Grays on The Go

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Such attitudes rile policymakers who are charged with slashing billions of dollars out of already hard-hit social programs. While no one proposes cutting off the truly needy, those lobbying for reform point out that thousands of millionaires receive a monthly check. Argues Horace Brock, president of Strategic Economic Decisions Inc. in Menlo Park, Calif.: "There may have been a social contract that what you put in you got back, but not six times what you put in." Unless the system is revamped, he warns, when the baby boomers reach retirement age, Social Security will be in jeopardy. Just as alarming, the trust fund that supports the hospital-insurance part of Medicare could be bankrupt by 2002.

That prospect worries older people as well as the young. In fact the reason Social Security is unlikely to ignite an age war is that many elderly people acknowledge its flaws and admit the system needs to be changed, while many young people support its basic principles. Even some lobbyists for the aged privately accept the need to adjust Social Security, by raising the age of eligibility or taxing benefits for the wealthy, as part of a drastic deficit- reduction plan. While many retirees defend Social Security, they are horrified by the legacy of a $2 trillion debt they will leave behind. "The interest on it is about $1,000 a second," says George Toll, 82, of Long Beach, Calif. "That's why I worry about my grandchildren."

Such signs of mutual concern and interdependence reassure social scientists and policymakers. In fact the whole age-war scenario, some charge, is a political distortion, designed to stir up passion and protest about what should be an issue not of age but of social justice. "I don't think it should ever be put in terms of equity, that there is a choice between the elderly and children," argues Alan Pifer, co-editor of Our Aging Society. "There are many other questions." The central issue, these experts agree, is how to protect those in society who are most vulnerable, regardless of age. "The 'intergenerational equity' debate," insists Ronald Pollack, executive director of the Villers Foundation, an advocacy group for the elderly, "is a diversionary and dangerous sideshow."