The AARP Group
The AARP Group is a nonprofit organization that is mainly concerned with addressing the interests and needs of elderly and middle-aged people in the United States of America. The AARP Group membership is open to everyone within the age brackets of fifty years and above, regardless of whether they are working or retired. The headquarters of the AARP Group is situated in Washington, D.C. One of the primary functions of the AARP Group is to act as a legislative advocate for the elderly adults in the U.S at the state and federal levels, where it works to influence the passage legislation affecting the lives of older adults. The increased number of older adults has allowed the AARP group to acquire more than 30 million members in the recent past (O’Grady, Kitahara, DiRienzo & Gates, 2014). The AARP group’s broad membership has equipped it with higher voting rates, especially when advocating for the matters touching older adults. The AARP group advocates for the older adults and cares for their families at state, local, and national levels. Precisely, this group works on the most significant issues, such as promoting retirement saving and supporting matters of updating social security, thus helping people to attain lifetime financial security.
Question 2: Discussion of How AARP Group pushes its Agenda to influence policymakers
The AARP Group uses several strategies to push its agendas. Among them, it uses the mechanism of lobbying and electioneering to address and promote its programs. Usually, the group’s approaches include the efforts to amend the private and public policies that affect people’s lives as they age. Following the advocacy and the effective communication of the AARP group, it is assured of initiating changes that will lead to improved quality of life for the aged people in the United States. The AARP group is considered not only the most powerful lobbying group but also a successful business dealing with life insurance. Besides, it is an independent publisher, where it offers monthly AARP Bulletin and Modern Maturity magazine.
The AARP represents the needs of approximately thirty-eight members with political views and lifestyles as diverse as any other group within the United States of American. This group develops public policy recommendations that are geared to addressing the needs of older adults. This group also concentrates on the issues that are most significant to the people over 50 years of age community, where it addresses matters of economic security and access to affordable health care while enhancing consumer protection (Berry, 2015). Generally, AARP has the mission of assisting aged people in achieving the dreams and goals per their abilities.
Typically, the AARP group has four significant agendas to address that should be considered in policymaking process for social changes: the various elements include healthcare, economic security, supportive services to aged people, global ageing, and Livable Communities. For the effective achievement of the various social changes, the AARP group is obliged to engage in matters of advocating for amendment of most of the private and public policies to favor aged people. Again, this group committed to volunteer work, where it seeks to help the older adults by ensuring the accessibility of advanced health care services affordable to all the aged people regardless of whether they are working or retired as long as they are members of the group. Again, the AARP group is motivated to educate the ageing group to ensure that they are equipped with adequate information about the various benefits of becoming members of the group (Etemadi et al. 2017). Following the effective communicating and the relevance of the AARP group, it has several members, where a membership fee is the primary source of funds used in funding most of the activities of the group. More so, the AARP creates associations with other organization to facilitate its progress. AARP group is commissioned to enhance the quality of life for all members of the group as they age by advocating for the possible positive social change while delivering value to the members through services and information.
Spending off the AARP Group
Concerning the expenditure of the AARP, it uses most of the funds in supporting advocating for the wellbeing of the older adults, where it seeks to provide better living standards by ensuring health care affordability, economic and social security, and financial support, especially for the members over 50 years of age regardless of whether they are working or retired. Also, the AARP group spends a quotient of its funds in educational purposes, especially in funding its seminars geared to enlightening aged people about the importance of the association and the need to join it for a better life.
Key Obstacles for AARP group
However, this group is faced with several hardships in addressing the various issues. This group is adversely affected by the problems of self-interest with the officials. In most incidences, the officials of the AARP group make millions of dollars by selling products and third-party services to the members and then use the degenerated amounts for their benefits (KENTON, 2018). This attempt scares most of the prospective members, thus hindering the progress of the group to most regions of America. Again, the lobbying processes used to influence policymakers are expensive, especially when it comes to matters of driving campaigns to earn support for the intended changes favoring the ageing group. More so, the social security stance of the AARP group may hinder some people from joining the AARP group. Additionally, most of the aged people are unable to meet the requirements of the AARP, such as payment of membership fee, especially the unemployed ones.
Investigate the Interest Group’s Website and Review Their Position Statements, Testimony, And Consult Media Reports to Obtain More Information on the Group’s Lobbying Efforts
Base on the website produces $1.65 billion in the year 2018, which came from a variety of activities like publications and royalties, among other endeavors. However, membership is the most significant source of the group’s income used in funding its operations. The AARP group is among the most influential lobbying groups in the United States of America triggered by its continued efforts. The AARP group often receives attention following its influence in the Washington, D.C. and the state capitals. The nonprofit operation of the AARP group receives millions of dollars every year from different federal grants. It is mostly argued that the position of the AARP group falls more into the liberal section of the political spectrum (Arem et al. 2015).
Conclusively, the AARP is mainly concerned with addressing the interests and needs of elderly and middle-aged people in the United States of America. It is among the most influential groups in the U.S advocating for millions of people within the fifty years of age and above. For efficiency, the AARP deals with four broad agendas for social changes, including health care, economic security, supportive services to aged people, global ageing, and Livable Communities.
References
Arem, H., Park, Y., Felix, A. S., Zervoudakis, A., Brinton, L. A., Matthews, C. E., & Gunter, M. J. (2015). Reproductive and hormonal factors and mortality among women with colorectal cancer in the AARP Diet and Health Study. British journal of cancer, 113(3), 562-568.
Berry, J. M. (2015). Lobbying for the people: The political behavior of public interest groups. Princeton University Press.
Etemadi, A., Sinha, R., Ward, M. H., Graubard, B. I., Inoue-Choi, M., Dawsey, S. M., & Abnet, C. C. (2017). Mortality from different causes associated with meat, heme iron, nitrates, and nitrites in the AARP Diet and Health Study: a population-based cohort study. Bmj; 357.
KENTON, W. (2018). AARP Group. Retrieved from: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/aarp.asp
O’Grady, T. J., Kitahara, C. M., DiRienzo, A. G., & Gates, M. A. (2014). The association between selenium and other micronutrients and thyroid cancer incidence in the AARP Diet and Health Study. PLoS One, 9(10), e110886.