I’ve never eaten a Denny’s “Grand Slam” breakfast. I don’t subscribe to the Book of the Month club. And I don’t think I’ve ever flown on British Airways. But if these patterns change, an AARP membership could be the best investment of my life.
The AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, markets membership to just about all of us as soon as we turn 50—an aggressive interpretation of retirement age. Like most 50-somethings, I’ve used my right hand to remove AARP’s solicitations from the mailbox and my left to drop them in the recycling bin.
I associate the AARP with TV commercials distinguished by their low production value and a magazine printed on poor-quality paper stock. But as I contemplate the cost of financing life after labor, I’ve taken a second look at the benefits of AARP membership.
AARP membership: A financial analysis
My cursory assessment reveals three insights:
- Membership is dirt cheap. AARP’s latest mailer offered me a first-year annual membership fee of $12. I’ll incur minimal cost for the possibility that I can capitalize on AARP discounts.
- The discounts are unimpressive. A Denny’s “Grand Slam” breakfast costs $13. An AARP membership would give me a 15% discount on the same plate of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage, a savings of about $2. If I eat six “Grand Slam” breakfasts a year, my membership would pay for itself. But I don’t live near a Denny’s. And I don’t like pancakes. My quick take on the other discounts—airfares, car rentals, insurance—is that they’re no better than what I can get with my American Automobile Association (AAA) membership.
- Membership fees mostly finance AARP’s lobbying efforts. A 15% discount on Aunt Annie’s carbohydrate bombs is nice, but membership mostly finances one of Washington’s most powerful lobbying organizations.
AARP lobbying
In 2022, AARP spent $16 million to influence congress and federal agencies, making it the 11th highest-spending lobbyist. The biggest spender was the National Association of Realtors, which recently found itself on the wrong side of a federal jury verdict.
AARP represents 38 million older Americans, lobbying to protect and enhance members’ health, tax, and retirement benefits. As a younger person, I worried that AARP’s lobbying might crowd out investment in children. In 2021, the poverty rate among Americans under age 18 was 16.9%, 6.6 percentage points higher than the rate among Americans 65 and older.
And in my professional life, I’ve grappled with AARP intransigence against the electronic distribution of financial boilerplate such as mutual fund prospectuses. The AARP always prevailed, imposing operational complexity and high print and mailing costs on all mutual fund investors.
My $12 decision
I’m no longer young. I no longer care what it costs to mail 85 pages of legalese to a mutual fund shareholder. But I still worry about the AARP’s lobbying might. For now, I’ve forsaken the Denny’s discount.
–A. Clarke