213 The Privileges for the Senior Citizen Discount
213 老年人的特权折扣
Age has its privileges in America, and one of the more prominent of them is the senior citizen discount. Anyone who has reached a certain age — in some cases as low as 55 — is automatically entitled to dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life. Eligibility is determined not by one’s need but by the date on one’s birth certificate. Practically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses — as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners.
在美国，老年人享有一些特权，而其中一个较为突出的特权就是老年人可以享受折扣。任何人只要到达某个年龄一在一些情况下只需要到达55岁——都自动有权利享有涉及商业生活的各个层面的很多折扣优惠。是否有资格并不是依据个人的需要，而是根据其出生日期证明，在我们的上一代几乎还没有听说，但如今这些折扣已经成为许多商家的常规，就像汽车旅馆的彩电和班机上的免费咖啡一样平常。
People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them; yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent. Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous. Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor. But most of them aren’t.
头发花白的人没有要求打折也照常可以享受折扣。然而，很多超过60岁的美国人都身体健康并且有支付能力。从来不敢给大学生或低于30岁的人折扣的商家却慷慨地给美国老年人折扣。这个做法之所以广为接受，是因为人们普遍把“年老的”等同于“贫穷的”。可能这种说法曾经是对的，不过现今美国老年人的贫困率却低于其他年龄层的美国人。诚然，在老年人当中经济状况也存在差异．他们之中确实有很多人很穷，但大多数人是不穷的。
It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the generations.
很难估算折扣对单个公司的影响。对于很多公司来说，折扣可以刺激消费，从而增加收益。但是在其他情况下，给出折扣是直接或间接地以美国年轻人的利益受损为代价的。而且，它们也直接引发了不同年龄层次的人之间的冲突，这一点已经被一些政治家和学者所发现。
Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involves a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point. Buoyed by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job — thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers.
关于从社金保障中获益问题的争执更加激化了不同年龄层次的人之间的紧张关系。当前的社会保障制度主要是把年轻人的资源转给了老年人，就业机会也是一个令人头疼的问题。由于受到法律和法庭裁决的保护，越来越多的美国老年人拒绝退休而继续工作——因此减少了一些年轻人就业和升职的机会。
Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become a formidable economic privilege to a group with millions of members who don’t need them.
老年人所享受的折扣不再像以前一样是一种慈善，而变成了一种群体所享受的强大的经济特权，而其中很多人并不需要它们。
It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can’t take care of themselves and need special treatment; and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against — discrimination by age.
把老年人看作一个孤立的群体，认为在经济上他们需要比别人更多的优先权，这种观念已不再合理。老年人折扣只会强化所谓的老年人无法自己照顾自己而需要特殊待遇的这种错误的想法．而且还可能由此产生另外一种错误的想法．那就是老年人不知感恩，并以损害子女们或其他年龄层的人们的利益为代价为自己谋福利。老年人折扣本质上其实是美国老年人正在反抗的事情——年龄歧视。