AARP Pennsylvania

Note: The following article by AARP State President Jim Palmquist is running in newspapers across PA.

There are over 347,000 seniors in Pennsylvania who face hunger! According to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District – which includes Chester, South Philadelphia, and parts of North Philadelphia – is ranked as the 2 nd hungriest district in the nation. As a result, AARP Pennsylvania has collaborated with the AARP Foundation to end hunger among older Americans through a variety of initiatives designed to provide both short-term support and long-term, sustainable solutions to the problem of older adult hunger across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

AARP Pennsylvania today applauded approval by a state House committee of legislation that ensures an estimated 50,000 older residents won’t lose prescription drug coverage by excluding Medicare Part B premiums and Social Security cost of living increases from PACE and PACENET income eligibility guidelines.

AARP Pennsylvania’s first Executive Council meeting of 2013 recently took place in Harrisburg, PA under the leadership of State President Jim Palmquist. The predominately volunteer council will work with the state office to guide strategic priorities and objectives consistent with AARP’s national strategic framework and within AARP’s policies set by the AARP National Board of Directors.

This week AARP Pennsylvania volunteers and staff are meeting with nine members of the state’s Congressional delegation in their district offices, urging them to oppose $5.84 billion in cuts to our state’s Social Security COLA and veterans’ benefits that would occur if a measure known as Chained CPI is adopted. The office visits by AARP Pennsylvania volunteers follow weeks of letters, advertisements, petitions, a new Chained CPI Calculator, e-mails and phone calls asking Congress not to cut Social Security benefits and to have a separate conversation about Social Security’s future.

For more than 50 years, AARP has been committed to protecting Social Security benefits for the millions of Americans who have paid into the program through a lifetime of hard work.

AARP Pennsylvania today announced its opposition to a newly-approved state Public Utility Commission order that would force customers to pay higher rates for electricity by making default electricity service plans more volatile and costly.

2013 PENNSYLVANIA STATE LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES

AARP Pennsylvania today said that while Governor Corbett’s 2013-14 budget proposal released today increases state spending for programs helping older adults remain at home, the plan lacks forward-looking solutions to other issues of interest to the nation’s fourth-largest senior population.

AARP Pennsylvania staff and volunteers celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, by participating in local events across the state that echoed the belief of its founder Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, "To serve, not to be served."