Following opening remarks by Susan C. Reinhard, Senior Vice President of Public Policy at AARP, David Neumark, an economist at the University of California-Irvine described the challenges facing the ADEA as the population ages.

Today, about one-fifth of the population is 65 or older; in 2050, roughly one-third of the population will be 65 or older. This increase has serious implications for the economy and for public policy. A recent study, he said, showed that 80 percent of baby boomers expect to work past the age of 65 in some form or another; currently only 20 percent of Americans do so. What's going to happen when they reach 65 is, therefore, unclear.  The resulting policy questions, Neumark said, are how do we keep these people who want to remain in the labor market engaged and will the ADEA be enough to protect those who want to work?

Evidence from the past four decades, Neumark said, show that the ADEA has been most successful in reducing unfair terminations but has been less effective in preventing discrimination in hiring practices.  In 2006, 40 percent of the ADEA cases handled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concerned discrimination in firings or lay-offs, while only 8.4 percent were related to hiring.  This is in part likely because it is harder to establish discrimination when applying for a job than when losing a job a person already had. This has serious repercussions for the efficacy of the ADEA in the future. As the population ages and more people leave their long-term careers for part-time or "bridge jobs" before retirement, they may find themselves more prone to discrimination with less protection provided by the law.

Neumark did not say how the ADEA might be modified to be more effective, but he did suggest one potential policy proposal: affirmative action, which has proven to be effective in increasing the hires of people who have historically faced job discrimination.  This policy, he noted, may be controversial.

Howard C. Eglit, a law professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law spoke next and while he was more freewheeling (Neumark paid strict attention to his PowerPoint), his talk was in many ways a more sobering experience. Eglit said that the Big Problem was implicit, not explicit discrimination.  The ageist attitudes that we all harbor and aren't even aware of are more much difficult to address statutorily, he said.  He then listed off (in one breath!) a dozen or two words used frequently in the media that serve to degrade older people, like "geezer" and "old fart."  Until those words are considered unacceptable in polite discourse, older workers will continue to suffer from discrimination and there's not much the ADEA can do about that.  Eglit also said that he disagreed with Neumark and believes that terminations, rather than hiring, is still the larger problem.

Finally, Thomas Osborne, a Senior Attorney with AARP Litigation spoke about efforts made in Europe to combat age discrimination.  In 2000, the Council of the European Union issued a directive barring employment discrimination based on age.  But in the intervening years, several obstacles to implementing the directive have arisen.  Looming large is the fact that many European countries pick and choose which Council directives to adhere to and which to ignore, and the loose nature of the EU ensures that these countries will not be punished.  For example, Ireland already had a similar law on the books and after the directive quickly amended its own law.  Germany and Sweden on the other hand have refused to enact any such anti-discrimination law based on age.  In the United Kingdom, a regulation was issued to prohibit discrimination but no Parliamentary law was passed, somewhat diluting its effectiveness.

During Q&A, moderated by Sara E. Rix, Interim Associate Director of the AARP Public Policy Institute, the conversation returned to the need for "attitudinal changes" in the American people.  The fight for hearts and minds will not be easy, Eglit said. "I'm not optimistic."  And while issues of ageism have taken on more saliency of late, it seems like a long struggle lies ahead, regardless of Meacham and the ADEA.