Age has its special advantages inprefix = st1 /America. And one of the more impressive of them is the senior citizen discount . Anyone who has reached a certain age-- in some cases as low as 55 -- is automatically entitled to plenty of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life .  Eligibility   is determined not by one's need but by the date on one's birth certificate .  Practically the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses-- as common as color1 televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners .          People with array hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them ; yet , millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent   .  Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans . The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that " elderly " and " needy " are synonymous   .  Perhaps that once was true , but today , to be sure , there is economic variety within the elderly , and most of them aren't poor .         It is impossible to determine the effect of the discounts on individual companies . For many firms , they are a stimulus to income . But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense , directly or indirectly , of younger Americans . Moreover , they directly annoy some politicians and scholars who consider it a coming conflict between the generations .         Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits , which mostly involves a transfer of resources from the young to the old . Employment is another point . Supported by laws and court decisions , more and more older Americans are refusing the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job-- thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers .  Far from a kind of charity they once were , senior citizen discounts have become a powerful economic privilege   to a group with millions of members who don't need them .          It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others . Senior citizen discounts only enrich the myth that older people can't take care of themselves and need special treatment ; and they threaten the creation of a new myth , that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups . Senior citizen discounts are the heart of the very thing older Americans are fighting against-- discrimination by age . What does the author mainly argue in the passage ?
Senior citizens should fight hard against age discrimination The elderly are selfish and taking senior discounts for granted Senior citizen discounts may well be a type of age discrimination Discounts should be given to the economics needs of senior citizens