Perhaps even more terrifying are the increasing restrictions on social security at a time when older workers are having trouble finding jobs. For persons born after 1959, the minimum age for full social security benefits has been raised from 65 to 67. “Raising the age of retirement when the economy is losing millions of jobs, and the youth cult is growing, and midlife discrimination is growing, is a refinement of cruelty,” said Gullette.

Diminishing benefits for older workers make it likely more people will feel the effects of such changes. “Seniority, broadly understood, is the basis for the good life course, the reason any of us can still acquire life course benefits, intangible ones included, as we age into the middle years and beyond. Now seniority is under attack in unions,” Gullette said.

All of this means that more older workers will end up unemployed. And if they experience discrimination while looking for a new job, according to Gullette, they will have restricted options for legal recourse.

In Kimmel v. Florida Board of Regents, resolved in 2000, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor formally upheld the state’s right to discriminate on the basis of age. In brief, Gullette said, “A state may rely on age as a proxy for other qualities or abilities that are relevant to the state’s legitimate interests. Midlife discrimination in state employment became more legal and harder to fight.”

When they finally do retire, workers may not be adequately provided for. Gullette noted that in a study of investors, “a third of people aged 50 to 59 cash in their 401K’s when they leave work, which is a sure sign that they don’t have enough to live on.”

Gullette observed that the battle to maintain Social Security poses an immediate challenge for political activists. “There is enough money in the Social Security reserve, if the Republicans honor the reserve, until 2042. That’s just a fact,” she said. “How is it that Greenspan could still be terrifying people with the thought that it’s going to end earlier? That of course makes it likelier that the republicans will be able to diminish its effectiveness for greater numbers of people.”