--- title: Five Best: Elderly Americans Are Losing Their Rights description: How elderly Americans are losing their rights, is contract work killing the American dream and more. canonical: https://time.com/4970494/elderly-americans-are-losing-their-rights/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-05T16:00:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:25.775Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Elderly Americans Are Losing Their Rights og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4970494/elderly-americans-are-losing-their-rights/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Elderly Americans Are Losing Their Rights twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Elderly Americans Are Losing Their Rights by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Oct 5, 2017 4:00 PM CUT by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Oct 5, 2017 4:00 PM CUT **1\.** [**How elderly Americans are losing their rights.**](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights "undefined") By Rachel Aviv in the _New Yorker_ **2\.** [**Is contract work killing the American dream?**](http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-perils-of-contract-workers/ "undefined") By the _Wharton School of Business_ **3\.** [**The world can’t afford a nuclear Iran. Here’s how to avoid that.**](https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/10/04/the-world-can-afford-nuclear-iran-keep-current-deal/9d7JW61RDyRwQWQNoT2HCP/story.html "undefined") By Ernest J. Moniz at _Boston Globe_ **4\.** [**Could being selfish prevent future depression?**](https://motherboard.vice.com/en%5Fus/article/43a5y9/unselfish-people-are-more-likely-to-wind-up-with-depression "undefined") By Michael Byrne in _Motherboard_ **5\.** [**Your brain preserves the power to trust by believing immoral acts are impossible.**](https://aeon.co/ideas/but-you-cant-do-that-why-immoral-actions-seem-impossible "undefined") By Jonathan Phillips in _Aeon_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/ "undefined") _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4970494/elderly-americans-are-losing-their-rights/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4970494/elderly-americans-are-losing-their-rights/"},"headline":"Elderly Americans Are Losing Their Rights","datePublished":"2017-10-05T16:00:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:25.775Z","description":"These are today's five best","url":"https://time.com/4970494/elderly-americans-are-losing-their-rights/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","Depression","Iran","Innovation","Work","Elderly"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4970494/elderly-americans-are-losing-their-rights/","name":"Elderly Americans Are Losing Their Rights"}}]}] ```