ABSTRACT
The public will be alienated from and reject a strategy to lengthen work lives for older people that has them doing "make work" that cannot be justified in cost and productivity terms. A cost-effective jobs strategy that could gain and keep public support would emphasize expanded job opportunities in four categories: retention of older workers in their current jobs or other jobs with the same employer, more jobs for retirees, new jobs that focus on unmet community needs and self-employment and small business. The area of health care and services is one of tremendously increasing costs in the United States. In 1982, costs increased 16 percent. One cost-effective approach would be to develop special local citizen assessment and action teams that could look at each welfare claimant family as a functioning unit. Successful implementation of the deinstitutionalization concept in the field of mental health care requires the provision of an adequate network of community outpatient centers.
