Seniors need to be treated better
Despite all the expressed concern for senior citizens from the business community, the truth is they are not treated very well. Every time a business claims to give a benefit to a senior, it is often just a slick manipulation that actually costs more. From food to cruises, seniors are promised benefits that don’t materialize
By Ray Hanania
Now that I am a senior, I don’t like the way seniors are treated.
I guess I just took all of the signs promising senior care and discounts for granted when I wasn’t a senior, so how would I know how bad it really is, until I start wearing senior shoes?
The other day I walked into a restaurant and they offered me a “Senior Discount.” I won’t name them.
The price of the breakfast was about 30 percent cheaper than a regular breakfast I wanted to order, but they said I could get the discount. Great, I thought. I can get the same meal with a savings, because I am a senior.
AARP promo photo on seniors retiring. Courtesy of the AARP
Ah, but that’s not the reality. The reality is that they cut the price 30 percent but cut the food in half. I got 50 percent less food, for 20 percent more price. That’s not a discount. That’s being cheated.
Maybe they think that just because I am a senior, I can’t do the math or I can’t count any more?
Unfortunately, a lot of the “discounts” are really new math crafted to take advantage of seniors, and make them think they are getting a discount when they’re not getting a discount at all.
A lot of seniors I know hate the Internet. They are the last public constituency to join Facebook, which I think is really a great benefit for senior citizens. On Facebook, seniors can stay in touch with relatives who might live far away and are too busy to visit as often as one might want. You can communicate and view photos of your relatives and your friends.
The downside, of course, is that the crooks who try target seniors work extra hard on the Internet to steal your money.
So many seniors limit what they do on the Internet.
But that causes a problem.
For example, the bank where I have my home mortgage gives mortgage holders a significant percentage discount on their interest if they do their banking online and pay their mortgage payments using the Internet.
So if many seniors are not using the Internet, or afraid to use the Internet, that means seniors are being cheated out of that discount.
I don’t think that is fair.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle obviously doesn’t care too much about seniors, either.
She passed the repressive soda pop and sweetened drink tax, which is the tax equivalent of 1 cent per ounce of the drink. A 20 ounce drink, a standard size drink, would cost 20 cents more in taxes.
Ouch!
Seniors drink a lot of pop. Which means seniors are paying a lot more for their drinks these days, thanks to Toni Preckwinkle.
There was one place where I really got a good discount. We wen to the Grand Canyon last month and while entering the park, the U.S. Park Services officer said that because I was a senior, I could get a lifetime membership card to get in to every Federally run park for only $10.
And sure enough, when we went to Dinosaur Monument in Jensen, Utah, the pass got the family in for free, because I am a senior.
Sometimes, we unfairly criticize government, expecting too much, when seniors should be more careful about the experiences we have locally with restaurants, or retail outlets.
And then sometimes, we don’t criticize government enough, like when they hammer us with a stupid tax on soda pop and make the dumb claim that it’s to keep us healthy.
Yea, right!
(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter, columnist and author. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)
Send me your experiences exposing scam offers to senior citizens, or places where seniors are treated with respect and promises made are kept so we can share them with the public at the bottom of this column.
Senior scams:
Carnival cruise line asks you when you book if you are a senior aged 55 or older. But, when you check off the age, or not, it turns out there are no benefits for seniors that are implied in the question. Why ask if you are 55 or older if the cost for the cruise is exactly the same. You can check it out. Go online and “book a cruise. Do it as a senior and then do it as a non-senior. The costs are exactly the same.
Seniors treated fairly:
In the own of Cicero, senior citizens receive huge benefits. Click this link to read about all the benefits senior citizens actually get in the west suburb of Chicago.
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A critic of mainstream news media bias, Hanania advocates for peace & justice for Israel & Palestine, & the empowerment of Arabs in America.
Click here to listen to Ray's Political Podcast.
Hanania's columns are archived on his personal website at RayHanania.com. Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Hanania is President/CEO of Urban Strategies Group which provides communications services to governments and private businesses, and hosts writing training workshops, and publishes books.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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