America’s Future Corps. Let’s Do It. Now.

By Karen and Erica

When we first started Lustre, in 2016, one of our animating ideas was that retired women—and men—have enormous resources, particularly experience and judgment, which only come with working for decades, and which could be put to great use for our country.

We proposed that a federal system be established, like the Peace Corps, to pair retired people with projects in specialities and areas of their choosing. Their work might be volunteer, but might also be paid. We proposed that at first this corps be employed in service to our schools—and that priority still seems appropriate—though one could also imagine using our brains to devise a plan for dealing with urban fires. We have since published our outline of what we call America’s Future Corps, every year, and every year our readers express great enthusiasm.

We were sufficiently excited by the obvious benefits of employing retirees—who themselves would be motivated by patriotism, or pay, or simply a desire to be useful—-that we actually travelled to Washington, and elsewhere, to meet with members of Congress to give them our our ideas. We also spoke with various state education actors.

What has happened?

Everyone we speak to applauds the idea. No-one does anything to move it forward.

That’s a slight exaggeration. As was discussed in a recent Washington Post story, a division of Americares now has opportunities for seniors. (We still don’t like that word, and the visual that accompanies the story is offensive.) That seems like a step forward, but it’s not much of one.

Examining AmeriCorps Seniors’ scope, though, can be frustrating. The program’s 143,000 volunteers is a meaningful number, but it represents less than one-fourth of 1 percent of the nearly 80 million Americans over 60. AmeriCorps Seniors’ annual budget is about $235 million — not peanuts, but about what the federal government spends on Social Security every 90 minutes.


Imagine boosting the funding to the equivalent of, say, 90 hours of Social Security payments. That would be enough for AmeriCorps to connect nearly 8.5 million volunteers with local nonprofits meeting local needs.


The author identifies benefits that would come from an expanded approach.

If scaled wisely, a remade and expanded initiative — call it the Silver Service Corps — would deliver at least three benefits.

These benefits include alleviating loneliness, allowing seniors to feel good by helping others, and reducing the divides among our citizens. They also include reducing the cost of sidelining seniors.

This year, a record 4.1 million Americans will turn 65. Next year will match that record. 2026 and 2027 will match it again. By 2040, nearly a quarter of the U.S. population will be over 65.Is it really wise for them — and, eventually, for all of us — to spend decades unplugged from the needs of the country, collecting a Social Security check and dabbling in leisure? Or is it wiser to enlist them and eventually all of us in fashioning what Stanford’s Carstensen calls the “new map of life”? And might the map’s compass point toward the principle that Americans can be active contributors at every stage of life?

Of course it is absurd to permanently bench people over 65. Of course Americans over 65 can be contributors. But the whole tone of the article seems to be that a good program for older Americans—the Silver Service Corps???— will make them feel better—and perhaps for that reason there is no reason to pay them. (The comments to the article take great umbrage at the assumption that post-career work would surely be unpaid.)

Making us feel better about ourselves is a good and worthy goal. But focusing on that alone ignores the fact that we have a vast amount to offer. Like the illustration, it suggests that we are quaint old people who will wave our canes and walkers around while being nice to people. The article correctly notes that people of 65 likely have a 30 year runway, but seems not to realize that the runway will not be 30 years of doddering. We have 30 years of healthy longevity, thanks to public health advances in the 1950s, advances that other countries now emulate. Because of them, most of us can walk and chew gum at the same time—even into our 90s. We can think and work, alongside younger people, in ways that employ our experience and expertise, not only our warm and cuddly selves. We are giving at least as much as we are receiving. Properly executed, the program would surely pay for itself.

We would all benefit from a program, like America’s Future Corps, that took a smarter look at older people, and aimed to reap the benefits of what we know.

Talk to your representatives. Let’s get this done. The right way. Now.