Even Workers Otherwise Considered to be Young are Vulnerable
Why are workers in their 30s, 40s and 50s increasingly experiencing age discrimination?
This one of the issues I explore in my new book: Betrayed: The Legalization of Age Discrimination in the Workplace. The short answer is that age discrimination has become normalized due to a confluence of failures by American institutions that have effectively gutted the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA).
Almost 50 years after the ADEA’s passage, age discrimination remains epidemic in the United States, hidden behind terms such as “long-term unemployment” and “early retirement.” And the problem is trickling down to ever younger workers.
Did you know:
• The new titans of commerce in Silicon Valley openly flaunt the ADEA . Workers in their 30s use Botox and hide their families to avoid the appearance of middle age.
• The U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated the ADEA in 2009 just as the Great Recession fueled unprecedented incentive for employers to rid their payrolls of higher paid older workers. The U.S. Congress easily could have “fixed” the problem by passing the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (POWADA) but has not done so.
• The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 21,296 age discrimination complaints in 2013; the agency filed seven lawsuits that year with age discrimination claims.
• Forty percent of workers in households nearing retirement age have no retirement assets whatsoever, whether in an employer-sponsored 401(k) type plan or an IRA. Reasons for this include age discrimination, long-term unemployment, and the decline of traditional pensions.
Of course, age discrimination is problematic for younger workers but it is a devastating life-altering catastrophe for older workers . They often are plunged into long-term unemployment or forced to take poorly-paid part-time or temp work until they age into early retirement, which will result in significantly lower Social Security benefits for the rest of their lives.
Betrayed: The Legalization of Age Discrimination in the Workplace is now available as an e-book at Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MYREMRY. It is also available in paperback at https://www.createspace.com/4960074 and from Ingram Spark.
Please pick up a copy and I would grateful if you would take the time to review it on Amazon!
[…] my new book, Betrayed: The Legalization of Age Discrimination in the Workplace, I refer to research showing that individuals who file employment discrimination complaints feel […]