Work, health, and income among the elderly.

• Author: Cooper, Matthew

Work, Health, and Income Among the Elderly.

Gary Burtless, ed.Brookings, $26.95. Social security is one of the few social programs that survived the ravages of the Reagan years. But amidst millions of comfortable retirees, there is a stubbornly high number of senior citizens still living in poverty. A recent Villers Foundation study shows 12.6 percent of senior citizens--about 3.5 million people--live below the poverty line. That's less than the rate for other segments of society, notably children, but it is still disturbing.

How do elderly people fallthrough the cracks of what is supposed to be a "universal' program? The essayists in Burtless's book demonstrate that several sub-groups of elderly Americans are likely to go unprotected by the lattice of programs that form social security, Medicare, and private pensions.

For instance, Jerry A. Hausmanand Lynn Paquete of MIT point to blue-collar and agricultural workers--as usual, disproportionately black--whose poor health forces them to retire early, often in their 50s, occasionally in their 40s. Unable to haul themselves through mine shafts or break topsoil, they are not eligible for federal retirement benefits either. Social security only picks up the tab when they turn 62. The only federal monies they can claim are pitifully small disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income, the welfare component of Social Security. State unemployment and welfare programs are available, but notoriously meager. And unless they're in a union, they're not likely to have much of a pension. Until they turn 62, these laborers are forced to deplete their small savings, and as the authors note ominously, cut their food consumption by over 30 percent.

Their plight is likely to...