Magofna pushes for 10-25% senior citizen discounts
Sen. Corina L. Magofna (Ind-Saipan) has introduced a resolution to encourage all CNMI businesses—grocery stores, retail outlets, home improvement stores, and restaurants, among others—to offer senior citizen discounts ranging between 10% and 25%.
Magofna stated in the resolution that many senior citizens—people ages 55 years or older—are unemployed or have reached retirement age.
Many senior citizens—collectively known as the man’amko—are living on a fixed income, which is much less than their previous work income. This means, Magofna said, that many senior citizens must budget all their monthly expenses including housing, groceries, household items, medicines, medical supplies, and other necessities.
Unfortunately, Magofna said, some retired senior citizens are experiencing diminished retirement income because of offsets being applied against their monthly income to recover overpayments due to erroneous calculations made in prior years by the NMI Retirement Fund.
She said this income loss has severely and significantly reduced the man’amko’s financial ability to maintain a decent living on their fixed income.
The senator said with a depressed economy and inflation driving up consumer prices, it is appropriate that people show compassion and consideration to senior citizens by affording them a purchase discount to help minimize the financial hardships that many of them are experiencing at this time.
The CNMI Office on Aging already has a Senior Citizen Discount program (https://cnmiooa.org/senior-citizen-discount-card-program/), with participating businesses offering discounts that range from a low of 5% to as much as 25%, with majority offering 10% to 20% discounts. However, participation in this program is not mandatory for businesses.
Sen. Corina L. Magofna
