Grays on The Go

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The programs that the elderly are fighting to preserve were created a generation ago, when the reform-minded leaders of the 1960s vowed to protect senior citizens from the shameful destitution that had terrorized earlier generations. At the time that Lyndon Johnson launched his immense rescue mission, the Great Society, more than a quarter of all old people lived below the poverty line. In the popular imagination, being old usually meant a frail and lonely dependency, in which old women lived on cat food in spartan apartments and relied on busy children or social workers for a ride to the doctor.

Washington waged war on poverty among the elderly through two programs that helped rich and poor alike. Congress created Medicare insurance in 1965. In 1972 it voted a 20% increase in Social Security benefits and linked them to the Consumer Price Index in an attempt to safeguard retirees from the double- digit inflation that was devastating young families. In 1980 alone, payments increased a record 14.3%. Now each month 91% of those 65 and over receive benefits totaling $13.6 billion. The percentage of elderly people living below the poverty line has been cut from 20% in 1970 to 12% in 1984.

These outlays, combined with other sources of income, have provided many of the elderly with a sense of security that their own parents never enjoyed and that they will not relinquish without a fight. The median income of couples 65 and over in 1986 was about $22,000, which can go a long way when mortgages are paid up, children have left home, and there are few large purchases, such as appliances, to worry about. A 1984 congressional report on aging concluded, "Today . . . the act of retirement alone is no longer the source of poverty, isolation, and poor health it once was."

Yet for all the improvement in the condition of America's senior citizens, there is a sharp divide between the vigorous "young old," those 65 to 75, and the far frailer "old old," those 75 and up. There also remain grave disparities among ethnic groups. Nearly a third of elderly blacks live on less than $5,300 a year. Among black women living alone, the figure is 55%. For all the creative thinking on Madison Avenue and in corporate boardrooms on how to make use of the elderly as a resource, there still needs to be a comparable response from Washington when the aged become a burden.

But many young people do not see it that way. In their view, Washington is already doing too much for aged citizens, a perception that could bring about a serious breach between the generations. Already the emerging power of America's grandparents frightens many of their children and grandchildren. Some experts forecast a costly confrontation, in which embittered young people and embattled older ones fight with the most sophisticated political weapons over ever scarcer resources. In the shorthand of demographers and journalists, the scenario is known as the age wars.