Senior Citizen (1937)

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

A JSTOR search turns up a bibiography reference in a review article in the
The American Economic Review, Vol. 29, No. 4. (Dec., 1939) to a
publication by D. Lasser called The Sixty Dollars at Sixty Pension
Plan: Minimum Security for our Senior Citizens, published by the
Workers Alliance of America. No date for the Lasser is given, and I
can't find it in the Stanford, Berkeley, or LOC catalogues, so
there's no way to tell if it's an antedate for the cites below.

It'd be interesting to know who first came up with this one -- it has
the sound of a New Deal coining. It begins to show up a lot in the
economics & finance literatures around 1940.

Geoff Nunberg


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>Subject:      Senior Citizen (1937)
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>
>    Yes, it's earlier on ProQuest's LOS ANGELES TIMES.  That's
>California politics for you.
>
>
>(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS--LOS ANGELES TIMES)
>       New Pension Plan Offered
>               Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File).       Los
>Angeles, Calif.: Apr 15, 1937.                   p. 5 (1 page):
>    SACRAMENTO, April 14. (Exclusive)--Robert Noble of Hollywood took
>the rostrum in the Assembly today and addressed members of the
>Legislature on his "roperty (sic) certificates" for senior citizens
>of California.
>
>       LETTERS To THE TIMES
>               Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File).       Los
>Angeles, Calif.: Jul 4, 1938.                   p. A4 (1 page):
>    Every "senior citizen" who would receive his "$30 every Thursday"
>would spend the warrants as quickly as possible to avoid having to
>attach the weekly 2-cent stamp required.
>
>       Just Supposing It Happened
>               Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File).       Los
>Angeles, Calif.: Sep 25, 1938.                   p. A4 (1 page):
>    it will be over the determined protest of John Taxpayer, indeed,
>that either the "senior citizens," or those who fell for their
>optimism currency, collect even the full amount per ticket
>represented by the stamps licked and stuck thereon.
>
>       Haight Assails Pension Plan
>               Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File).       Los
>Angeles, Calif.: Oct 12, 1938.                   p. 6 (1 page)
>
>       THE GREAT GAME OF POLITICS
>        FRANK R KENT.       Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File).
>Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 28, 1938.                   p. 7 (1 page):
>    WASHINGTON, Oct. 27.--One of the major developments in American
>politics, frequently commented on in recent months, is the
>multiplicity of new schemes for granting and increasing pensions to
>the aged--or, as some politicans are tenderly beginning to call
>them, "our senior citizens."
>
>
>(PROQUEST--WASHINGTON POST)
>       Townsend Successors Still Strong In West
>        By Elmer T. Peterson. Special Correspondence of The Post..
>The Washington Post  (1877-1954).       Washington, D.C.: Jul 31,
>1938.                   p. B9 (1 page):
>    The build-up is that every "senior citizen" has done his share of
>the world's work and is now entitled to a living.