP. I'm not sure there's a stronger, louder champion for our Social Security system than your organization. Don't want to get into how to fix social security. Everyone wants to talk about that. What I want to talk about is that we need to fix social security. And are you surprised, as I am, that other than sort of very superficial conversations around the issue of the fact that social security is important, there isn't a cry to fix what is, frankly, our nation's Number one program for getting people out of poverty, by far the most successful anti-poverty program, by leaps and bounds better than anything the government has ever done. And, and, and, and. What can we do about to to kind of energize seniors to say, hey, we're not going to tell you how to fix it, but you got to fix it?
Speaker 1:And we've been doing that, as you know, brian, for years. And in fact, you know, if we ask our older adults what is the most important thing for them as they're voting, social security is at the very, very top Medicare as well and we push the candidates on these issues because it is so important at the time. But you know, we're more than a decade and a half since, and in 2034, the year I turned 64, either everyone's benefits get cut by about 20% or Congress and the White House need to act, and ideally before that, because people need to be able to plan ahead to whatever changes will come.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean the way they could act. I mean one way they would act which I don't, you know, I'm, I think is wrong, is that they would just plug it and, you know, write a check for $400 billion, which is roughly what it would take to fill the hole beginning in 2024. I think half of I saw some data half of seniors, more than half of seniors, rely on Social Security for more than half of their retirement income. It is foundational to our system. Forget about 401k or defined benefit plans. Social security is a retirement plan that every working American has. It's, it's the basis for, for our entire system in retirement. It's absolutely critical and I appreciate AARP's efforts to get folks' attention, but I think I don't know right now. It doesn't seem like across all the elections, not just presidential, there doesn't seem to be a lot of conversation about the need to address this.
Speaker 1:We need a Congress and a White House that's going to take the issue seriously and put it on its agenda and work together. This has to be dealt in a transparent way so that the American public are part of the conversation.
Speaker 3:And in a bipartisan way.
Speaker 1:And in a bipartisan way. So you know we need Congress to be able to work together on issues, so we will continue to push and lift up the voice of our members. We need to make sure that the program is as solvent, not just for current retirees, but for future generations as well. My kids are going to need it. So this is this is you're right One of the most incredible programs that has ever been developed, in that it's it's kept millions of people, and it's not just retirees, it's people with disabilities, it's families with kids who've lost a parent millions of people and it's not just retirees, it's people with disabilities, it's families with kids who've lost a parent out of poverty. And so we will continue to push. I will continue to push and we're very passionate about these issues.
Speaker 3:So last question Does corporate America value appreciate the economic impact that seniors, retirees, have in our society and in terms of stimulating the economy? I sometimes I think many people sometimes feel like all of the energy commercially is around younger individuals. Some kind of retirement, phased or otherwise, presents to our economy. What's your feeling in terms of getting corporate America to understand the value that seniors bring, not just in the workplace but also from an economic standpoint?
Speaker 1:So we talked a little bit about the workplace and how valuable their older workers are and the need to continue to hire them and to train them. But as consumers, people over 50 spend almost 50 cents of every dollar in America. They also contribute a huge amount of time. Wow, that was a big.
Speaker 3:Thing.
Speaker 1:Mic drop. We have a report called the longevity economy and I can show you, sector by sector, how much older adults help drive the economy, both through their direct payments but also creating jobs and indirect output. And so and that's true all over the world, as we see older consumers, these aren't just retirees it's 50 plus from AARP's perspective, but it's driving certainly more than its share of healthcare dollars, but also in technology, in financial services. But also in technology in financial services. And you're right, we don't see corporate America thinking through what are the products and services that older adults need in order to manage their life, make the technology useful for them, and companies that do take the time to be thoughtful actually can do really, really well in the marketplace.
Speaker 1:And again, if they do it through ageist stereotypes, where it's old, it's, you know, beige, colored, um um products and and ugly shoes, um, you know, some of the biggest shoe companies that I see growing are the ones that were, that have arch support and super comfortable. And you see, older people want nice shoes that look pretty too, um, or you know, I I love my car. It's sort of the seat moves back when I get in or out of it, and so I have just a little bit of extra ease in doing that. There's all kinds of universal design features that aren't just good for older people but are good for all consumers.
Speaker 3:Well, on that, I think, note that a lot of people should be listening to. I want to thank you, deb, for your time today. Congratulations on your book, much success. I know it's already been successful, but I hope it stimulates this podcast, stimulates some more sales, because it's a great book. And please keep on fighting the fight because what you're doing is very important.
Speaker 1:And can I share one last thing? All of the proceeds go to Benefit AARP Foundation and lowerer Adults. So buy not just your own copy, but buy a couple for our friends to help out our foundation.
Speaker 3:That's a great idea. Thank you, Deb.
Speaker 1:Thanks, brian, thanks for having me, thank you.