The League of Iowa Human & Civil Rights Agencies

EEOC Sues City of Boone, Iowa For Age Discrimination

City Rejected Older Applicant for Less-Qualified Younger One, Federal Agency Says

DES MOINES – The City of Boone, Iowa violated federal law by hiring a 25-year-old rather than a more qualified 62-year-old because of the latter’s age, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.

The agency’s administrative ...

One of the great advances of 20th century was increased life expectancy. This advance might have bankrupted Social Security, if it were not for women in the work force. When the Social Security program was created in the 1930s, life expectancy was 60 years, as compared to 75 years in the 1980s and 78 years today. With 1930s life expectancy, a great number of people were expected to pay Social Security taxes while they worked, but never live long enough to ever collect benefits. The early plan...

Earlier today Casey B. Mulligan wrote about how the entry of more women into the work force has helped sustain the solvency of Social Security, which has been otherwise stressed by the size of the retiring baby boom generation and longer life expectancies. The decisions by many more women to trade in their aprons for pantsuits in the last few decades meant that there were more workers paying Social Security taxes — taxes that financed the Social Security paychecks given to this growing ...

Better health doesn’t seem to explain why so many young people forgo health insurance. Rather, income does, according to new survey data released by Gallup. First, some background. One of the explanations for rising health care costs is that relatively healthy people are taking their chances and going without insurance. The relatively sick pool of insured customers who remain drive up the cost of premiums, at least if there is any form of risk-sharing (like community rating) within that...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Higher Medicare copays, sometimes just a few dollars more, led to fewer doctors visits and to more and longer hospital stays, a large new study reveals. With health care costs skyrocketing, many public and private insurers have required patients to pay more out-of-pocket when they seek care. The new study confirms what many policymakers had feared: cost-shifting moves can backfire.

If you want to find America's entrepreneurs, should you be searching places frequented by senior citizens? The answer, from several data sources, appears to be yes. Contrary to the popular perception that entrepreneurship is a young person's game, seniors are more likely than young people to operate their own businesses. According to a June 2009 report by Dane Stangler of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation: "In every single year from 1996 to 2007, Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 had...

Which age group do you think has more entrepreneurs--twentysomethings or those over 55? If you guessed the latter (because it seems less likely so it must be true) you guessed correctly. According to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the research and support of entrepreneurship, in the past decade the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity belongs to those between 55 and 64 years old. According to the study, "The 20 to 34 age bracket…whic...

Winterset, Ia. - If they weren't living in Joe Wymer's house, Vietnam War veterans Ron Marusek and Bob Fenoglio would be in a nursing home by now. Marusek, 65, has terminal cancer. Fenoglio, 67, has a severe case of multiple sclerosis. Both decided to enroll in a new federal program in which veterans can choose to live with paid "foster families" instead of in an institution. "They're awfully nice to me," Marusek said of his foster family, which includes local residents whom Wymer hires to co...

Uncle Sam may be hiring, but he's also trimming staff in some corners of the government, as agencies suffer through a budget squeeze or shift their focus. The federal government hired 97,445 people in the first nine months of 2009, mostly for the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, according to the Office of Personnel Management. But just as new faces show up at some offices, seven agencies or departments hope to cut about 37,000 workers with buyouts and early-reti...

WASHINGTON -- They're not your grandpa's hearing aids. Today's newest models range from the completely invisible - it sits deep in the ear canal for months at a time - to Bluetooth-enabled gadgets that open cell phones and iPods for hearing-aid users. Now the maker of that invisible hearing aid is going a step further - attempting a swim-proof version. About 60 swimmers begin testing a next-generation Lyric next month, to see if stronger coatings can withstand at least three swims a week, all...