Age Discrimination Act (ADEA) Of 1967

Project: Age Discrimination Act

Course: Techniques in Policy Analysis

Professor: Richard O’Bryant

Student: Na (Angelina) Li

Date: April 23, 2016 I. Abstract

Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967, as amended, protects workers age forty and over in hiring, promotion, and termination decisions. This project is going to analyze the ADEA and its amendment in terms of effectiveness, ineffectiveness, and influence which will be demonstrated by employment cases, research data. The project shows that the ADEA is not as effective as it suppose to be and its purpose of prohibiting age discrimination has not been implemented efficiently in workforce. The ADEA somewhat has enabled Americans work longer, however, it might not be the best

Previously, if an employee proved in court that an employment practice disproportionately harmed older workers, the employer had to justify it as a “business necessity.” Employers need only to prove that the practice was based on an RFOA. (Pynes)

When the project analyzing about age discrimination, it could not proceed without mentioning about the social economic status and retirement policies. Because of the employment market will be always influenced by economy and government’s strategic incentives such as social security policy, and medical care policy.

III. The Historical Context and Economic Impact

Age discrimination issue is getting serious with the modernization and industrialization of the United States. However, the issue did not catch policy makers’ attention until WWII (1939-1945). The following part shows the time prior the Age Discrimination of Act 1967.

1890-1960: The United State has very good protection for older workers because of Social Security Act of 1935. However, the age discrimination increase with modern industrial economy.

1940-1945: During WWII, there was a large demanding for labor, man age 65 and over jumped 75% in

ADEA seems like a policy with well intentions but fail in results so far for many reasons. Employers are always benefit-driven in globalized economic environment, in result, employees are easy to be laid off. They getting expensive as they getting older because their pension and health care costs are high than their younger counterparts. However, "reasonable factor other than age" enable employers easy to find reasons to laid off older workers legally. Beside, some direct evidence also provide chances to employers. For example, some older workers are lack of technology knowledge make them unqualified for the jobs. Lastly, the bona fide occupational qualification exception (BFOQ) is also a fact for employers to defend the ADEA lawsuit. For example, airline pilots, air traffic controllers, and public safety workers.

First change would be eliminating the “reasonable factor other than age” exemption. Some employers will use “business development necessity” as the exemption test. The RFOA made provement of age discrimination more difficult. Plaintiff must show age discrimination was a substantial and motivating factor. Actually, there are many factors which are age-related can arguable with RFOA. For example, in terms of recruiting, high technological skills are required; in terms of budget, downsizing the higher paid employees; in terms of performance evaluation,