THE SECOND FIFTY

Valuable advice about the second half of life.

Getting old is not for the faint of heart, but this lucid guide by Whitman, chief public policy officer for the AARP, will help many readers along the path. Of course, physical and mental health is likely readers’ leading worry, so the author starts there. According to a recent Harvard study, women live an extra 14 years, and men 12, if they adhered to “five healthy habits—a good diet, exercise, a healthy body weight, no smoking, and very limited alcohol intake.” As the author notes, dementia is now more feared than cancer. Following her recommended habits reduces the risk modestly, but it’s best to start young. Whitman’s discussions on paying for old age and managing dying are frighteningly illuminating. American retirement rests on three systems: pensions, Social Security, and savings. Pensions are nearly nonexistent in today’s business world; Social Security will continue (that it will go bankrupt is a myth), but it cannot serve as someone’s sole source of income. Savings are essential, but poor people are not able to save adequately, and poverty rates have been rising since the 1980s. Almost everyone wants to die at home, but the work involved is grueling and expensive. Although enormously helpful, hospice and palliative care services are underfunded and enmeshed in bureaucracy; furthermore, doctors are often slow to get involved. Whitman’s concluding summary is sensible but sober. Most readers are aware that poverty levels, income disparities, and lack of social service support place the U.S. in a precarious position, and no big changes are in the works. Straining to find good news, the author describes state programs to assist the elderly and imaginative “grassroots innovation” that may or may not catch on. Alas, no one expects action from Washington, D.C.

An unedifying yet essential reference on dealing with aging.