<p>Almost everyone in the United States is aware that income inequality exists.</p>
Almost everyone in the United States is aware that income inequality exists. What is being debated is how big is the gap, how much of a gap is sustainable and which income group is affected the most.
On Martha’s Vineyard, I believe seniors suffer the most due to income disparity. They are forced into making difficult choices and must stretch their monthly income to purchase healthy food, see a physician, obtain prescribed medication and maintain their home or apartment. Many have no discretionary income to use for gifts to their children, holidays, travel or new recreational products (except when an essential appliance breaks down.)
These are the same people who used to enjoy life. It is no wonder that, despite the Island’s sense of community and acceptance, many of them feel depressed and unwanted.
For many of them, their lives have become inconsequential to the middle-aged and younger generations whom they meet every day when shopping, going to the post office or visiting a medical facility. They appear to have no common interests to share with other generations. As a result, their actions fill the stereotype that defines them.
What can the Island community do to change this situation? We have seen many efforts to improve their lives from senior centers, religious and secular events, an improving transportation system and greater access to medical care. And while these reflect the Island’s commitment to helping all residents, it is simply not enough.
What is really necessary is to reduce yearly property tax increases, pave dirt roads and improve transportation services by lowering the cost or making them free for seniors, and building more affordable housing and rentals to accommodate families, caregivers and providers of other necessary services.
Abraham Seiman
Oak Bluffs
Comments
I can't remember a time in my
Rob Burnside Kingston, PAI can't remember a time in my modest lifespan (68 years) when seniors have been less important, and more necessary,to our culture than they are right now. Many things have contributed to this sorry state of affairs. While the ever-increasing income gap you note is perhaps the most obvious and most egregious, I believe our poor transition to a service economy tops the list. For all the stratification this has caused, and the very real and troubling "disappearing middle class" effect rendered, I prefer to call it the "serve us" economy. Our values, unfortunately, have apparently been sucked into this black hole as well, producing some very ironic conundrums. For example, communication. We can now communicate world-wide with ease, but we've apparently lost our sense of neighborhood from lack of communion with our true neighbors. As a senior, I care less about what's happening around the globe than I do about right here at home, but darned if I actually know who my next door neighbors are. And this lack of local/regional awareness leads to numbness toward many other unaddressed problems--transportation,affordable housing, tax inequities, etc. In the Vineyard microcosm, these things are more obvious, and solutions are more reachable. What happens there is a good indicator of what can, and probably ought to, happen elsewhere.
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