'Close to the line': why more older people are living in poverty

Benefits provided earlier in the coronavirus pandemic have been canceled. But many older Americans are not taking advantage of the help that is still available.

It has never been easy for Mary Cole to provide for herself and her family. 19-year-old grandson who lives with her in Bristol, Virginia, with his monthly Supplemental Security Income check of $914.

But it's becoming increasingly more difficult. “I had a lot of difficulty,” Ms. Cole said.

Because benefits advisors at her local Agency on Aging helped her apply several types of public assistance, she pays only $158 in rent for her apartment located in a subsidized Section 8 building.

A federal program helps Ms. Cole , 69 years old, to pay his heating costs. The state pays its Medicare premiums, and a Medicare savings program allows it to fill prescriptions for heart disease, hypertension, lung disease and diabetes.

But profits that rose in the early years of the coronavirus pandemic have been rolled back since the federal government ended the public health emergency this year. Ms. Cole's heating assistance went from $900 in 2021 to $600 last year.

Her benefits through SNAP - the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , or food stamps — had increased to $351 a year. month; they have since dropped to $140 per month. “It’s not going to feed us both,” she said. She has long spent the federal stimulus checks mailed in 2020 and 2021.

The last week of the month, she often runs out of money and plans to go to a nearby restaurant. pantry. “I don’t like doing that,” Ms. Cole said. “I think I'm taking something away from other people.”

Poverty among older Americans increased sharply in 2022, the Census Bureau recently announced. Using the supplemental measure of poverty, which economists say more accurately reflects income and spending than the official poverty rate, the proportion of people over 65 living in poverty fell from a modern low from 9.5 percent in 2020 to 10.7 percent in 2021.

Last year, this figure reached 14.1%, representing more than eight million older Americans.

“It’s pretty alarming,” said Ramsey Alwin, president and CEO of the National Council on Aging. “This is truly unacceptable.” Child poverty has also increased sharply and median household income has declined.

In southwest Virginia, where the District Three Government Cooperative provides senior services and has helped more than 3,000 low-income people. Residents like Ms. Cole are applying for benefits this fiscal year, with 20 percent of elderly residents living in poverty.

“We are seeing an increase,” Debbie Spencer said , director of services for the elderly and people with disabilities at the cooperative. She described customers “trying to decide whether to eat, buy fuel or buy their medicine.”

How poor are we? The supplemental measure defined poverty last year as annual income below $15,998 for single adult renters ($22,624 for a two-adult household), with regional variations; the threshold was somewhat lower for homeowners, whether or not they had a mortgage.

Older black, Hispanic, and indigenous Americans have lower poverty rates. students ; women and those who are not married as well.

The Seniors Index, designed by gerontologists at the University of Massachusetts Boston, also calculates the amount of money that older people need to meet their needs. their basic needs. In the Chicago metro area, for example, according to the calculator, a healthy single renter over age 65 needed $2,481 a month last year for housing, health care, food, transportation and other expenses.

The same tenant in Bristol, Virginia – Ms. Cole's hometown – needed $1,794. To scale national, the