Jimmy Carter sets a new record for American presidents. It's important for everyone

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Jimmy Carter sets a new record on October 1, his birthday: he will be the first American president to reach three figures.

It's a milestone that more and more Americans will reach in the coming years — and something that America's social safety net is unprepared for.

Carter's post-presidency began in 1981 after he lost re-election and, at 56, was too young for Social Security and Medicare.

Carter did not devote his post-presidency life to sitting on corporate boards and collecting speaking fees, as other recent presidents have done.

Carter got his hands dirty building houses, taking on peacekeeping missions to Cuba and the Middle East, negotiating the release of hostages, living in his hometown, teaching Sunday school and college classes, writing books and winning Grammys.

His presidential term was inarguably the longest, fairest, and most productive in history, although John Quincy Adams' anti-slavery efforts in Congress after his presidency receive honorable mention.

Close by Forty-four years after leaving office, Carter essentially helped eradicate Guinea worm, a parasite that infected the entire world According to the Carter Center, there were 3.5 million people in the mid-80s and only 14 million in 2023.

It has been 22 years since he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, just as the US was preparing for war in Iraq. Carter also made a landmark visit to Cuba that year.

It has been nine years since Carter announced at a news conference that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer and may not have long to live.

CNN's Stephen Collinson wrote at the time:

“I had a wonderful life,” Carter said, with the same brutal honesty and attention to detail that marked his presidency. “I'm ready for anything and I'm looking forward to new adventures,” Carter said during the 40-minute appearance in front of the cameras, during which he often flashed his broad smile and never gave in to his emotions. “It is in the hands of God, whom I worship.”

In December 2015, Carter announced that the cancer was gone after treatment. A timeline of his life maintained by CNN's research library includes many other notable events Entries.

It's nine o'clock It's been years since Carter published his autobiography, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. He won a Grammy Award – his second – for the audio book. A few years later he would win a third.

It's been seven years since he was hospitalized for dehydration in Winnipeg, Canada, where he was outside – still working! – for Habitat for Humanity, the organization with which he has long been associated.

It's been five years since 2019, when he won his third Grammy, broke his hip and joked that there should be an age limit for the presidency because he couldn't have taken the job at 80. That year he also turned 95 and became the longest-lived American president, surpassing George HW Bush.

It's been nearly two years since Carter entered hospice care and nearly a year since his wife, Rosalynn, died. They married in 1946.

As remarkable as Carter has made his years since American voters retired him from the White House, there is also something increasingly normal about people turning 100.

Former presidents, all wealthy and protected by generous pensions, do not represent a representative sample of society, but it is notable that the four oldest former presidents – Carter, Bush, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan – all lived in the 21st century.

Overall, life expectancy in the US has fallen during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to an analysis by KFF, it has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels and is lagging behind other developed countries. In 2022, life expectancy for US men was 74.8 years and for US women it was 80.2 years.

However, according to Pew, the population of 100-year-olds is expected to quadruple in the coming decades Research Center. She estimated in January that the current number of centenarians is about 101,000 and that within 30 years that number will rise to about 422,000, a small but growing portion of the U.S. population as the average age rises and the birth rate falls.

CNN's Eva Rothenberg wrote a year ago about the challenges many Americans will face later in life as they live longer, with more than half of older Americans likely to need long-term care in the future – something many can't afford and that is not covered by Medicare, the government health insurance program that primarily benefits older Americans.

An important issue during Carter's presidency and in 1980

Carter signed legislation in 1977 that increased taxes on Social Security and changed how benefits are calculated for younger people, which was intended to improve the program's finances. Later, in 1980, Carter signed additional legislation to control the growth of disability benefits.

In the 1980 presidential election, which Carter ultimately lost to Reagan, the long-term viability of Social Security and Medicare was a major campaign issue and featured prominently in the debates. And for good reason: the long-term viability of social safety net programs was still seriously questionable, despite the law signed by Carter in 1977.

“There you go again,” Regan said dismissively to Carter in a presidential debate, denying that he opposed the idea of ​​Medicare. Reagan said he simply opposed the version that became law. Carter later accused Reagan of “pressuring” voters on the issue, as we would today call it.

“Governor Reagan has the right to change his mind. He has no right to rewrite history,” Carter said in a statement days before Election Day this year.

Despite his previous opposition to safety net programs, Reagan promised during the campaign to take care of their finances. Carter, on the other hand, spoke of creating a new national health insurance system, which remains a dream for many Democrats.

As president, after initially unsuccessfully proposing benefit cuts, Reagan set up a commission chaired by Alan Greenspan that proposed fixes—some of which eventually became law in 1983, and not a moment too soon. According to the Congressional Research Service, in 1983 Social Security was still months or weeks away from paying full benefits.

For example, Social Security changes in 1983 included counting some Social Security benefits as taxable income and gradually increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67.

How gradually? The increase is still occurring more than 40 years later. The 1983 changes set the full retirement age at 67 for people born in 1960 or later. So these seniors still have a few years ahead of them, although they can retire early for a lower pension.

This 1983 law, passed at the beginning of Carter's very early and long political retirement, was the last major structural change to address Social Security's solvency. There have been more frequent tweaks and major changes to Medicare.

Now the social security programs are once again facing insolvency. According to the government, Social Security will no longer be able to pay full benefits in just over a decade. Medicare has a little more time.

Today there are new calls for a gradual increase in the retirement age or an increase in taxes to fund Social Security, which only apply to the first $168,600 of income.

As in the 1970s and 1980s, changes to the safety net require serious debate on all sides of the issue. It's a debate that few people are having right now.

None of this year's presidential candidates are talking much about long-term funding for these programs. In fact, one of Donald Trump's key proposals is to eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits that Reagan and lawmakers introduced in 1983. Vice President Kamala Harris has a vague plan to impose new taxes on the rich.