单选题：Questions are based on the following passageAge has its priv

Questions are based on the following passageAge has its privileges in AmericaAnd one of the more prominent of them is the senior citizen discountAnyone who has reached a certain age—in some cases as low as 55—is automatically entitled to a dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial lifeEligibility is determined not by one’s need but by the date on one’s birth certificatePractically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses—as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners
People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them；yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent （有支付能力的）Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older AmericansThe practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous （同义的）Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the populationTo be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor, But most of them aren’t
It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companiesFor many firms, they are a stimulus to revenueBut in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger AmericansMoreover, they are a direct irritant in what some politicians and scholars see as 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 oldEmployment is another sore point, Buoyed （支持） by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining 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 formidable 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 othersSenior citizen discounts only enhance 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 groupsSenior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against-discrimination by ageWe learn from the first paragraph that（　　） A．offering senior citizens discounts has become routine commercial practice
B．senior citizen discounts have enabled many old people to live a decent life
C．giving senior citizens discounts has boosted the market for the elderly
D．senior ci