need for legislation

need for legislation Sec. 101. The Congress hereby finds and declares that the public interest requires the enactment of legislation to formulate recommendations for immediate action in improving and developing programs to permit the country to take advantage of the experience and skills of the older persons in our population, to create conditions which will better enable them to meet their needs, and to further research on aging because— (1) the number of persons forty-five years of age and older in our population has increased from approximately thirteen and one-half million in 1900 to forty-nine and one-half million in 1957, and the number sixty-five years of age and over from approximately three million in 1900 to almost fifteen million at the present time, and is expected to reach twenty-one million by 1975; and (2) outmoded practices in the employment and compulsory premature retirement of middle-aged and older persons are depriving the economy of their much needed experience, skill, and energy and simultaneously, depriving many middle-aged and older persons of opportunity for gainful employment and an adequate standard of living; and (3) many older persons do not have adequate financial resources to maintain themselves and their families as independent and self-respecting members of their communities, to obtain the medical and rehabilitation services required to permit them to function as healthy, useful members of society, and to permit them to enjoy the normal, human, social contacts; and (4) our failure to provide adequate housing for elderly persons at costs which can be met by them is perpetuating slum conditions in many of our cities and smaller communities and is forcing many older persons to live under conditions in which they cannot maintain decency and health, or continue to participate in the organized life of the community: and (5) the lack of suitable facilities and opportunities in which middle-aged persons can learn how to prepare for the later years of life, learn new vocational skills, and develop and pursue avocational and recreational interests is driving many of our older persons into retirement shock, premature physical and mental deterioration, and loneliness and isolation and is filling up our mental institutions and general hospitals and causing an unnecessary drain on our health manpower; and 72 Stat. 1747 (6) in order to prevent the additional years of life, given to us by our scientific development and abundant economy, from becoming a prolonged period of dying, we must step up research on the physical, psychological, and sociological factors in aging and in diseases common among middle-aged and older persons; and (7) we may expect average length of life and the number of older people to increase still further, we must proceed with all possible speed to correct these conditions and to create a social, economic, and health climate which will permit our middle-aged and older people to continue to lead proud and independent lives which will restore and rehabilitate many of them to useful and dignified positions among their neighbors; which will enhance the vigor and vitality of the communities and of our total economy; and which will prevent further aggravation of their problems with resulting increased social, financial, and medical burdens.