If you’re not 50 or older, you may not be interested in AARP – the American Association of Retired Persons. AARP is a group designed to help retirees with their financial lives after the age of retirement – 62 years old.

The requirement to join this advocacy group for older folks heading into retirement age is that you have reached 50 years of age.

AARP Mission Statement claims: AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, with a membership of more than 37 million, that helps people turn their goals and dreams into real possibilities, strengthens communities and fights for the issues that matter most to families such as healthcare, employment security and retirement planning.

The biggest advantage to being a member of this group is their advocacy with regard to Social Security and Medicare benefits. AARP fights to keep these earned benefits from being cut, ensuring that this governmental retirement program does not get reduced because the deficit is so extremely high.

For years, government has wanted to modify, cut, adjust and change social security and Medicare benefits all in an effort to reduce excess costs related to over spending.

Americans are tired of hearing politicians say that the only way to strengthen Medicare is to cut benefits and make older people and future retirees pay more. And they overwhelmingly oppose a current proposal to cut Social Security as part of a deal to reduce the deficit. There’s a better way.

Because Social Security benefits are a self-financed program – in other words, every taxpayer from the start of their working age has paid into this program so that when retirement age occurs, they have an income in which to survive. It is not a program funded by the government, it belongs to the people who paid into it for generations.

Yet right now, President Obama and Congress are trying to balance the budget by cutting the yearly cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security.

This may sound as if it isn’t a huge reduction proposal, however, it would mean significant cuts in the security of benefits to the elderly, and annually the cuts would increase, reducing the amount available to American’s who rely on this money, now and in the future.

AARP fights and continues to fight Washington to take responsible action with regard to keeping Social Security strong now and in the future. If you’re 50 or older, joining them can help them with the much-needed funds to do this.

They are benefits older people have earned — and past generations have promised.

Image via SSA.Gov