By Stephen Macaulay

While we’ve spilled considerable digital ink in discussing the forthcoming presidential election and will certainly use barrels more before this whole thing is over, one of the issues that isn’t getting the amount of attention here, or elsewhere, that is related to who will be re-elected to the Oval Office is: Age.

No, not that come November Donald Trump will be 77 and Joe Biden is 81 on election day and 82 a few weeks later.

Rather, age in the context of Social Security and Medicare.

Given their ages, these are the sorts of things that ought to be concerning to both men.

Given their wealth and positions, it is probably something that, on a personal level, really doesn’t matter.

Here’s a fun fact from the Social Security Administration: In 2024 an average of some 68 million Americans will get a Social Security benefit each month. That’s a significant number of voters right there.

And some 66 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare. All of them are above voting age.

According to the Census Bureau, in the 2020 presidential election “Voter turnout was highest among those ages 65 to 74 at 76.0%.” These are people who are keenly concerned with Medicare and Social Security.

But it turns out that those who have yet to participate in these programs are becoming increasingly concerned.

According to a recent study by West Health and Gallup, 73% of U.S. adults under age 65 are “worried” (41%) or “extremely worried” (32%) that Medicare won’t be available to them when they qualify.  

As for Social Security, the number is even higher: 33% are “worried” and 47% are “extremely worried,” so that’s 80%.

What’s more, 87% of adults under 65 believe Medicare will be important to them when they qualify and 83% think the same about Social Security.

When asked about how likely they’d be to vote for someone who “prioritizes issues affecting older Americans,” 40% of those ages 18 to 29 said they’d be “somewhat more” or “much more” likely to, while only 38% of those people ages 30 to 39 would be.

However, if you wrap in the results from those 40 to 49 (54%), 50 to 64 (67%) and 65+ (77%), the average of those who would vote for said candidate is 57%. Yes, the older one gets the more important those issues are, and that bloc of older voters is awfully powerful.

Biden and Trump can go at one another all day long about whether one is crooked and the other corrupt and vice versa.

The path to the White House passes right through the AARP membership and while it might to seem to be sufficiently “forward-looking” to embrace that cadre, you can count on those people voting — in person and by mail.