The Politics of Greed? Political Preferences among the Elderly

This paper considers the role of age in structuring the political behavior of elderly Americans. Although the elderly seem to share group-specific interests that could promote agreement about the policies and candidates group members should support, recent conflicts over Social Security and Medicare have shown that age does not consistently structure political preferences. Using National Election Study data from the 1972-1988 period, this paper examines the relationship between age and opinion on age-related issues as well as generational differences in the relationship between opinion and candidate preference. Although not everyone aged 65 or older expresses policy preferences consistent with the interests of this age group, some of the variation can be explained by economic and partisan differences, and the variation has significant effects on the elderly's evaluations of presidential and congressional candidates.