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seniors
Threats to the Post Office Are Threats to Democracy and Affordability
The decision to downgrade postal service standards and eliminate evening collections increases the risk of disenfranchising voters and raising costs for families already struggling to pay their bills.
Mar 19, 2026
For over 250 years, Americans have relied on the United States Postal Service for timely processing of their mail, no matter the conditions. After we dropped it in a box or gave it to a letter carrier, we could count on our mail being postmarked on that date so that our bills and tax returns aren’t late and our election ballots are counted.
Unfortunately, this trust is now increasingly risky—since we can no longer rely on USPS to postmark mail on the day it’s collected.
As part of former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s broader cost-cutting and restructuring plan, the Postal Service has stopped its practice of picking up mail at the end of every day from all post offices. This means your ballot or bill payment could sit there until the following morning or even longer before being postmarked at a huge processing center.
This gap between mail collection and postmarking is particularly concerning for rural residents, for two main reasons.
To maintain public trust, USPS should restore same-day postmarking and do whatever it takes to protect voting rights for all Americans.
First, the decision to eliminate evening collections applies only to post offices located more than 50 miles from a regional processing center. This raises strong concerns about whether a federal agency with an obligation to provide universal service to all Americans is actively discriminating against rural communities.
Second, rural residents rely especially heavily on our public Postal Service for voting and paying bills. During the 2024 general election, USPS delivered more than 99 million ballots to and from voters. The mail-in option makes voting much easier for rural residents who live long distances from their polling place.
Half of rural county polling sites serve an area larger than 62 square miles, while half of urban polling sites serve an area of less than 2 square miles. Vote by mail is particularly important for seniors, who are more likely to have mobility issues that make it difficult to cast their ballots in person. Americans age 65 or older make up about 20% of all rural residents, compared to just 16% of urban residents.
Older Americans are also more likely to drop a check in the mail rather than paying bills online. According to a USPS survey, 18% of households headed by someone 55 or older paid their bills by mail, compared to just 7% of those aged 18 to 34.
A key reason many rural residents use USPS for bill paying: the digital divide. An Institute for Policy Studies analysis of the 15 most rural states found that only one (North Dakota) had a broadband access rate higher than the national average in 2024. More than 20% of the population lacked broadband access in seven of these states (Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, and Iowa).
The decision to downgrade postal service standards and eliminate evening collections increases the risk of disenfranchising voters and raising costs for families already struggling to pay their bills.
These problems are particularly serious as the nation heads into a tense election season. To maintain public trust, USPS should restore same-day postmarking and do whatever it takes to protect voting rights for all Americans, whether they live in the most remote mountain village or the largest city.
Our democracy depends on a strong public Postal Service.
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Trump Is Making Older Americans Unsafe, and He Doesn't Care
When before has a president been so personally and negatively intrusive in the lives of seniors?
Nov 13, 2025
Aging, like time, ticks on, day by hour by day. Then, suddenly, it’s there, mocking our inability to sweep aside, should we even want to, this iron curtain. For seniors, the concept of time itself differs from that of younger people, because the future is in the everyday.
But aging in a Trumpian world brings fear and destruction as strand by strand of the safety net is plucked away until it’s shredded. And Donald Trump doesn’t care.
Seniors make up an ever larger American demographic that’s being made ever more unsafe in the richest country in the world. Social Security, healthcare, even access to food, not to speak of general well-being are all under threat. Trump doesn’t care.
The President’s Heavy Hand
Social Security is a return on what workers have paid into the federal government over many years. The recent fright about Social Security offices closing or seniors having to prove they’re eligible (or that they even exist) in order to continue receiving what workers 62 and over are owed is not only demeaning and insulting but also saps confidence, threatens well-being, and challenges life in America as we’ve known it. And count on one thing: Trump doesn’t care.
An aging society now under siege should be everyone’s problem since (if we’re lucky) we all get old.
The Social Security Department is run extremely efficiently and had no need for Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and crew remaking it. Less than one penny of every dollar it gets is spent on its administration, while the other 99 cents come back in benefits.
Social Security has been called a crucial guardrail against government change, a rail that, unfortunately, seems to be weakening, month by month, in the second era of Donald Trump amid changes so thoughtless that they take one’s breath away. For example, some Social Security offices are now being closed, ensuring that many elderly or infirm people who are housebound will no longer be able to reach them by phone to register to receive their checks. Yes, cruelty before our very eyes. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) has insisted that we must defend this lifesaving program, which lifts 27 million Americans out of poverty each year.
In recent weeks, President Trump has announced an end to the issuing of the paper Social Security checks that now arrive by mail, rather than being deposited directly into a bank account. Doesn’t he know that it’s the oldest, sickest, and poorest among us who may not have a bank account, or be able to get to a bank, or make the change via computer, or who—yes!—may not even have a computer? Of course, Trump doesn’t care.
Health Care in Danger
Worse yet, Americans face drastic cuts to an entire healthcare system: Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).
Congress was until recently shut down thanks to the opposition of the Democrats to a bill that contains huge cuts to Medicaid and doesn’t extend subsidies for Obamacare. Such cuts, if carried out, will affect millions of seniors and result in the closing of nursing homes and clinics, especially in rural areas and inner cities. If that bill were to pass into law, millions of people would lose a substantial part of their healthcare, with the most damaging and profound effects felt by an aging population.
It’s no secret that seniors have more healthcare problems than younger people. In an aging population, health and wellness are spiraling situations filled with sudden problems like falls, or slowly developing problems like arthritis and osteoarthritis, or simply the endless strain on worn-out joints and ligaments. Cancer, too, is more prevalent in people over 65.
Women, in particular, would feel the pain of such cuts, were they to happen.
Women use the healthcare system more than men do. Recently, Ms Magazine pointed out that women make up the majority of Medicaid recipients, both because they’re more likely to be caregivers and because they’re more likely to need long-term care as they age.
Veterans who fought in the Vietnam War of the last century and the Gulf wars of this century are also in that aging demographic. And like all aging bodies, theirs will register more health needs as the Trump administration cuts the Department of Veteran Affairs and VA hospital staff whose numbers have fallen every month since Trump was inaugurated a second time.
How all of this will affect or damage individual mental health is still being discovered. As a start, however, sickness, hunger, and the lack of enough money for emergencies can result in depression, fear, and far worse. And right now, sadly enough, the heavy hand of the Trump administration continues to press down on the general well-being of seniors (especially those on disability).
Unprotecting Seniors
Clearly, the Trump administration is more interested in self-care than senior care. Why else enact a bill to remove earned healthcare protections that have long been the expected staples of an aging life? When before has a president been so personally and negatively intrusive in the lives of seniors?
Food insecurity is now a fact of life in an aging demographic where nutrition is synonymous with health and longevity, in short with life or death. Though nutrition is necessary for young and old alike, it’s a must for the aging body. Yet food insecurity is now being experienced by millions of seniors, a future threat that has become a present reality.
I’ve written of hunger before, what it feels like to be a poor child growing up. Now, the question must be asked again in a different context: What does it feel like to be old and hungry? Trump doesn’t care.
At a time when the cost of living for essentials—food, rent, and healthcare—continues to rise, the dependence of seniors on the government’s care for the safety net is being whittled away.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP (think food stamps), is having its funds cut drastically. Until recently, SNAP provided significant amounts of food for poor families, though it was never quite enough. Supplies of food from farms and elsewhere that help stock rural as well as inner-city food banks have also decreased due to cuts in funds, including for food banks run by state, city, and church organizations.
Presently 4.8 million seniors 60 and older receive food via SNAP. However, it’s estimated that many more eligible seniors are not receiving food help. Attention must be paid: Seniors do not have enough to eat and—dare I repeat this in the richest country in the world?—Trump doesn’t care, but we must.
Past administrations have opted for less government but without tearing away as much of the safety net as the Trump administration continues to do. His cuts are careless, dangerous, and done without either significant thought or understanding. An aging society now under siege should be everyone’s problem since (if we’re lucky) we all get old.
Recently in Great Britain huge numbers of the elderly turned out en masse to shout ENOUGH, give us what we need, what we’ve earned, so that we can live with food, shelter, and our earned rest after years of work. Isn’t it time for elderly Americans, too, to turn out en masse to shout out our anger, dismay, and refusal to be placed in such a dangerous situation?
Project 2025, Russell Vought’s project to reshape the government in a second Trump presidency (about which Trump swore, during the election campaign, that he knew nothing) chronicled well ahead of time all that he and his administration are now doing to the detriment of us all, but especially to seniors. The Trumpian version of the invocation that we should all pull ourselves up by our bootstraps in no way takes into account the millions of people who have no boots with straps to pull up.
It’s also important to emphasize that all of this is happening in the richest country in the world, one that spends tens of millions of dollars to build a single jet fighter plane, and yet is now cutting funds to programs that help people get enough to eat. Our fury needs to be demonstrated.
The destruction being visited on an aging demographic doesn’t discriminate. It includes many seniors who wear MAGA caps, too. (Perhaps Trump doesn’t care about them either.) We can only hope that their support for a president determined to offer them so little and take away so much will diminish.
At a time when the cost of living for essentials—food, rent, and healthcare—continues to rise, the dependence of seniors on the government’s care for the safety net is being whittled away. Trying to keep the heat and electricity going, the water running, and food on the table is hard enough on a fixed income without having to worry about what President Trump and his Project 2025 cronies plan to take away from us next.
So many of today’s seniors have been workers, activists, parents, and more, all of which has contributed to the well-being of this country, and they have earned care and rest, as well as access to enough food, healthcare, and shelter to get by in a reasonably comfortable fashion. Trump doesn’t care.
Yes, people of all ages feel the heavy hand of the Trump administration in their lives, but the elderly, the sick, and the poor feel it the most, especially those living on fixed incomes.
Our Rights, Our Dignity
Seniors must insist on their rights and respect for their dignity—and not only to each other but out on the streets of this country, supported by Americans of all ages. After all, seniors are someone’s grandparent, parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin, neighbor, or friend.
Because anger at having needs refused, especially as you get older, eats away at your body and soul, expressing it is not only healthy but allows us to feel less alone and more empowered. The millions of us who went onto the streets on No Kings Day to say no to what this administration is doing demonstrated the power of numbers, which is not a small thing. In that context, taking senior fury to the streets, with the participation of younger people, couldn’t be more significant when it comes to publicizing the importance of our needs being met. To remain quiet, to “take it” (so to speak) will only help the Trump administration hide the devastation now being visited upon us.
At 79 years old, Donald Trump has all his health, wellness, and food needs taken care of. His life is the assured good life, with hours of rest at his golf clubs. We seniors need to disturb that rest.
Here are some of the worries being expressed daily by seniors:
If my Social Security check doesn’t arrive on time or the funds are mysteriously cut, how will I survive?
If Medicaid is cut, how will I be able to get cataract surgery, or hernia surgery, or steroid injections for my pain?
Without Medicaid, how will I afford an ambulance to get to a hospital in an emergency?
Will lack of funds close my food bank?
And those are just a sampling of the daily worries impeding the earned rest of us seniors.
Statistics: Cold numbers can tell a truth but still do not accurately represent the stress that cutting funds will cause. Follow the dots from those cuts to a small house in the rural south, a cold apartment in an urban high rise, or the “gray wave” of homeless seniors sleeping on the streets, and it’s there you can see such statistics in action, taking the form of worry, illness, hunger, and insecurity. And all of that is happening as Trump permits millions of dollars to be spent on upgrading and furnishing a gift plane from Qatar. Again: In the richest country on earth, how can we allow such treatment to go on without raising our voices? We can’t. We mustn’t.
At 79 years old, Donald Trump has all his health, wellness, and food needs taken care of. His life is the assured good life, with hours of rest at his golf clubs. We seniors need to disturb that rest, become the thorn in his side. We must loudly proclaim our right to feel safe, to be free from hunger and assured of our healthcare and shelter.
Trump rules by fear, the use of which keeps many of us from demonstrating our outrage publicly. Hopefully, seniors who have already lived long and experienced so much won’t be silenced by such fear. We have a collective voice. Numbers matter on the streets and at the ballot box, at town halls and in the hallways of Congress. Along with younger generations who will one day be seniors themselves, it’s time for us to shout NO to all the ways senior needs are now being undermined and ignored. How dare Trump tarnish our golden years!
Unfortunately, an entire society, both young and old, is today experiencing an authoritarian threat to our lives. The insecurity it produces has shaken the very foundations of our American world and so makes it difficult for an aging population to hold on, to remain steady. Yet seniors are the very people who have helped to build this country in ways too numerous to list.
The present leadership protects its power instead of its people. In particular, the Trump administration threatens Black and brown seniors in shameful, racist ways. History has shown that what’s now called DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) has long been part of the backbone of a thriving society. Among other things, Trump’s indiscriminate actions against immigrants are beyond immoral and reach into the homes of seniors, too. (Where does he think his grandparents, his mother, and two of his wives came from?)
As long as voices are raised, anger shared, and street corners filled with demonstrators, hope remains. Throughout history wrongs have been righted by significant numbers of people of all ages refusing to comply. Now is the time to do what history has taught us or, like a dropped ball of yarn, this society will spool too far away to retrieve.
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The Resistance Has Gray Hair
Seniors are mobilizing because our lives and the benefits we worked a lifetime to earn are under threat, and we refuse to sit by and watch.
Oct 23, 2025
The right-wing ecosystem has found itself a new punching bag: older Americans.
In recent days, Republican elected leadership has tried to minimize widespread anti-Trump protests as being driven by “rhythm-less boomers” and “elderly white hippies.” Vice President JD Vance previously dismissed protesters at Washington’s Union Station as “a bunch of old, primarily white people.”
Their insults have been amplified by the hyperactive right-wing media echo chamber, with a Fox News host casting this weekend’s No Kings protests that drew more than 7 million Americans into the streets as just “a boomer thing.”
Putting aside the obvious irony of MAGA Republicans trying to paint old people as feeble and out of touch, it’s easy to recognize their tactics for what they are—an attempt to delegitimize grassroots power. But as misguided and tactless as these criticisms might be, they’re not totally wrong.
When JD Vance remarked that the seniors protesting him have “never felt danger in their entire lives,” he was ignoring the terrifying reality that American seniors are facing at the hands of his administration.
From No Kings protests to Hands Off marches to Republican town halls—time and again, it’s been seniors and retirees who are showing up, speaking out, and holding the Trump administration accountable. But older Americans aren’t protesting because it’s “our thing”—we’re protesting because it is our duty: to ourselves, to our country, and to future generations of Americans.
We remember what younger generations never experienced firsthand. Together, we’ve lived through wars, political upheaval, recessions, and recoveries. We fought for and won greater civil rights for Black Americans and women, invested in public health and scientific discoveries that saved millions of lives from deadly diseases like polio and measles, and built an economy that was the envy of the world. We’ve seen how collective action can transform our communities and government for the better—and we’ve watched with horror as the Trump administration has erased decades of progress in just nine short months.
We know that change doesn’t happen, it’s made—and while we’d love to spend a little less of our time making protest signs, we’re mobilizing, organizing, and showing up because there is no other choice. When JD Vance remarked that the seniors protesting him have “never felt danger in their entire lives,” he was ignoring the terrifying reality that American seniors are facing at the hands of his administration.
Donald Trump and congressional Republicans continue to wage attacks on the vital programs that seniors rely on, peddling conspiracies about retirement benefits while letting slip their plans to privatize Social Security, gut the hard-fought law that was delivering lower drug prices for Americans with Medicare, and slashing Medicaid for millions of Americans to fund tax breaks for the rich. So while JD Vance thinks our protests are a game, we’re mobilizing because our lives and the benefits we worked a lifetime to earn are under threat, and we refuse to sit by and watch.
But we’re not just showing up for ourselves. We’re fighting for the future, standing arm-in-arm with generations of Americans rising up together against the cruelty coming out of the White House. All around us, freedom is under attack and the Constitution is being trampled. And it’s not just our democracy being jeopardized. As the Trump administration continues to reject science and cut critical research funding, our health is being put at risk too. We refuse to let our kids and grandkids inherit a country with fewer freedoms, less economic mobility, and more disease. We won’t hand them a more fragile democracy than their grandparents had, and we’ll continue to stand in solidarity with every American speaking truth to power.
But our fight isn’t limited to protesting. In North Carolina, seniors showed up at the state house to oppose maps aimed at erasing Black voting power. In California, Alliance for Retired Americans members have made more than 216,000 calls in support of Proposition 50 so far. Across the country, seniors marked the 90th anniversary of Social Security by staging Silver Sit-Ins calling on GOP lawmakers to protect it. These aren’t isolated events. They’re drops in a powerful wave building nationwide.
Instead of minimizing and mocking us, Republicans should see us for what we are: a blaring alarm signaling what’s coming in 2026 and beyond. And if history is any guide, in 2026 we will turn out to vote at higher rates than any other age group.
So let them sneer. Let them poke fun at our age, our rhythm, and our hair. While they’re busy cracking jokes, we’re going to keep on registering voters, packing town halls, and building coalitions that will outlast the chaos of this administration.
If the resistance has gray hair, so be it. The future belongs to those willing to fight for it, and seniors are the vanguard.
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