第六单元ALS-IScriptTanya: Hello, everyone. Welcome to your Tuesday Lunch Break. I’m Tanya Rivero. We begin today with the latest census report out this morning, showing the US population is expected to grow significantly older over the next several decades. By 2050 it is projected to reach 83.7 million, almost double the number of elderly in 2012. The baby boomers are largely behind this shift, as the first wave began turning 65 a few years ago. And the racial face of the elderly is changing, with many more Hispanics and non-Whites in the mix. By 2050, the U.S. is expected to have the largest older population of all developed nations with the exception of China and India, the world’s two mo st populous countries.Joining us now to break this all down is Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Libertarian think-tank, the Cato Institute. Hi Daniel, thanks for being with us.Daniel: I’m glad to be on the program.Tanya: So, Daniel, this report concludes that this dramatic population shift is expected to drain resources from areas like education and shift them toward areas like health care. I think that’s probably an obvious shift, but what are some of the other changes in store? Daniel: From an e conomic perspective, the big thing we need to look at is we’re going t o have a worsening worker-dependent ratio. What does that mean? It simply means that as our population ages, there are going to be more and more old people relying on that 16 to 64 working age group, to produce the goods and services our economy needs. Tha t’s a big challenge. Setting aside government policy and everything else, an aging population, whether it’s in the US, Japan, or in Europe, is going to be a significant burden for a lot of economies moving forward.Tanya: So what does that mean specificall y? Let’s talk about Medicare, is there any chance it will last?Daniel:That’s the real challenge. Now let’s bring government policy into the mix. When you have tax and transfer programs like Medicare, like Social Security, like Medicaid, and a lot of these programs explicitly funnel big benefits to the elderly, and your population is aging;that’s a recipe for fiscal crisis. I mean, we all probably remember in school, learning about a po pulation pyramid. The assumption was always that you’d have a lot more workers and a small group of retirees. Well, we’re moving from a population pyramid to something more like a population cylinder, and tax and transferring government programs simply don’t work. You’re going to have too many people riding in the wagon, and not enough people pulling the wagon because the tax rates that you would have to impose on those workers would be crippling to the economy.Tanya: And that cylinder can almost get top heavy, which would certainly mean it might topple.Now let’s talk a lit tle bit about the younger workers. Is there any hope for this group?What do they have to look forward to?Daniel: Well right now, they’re already paying 15.3% payroll taxes, between Soc ial Security and Medicare, that’s the so called FICA, part of their pa ycheck. Of course, they only see half of it because the other half is paid on their behalf by their employers. But, it’s 15.3% now.In order to try to bail out Social Security and Medica re, you’re talking about those tax rates in effect doubling. And of co urse, that’s a huge burden on these younger workers ata time when economic growth is likely to slow down because so many people are goingto be leaving the labor force. Which, to me, is why we’re facing a slow-motion train wreck. That’s the bad news. The good news, it’s slow motion.Tanya: Right.Daniel: If we do real genuine retirement reform now, we can avoid the crisis 15, 20, 25 years down the road.Tanya:All right, we’ll all have t o get to work. Daniel Mitchell of the Cato Institute. Thank you for that.Daniel: Thank you.ALS-IIScripts:Many don’t like the idea of spending their later years in a retirement home and more and more are seeking alternatives.This group of people founded a cooperative and bought a house right in Bern’s old town, close to the market and the river. On Saturdays, residents and friends gather for lunch. “We have our own apartments and can continue organizing our own lives. But on the other hand, we’re like a family in this house. People know each other and help and look afte r one another.”Swiss life expectancy is among the highest in Europe. At the same time, the fertility rate is low. This results in one of the largest aging populations in the world. But what does this mean for society, and how happy are the elderly in this country? Francois Hoepflinger is an expert on aging demographics. According to his studies, a greying society to a large extent has positive effects.“There are more grandparents which are healthy and can engage with young children, and surprisingly, how active the ‘young’ o ld are! We have a real revolution of active seniors, elderly. There are increasing costs in health systems, in pensions. But on the other side, all the people are consumers. That’s one of the largest and most rapidly-increasing consumer markets.”Indeed, by and large, the elderly in Switzerland have a high standard of living. Social security for the elderly is better than it is for young families. But what about social contact?Pro Senectute is Switzerland’s biggest organization helping people to maintain life quality in their old age as well as giving advice on financial and health issues. Pro Senectute offers a wide range of activities for seniors.Pensioner Marie Therese Sieber works as a volunteer for the foundation two days a week. For the former school teacher, retirement wasn’t easy in the beginning. Now she’s used to her new weekly structure and enjoys having a lot of spare time.“In Switzerland, we are aware that there are a lot of elderly and there are a lot of opportunitiesfor them. For instance, I can travel at low cost or I can join organized hiking trips. When people get lonely in their old age, such activities are important for meeting others. However, people should be able to stay in their own surroundings as long as possib le. From what I’ve s een, once people have to move to an old people’s home, they no longer have to deal with things and they become lethargic.”At the cooperative in Bern, as well as personal apartments, there’s a communal kitchen, a guest room and even a meditation room.For Hilde Thalman, this is one of the reasons she decided to live here.“Together we organize up to four events a year, cultural, social or political events. With today’s life expectancy, we have to assume that we still have several years l eft. So it’s importa nt to keep doing something.”“I wouldn’t want to become as old as our parents holed up in their houses.”“That’s easy for us to say. We never had a house like our parents.”This home is one of four such places in Bern.Today there are more choices of how t o spend one’s later years than there were in recent decades. As long as people remain healthy, there’s still a lot they can get out of life. According to Francois Hoepflinger’s studies, this is a reversal of the situation forty years ag o, when the elderly were a marginal group, mostly poor and unhappy. They even have the edge on the young.“People who are retired have a much higher life satisfaction than younger generations. And we found that, in fact, in many instances, the social problems we have in Switzerland are more problems of young people than of the elderly.”SLSWord Bankbad off 经济条件差的luxury adj. 奢侈的shrink v. 收缩，使缩小hospice n. 救济院，收容所facility n. 设施，设备1. bad off 经济条件差的e.g. The widower was bad off every day when he was left alone.这个鳏夫丧偶之后，经济每况愈下。
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