CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Fallacy Exploded on Older Workers

Between 40% and 45% of those individuals seeking employment are in the "older worker" bracket.

It’s an unrealistic, unreasonably high figure. But it’s a figure we cannot ignore.

For
some vital answers on the causes and effects of age discrimination in
the Los Angeles area, I talked yesterday with Mrs. Edythe Kennedy, a
specialist in older workers’ problems for the California Department of
Employment.

Question — How extensive is age discrimination in the L.A. area?

Answer — It’s prevalent in most businesses and industries, and it even extends somewhat into the field of Civil Service.

Q — What seems to be the main objection employers have to hiring so-called middle-aged persons?

A —
They say it will raise insurance rates and their contributions to
retirement and pension funds unless they place a quota on people past
40.

Q — To what extent do you think this fear is legitimate?

A — A
study by the U.S. Department of Labor shows that age isn’t as
significant a factor in retirement and pension funds as employers make
it out to be. Insurance leaders have told me that plans could be
written to extend present coverage without a prohibitive raise in
rates. But even if insurance costs are a little higher, it’s false
economy for business to discriminate against the middle-aged worker.

Q — In what way is it false economy?

A —
First of all, it’s much cheaper to make the older worker productive
than to put him on relief. That will mean higher taxes for business and
the rest of us. Also, if a worker is unemployed he’s not going to be
able to buy goods that industry produces.

Q — What are some of the other prejudices employers have against the older worker?

A — They
say that the older worker is too slow, that he’s incapable of learning
new techniques. Or they say he has a higher rate of absenteeism, or
that he doesn’t like working under a younger supervisor.

Q — Are these fair criticisms?

A —
Department of Labor studies show that in certain industries a worker’s
output remains stable through the age of 54, and there’s only a slight
decline in the efficiency after that. As for absenteeism, the studies
show that it actually decreases as age increases.

Q — Do older men and women have trouble under young supervisors?

A — There’s some truth to this criticism. But industry can also train young foremen to get along with older workers.

Q — What’s the Department of Employment doing about the problem?

A —
Quite a bit, we feel. In educating industry, in dispelling the myth. We
give special training to our own employees in placing the older worker.
We have at least one specialist on the problem in every area office.
We’re doing a lot better job than we were a year ago.

Q — What do you think will happen if the problem isn’t solved soon?

A — We’ll have a huge group of unemployed, bitterly unhappy people in the community. And the rest of us will have to support them.  

CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Labor Force Exile Because She’s 65

Nellie Malone is 65 years old and proud of it.

But she’s not very proud of the position to which she’s been relegated by society.

"I guess they want me to die," she explained to me a few days ago.

"But," she added, "I’ll be darned if I will. I’m just stubborn enough to outlive all of you."

Nellie is one of the legion of women in this town who have been exiled from our labor force because they’re "too old to work."

Yesterday, I interviewed an experienced executive secretary who was "too old" at 45. The consensus of prejudices of the bright young men in industry’s personnel departments condemned her to decrepitude 20 years before she’ll reach Nellie’s age.

In some instances, the line is drawn at 35.

But, wherever it’s drawn, it’s a nonsensical line. To indiscriminately shelve a high percentage of the able working force in any community just doesn’t make for sound economics.

And Nellie Malone is the first to testify to it.

"I don’t want charity," she told me. "I don’t want my neighbors to have to pay for my right to live.

"I’ve got good legs, good feet. I can stand up alongside any clerk in any store.

"The trouble is," she added, "I can’t get past the personnel interviews to prove it."

Nellie lives — so to speak — on a $63.30 monthly Social Security check, supplemented by occasional baby-sitting, nursing and domestic work.

Most of her "profits" she spends on phone calls, bus fares and newspaper ads in search of steady employment.

A couple of weeks ago, there was the classified ad for 20 salesladies inserted in a metropolitan newspaper by a downtown department stores.

Mrs. Malone was first in line to answer it.

"I’m especially experienced in bedding," she told her interviewer, "In 1952, I headed a store’s bedding department."

"Fine," she was told. "You’re just the woman we need."

But then she made a mistake. She gave her true age — 65.

The store’s policy: Nobody over 55 gets hired.

"That’s the story every time," she told me. "If it’s not 55, it’s 50 or 45 or 40. Last Christmas time I did get a month and a half of work fancy-wrapping gifts in a department store. We stood and wrapped all day long.

Scrubbing Hard at 65

"The younger girl I worked with complained about being tired sometimes, but frankly, to me, it was a lot easier than lifting heavy patients around or scrubbingsomebody’s ceiling."

Mrs. Malone sighed.

"I love my freedom," she said. "I have my own friends, run my own home, but how can I run my own life on $68 a month?"

Mrs. Malone’s husband died in 1950.

"What money we had saved went for his hospital and funeral bills, but I could make it fine now if someone would wake up and realize that I’m still healthy and alive.

"Even though," she added thoughtfully, "some people are trying to starve me to death, I’m going to keep fighting."

I hope it’s not a losing battle.