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You're listening to the Disability Law Lowdown podcast with your host, Patrick Going.

Pat Going: Welcome everybody to Disability Law Lowdown. This is Pat Going with the Rocky Mountain DBTAC ADA Center and it is my pleasure to welcome today Shelley Kaplan from Region Four who is going to speak about Baby Boomers turning grey, the Americans with Disabilities Act and aging Americans.

Welcome, Shelley. How are you?

Shelley Kaplan: I’m great, Pat. How are you?

Pat: Doing well. Well, this is a very timely issue that we’re going to talk about today. You and I both carry this label that we hope we carry well which is Senior Advisor. I think how the ADA relates to our aging population is a subject that is really becoming of great interest. What does the ADA have to do with aging Boomers?

Shelley: Thanks, Pat, for your introduction. Now that I’ve reached that point in my life where I check off the next age bracket on various forms, I’ve joined the ranks of those who realize there are a number of benefits associated with the good fortune of reaching this stage on our life’s journey. There are things like Senior Citizen discounts, early bird dinners, for some of us we’re experiencing grandchildren, those are just a few of the benefits.

Baby boomers, mature consumers, older adults, senior costumers, whatever one names this market, it’s large and it’s growing and it really can’t be ignored. The Americans with Disabilities Act is relevant more than ever for us. You know people can age into disability, a situation noted by people with disabilities who sometimes refer to people without disabilities as TABs, Temporarily Able-Bodied. I’m sure you’ve heard that term, haven’t you, Pat?

Pat: I sure have.

Shelley: Just listen to some of the statistics that put this statement into perspective. In 2006, the leading edge of the Baby Boomer generation turned sixty. According to the American Association of Retired Persons, the AARP, an additional four million Americans turn fifty each year. The net worth of older adults has been climbing over the last two decades. Between 1984 and 2001, the median net worth of households that were headed by people aged sixty-five and over increased by an unbelievable eighty-two percent. And did you know that more than fifty percent of the total U.S. discretionary income is controlled by people who are fifty years and older? AARP also notes that Americans aged fifty and older spent over four hundred billion, that billion with a “b”, in 2003.

So this is not a market that businesses should turn away from their doors. Businesses should view, in my opinion, their obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act not just as a legal requirement, but as a true bottom-line compulsion. Our market power should provide a strong incentive for business owners to insure that they take steps to remove barriers and to ensure that we have full access to their services and products for potential consumers.

You know, we know that older adults are diverse in so many ways, but they share one certain commonality. They will experience some physiological or cognitive change and perhaps disability as they age. When that happens, they will benefit from accessible features and customer service practices in stores, museums, restaurants, libraries, printed publications and on-line shopping among others.

I guess to put it in a nutshell, older adults may have patronized a business for years or they may be a brand new customer based on different needs as they grow older. If a business does nothing to accommodate the physical and cognitive changes that seniors are experiencing, we may not be back to shop in those stores. So, as you’ve so often said to us, it makes good business sense to comply with the ADA and welcome the expanding market of older adults and people with disabilities.

Pat: Boy, Shelley. Those were great statistics that you mentioned. Is there an easy place to get those various numbers?

Shelley: Yes, there’s a site on the Department of Justice website. It’s www.ADA.gov/olderaccess.htm. There’s a publication called “Accessibility Benefits Older Customers” that’s really a wonderful publication that people may want to take a look at.

Pat: What do you mean by accessible features? Give us some examples, if you will.

Shelley: Sure. We benefit from accessibility features every day and probably don’t even realize it. Curb cuts on sidewalks, sloping entrances to buildings, clearly marked and striped accessible parking spaces as well as those captions that people maybe now are seeing for the first time on news broadcasts and other shows.

I think particularly relevant for individuals who are aging into disability is the fact that accessibility means more than simple building access. It also includes effective communication in areas such as telecommunications, seeing those captions on TV shows, materials available in alternate formats and even now web access. One example is the ready availability of assistive listening devices in movie theaters or in public forums to increase civic access. We even see sports arenas starting to provide open captioning on the scoreboard as an accommodation for sports spectators with hearing impairments and it’s a benefit for anyone who can’t hear the announcer during the game. I know I, for one, when you have a lot of background noise, I can’t hear conversations that are right within my own space.

Availability even makes a trip to the grocery store, a theater performance, a visit to a local library or even an internet search easier and more enjoyable for people who experience limitations in vision, hearing, mobility or memory. I think when you begin to really think about it you see that many older Americans qualify for and use parking spaces reserved for people with disabilities as a result of perhaps diminished heart and lung function and reduced mobility. When parking is near the main door of the facility, patients then have strength left after entering the business to shop, to enjoy entertainment or to eat heartily. As you and I have discussed many times, our love for food and drink has increased has certainly increased as we’ve gotten older.

Pat: I have a question for you since I know we’re going to start running out of time here. What is the relevance of websites being accessible for our aging population?

Shelley: Well, I’m glad you asked that because there was a highly publicized case for the National Federation of the Blind vs. Target. It was a lawsuit in the State of California. In this case, the National Federation of the Blind brought a lawsuit against the retailer Target contending that the company’s website was inaccessible for online shoppers with vision impairments. Many of the websites pictures lacked alternate text descriptions while the website itself lacked image maps. Anyway, certain features of the website such as the checkout page where customers confirm their purchases and paid for their purchases relied heavily on visual aspects.

The lawsuit resulted in an agreement to establish a settlement fund and more importantly to make revisions to the Target.com website so that people can have a better time shopping online without relying on all the visual information, especially if their eyesight is failing. So the case, which was really important, demonstrated that retailer accommodations aren’t limited solely to physical storefronts, but also to the world of e-commerce.

And again, aging Americans can’t participate in the marketplace, both physical and electronic, if they are denied access to it. So retailers lose them as customers when accessibility is not considered.

Pat: Boy! What a great explanation. I think you’ve pointed out so well that when we talk about mobility impairments it is really just a very limited part of the overall picture of who has a disability and, like you said, if you’re not a TAB, Temporarily Able-Bodied, then you would have a disability. These things are so important to the bottom line for businesses.

Shelley: Right. What’s so important is that it’s more important than merely following the letter of the law, but it’s cultivating a deeper appreciation for accessibility’s importance. People who can’t access a mall or shop can’t spend their money there and would potentially cause a business to lose customers.

Pat: This purchasing power of the aging American really should make such an impact on our Chambers of Commerce and so forth. Thankfully, because of what you said, the ADA has really forced this issue.

A couple things, if we may, to finish up here, Shelley. If we could, I’d like to schedule a follow-on podcast to maybe delve in a little deeper into the employment issues for senior workers.

Shelley: Sure.

Pat: Also, can you reference some of the resources available through the national network of ADA Centers?

Shelley: Sure. One, we have a national network of ten Centers that really deal specifically with the Americans with Disabilities Act and have a wealth of information and experience. People can reach their particular resource center by calling toll-free 1-800-949-4232 or by the internet, they can go to www.adata.org and be connected to a wealth of information as well as directly link to the Center that serves the state from which they call.

Pat: Oh, that’s excellent, Shelley. Well, if we may we’re going to sign off now. I’m going to repeat that number that Shelley mentioned: 800-949-4232.

We just want to thank everyone for joining us today and also to remind you that ada.gov has some really excellent publications that address this issue. Shelley, thank you for your participation and wealth of knowledge and we look forward to talking with you again soon.

Shelley: Great. Thanks a lot, Pat.

Pat: Thank you.

The Disability Law Lowdown is brought to you by the Disability Business Technical Assistance Centers, which are a network of ADA centers that provide training, technical assistance and materials on the ADA and other disability-related laws. Funding for the centers is provided by a grant from NIDRR, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. You can subscribe to the Disability Law Lowdown at our Web site at DisabilityLawLowdown.com or on iTunes.



The Southwest and Rocky Mountain ADA Centers are part of a program of Independent Living Research Utilization at TIRR - Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas, and is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. If you have questions about disability law or would like to request materials or training, please call 1-800-949-4232. This podcast is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works 2.5 License. For more information and transcripts, visit www.ada-podcast.com.