Later Career
Cruikshank did not leave the labor movement entirely, however. The year that he retired from the AFL-CIO, he became executive director of the NCSC, the AFL-CIO's retiree organization affiliate and forerunner of the Alliance for Retired Americans. In 1969, he was elected president of NCSC following Aime Forand's retirement.
Cruikshank's wife died in 1967.
In 1969, Cruikshank obtained a position as a visiting professor at the Labor Studies Center at Pennsylvania State University.
From 1971 to 1974, he served as chairman of the American Hospital Association's Citizens Advisory Committee on Health.
Cruikshank retired as NCSC president in 1977 to become President Jimmy Carter's advisor on aging. He was appointed chairman of the Federal Council on Aging. Cruikshank had a rocky tenure as a Carter administration official, often speaking publicly against various administration legislative efforts.
In 1980, Cruikshank left the Carter administration to head up an education and research effort with the organization Save Our Security (SOS). SOS was established in 1979 by Wilbur Cohen, one of the original drafters of the Social Security Act. SOS was a coalition of more than 200 organizations — primarily labor unions and advocacy groups for the disabled and the aged — formed in response to efforts to weaken Social Security. Later, SOS proposed expanding Social Security disability payments and Medicare benefits, and fought to secure benefits for so-called "notch" beneficiaries. Cruikshank directed the Nelson Cruikshank Social Insurance Study Project for SOS. The project developed curricula and educational materials for elementary, secondary and post-secondary students to increase awareness of social insurance.
Concurrently with his role in SOS, Cruikshank served as NCSC's president emeritus.
Cruikshank moved to Philadelphia in 1984. His health began to fail, and he died in a nursing home in 1986.
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