Women and Social Security

This week I attended a webinar sponsored by the National Women’s Law Center on women and Social Security which reiterated the importance of Social Security for elder women.
Here are some important facts shared on the webinar:

• As a widow, you can choose to take your widow benefit (as a result of your deceased spouse) or your own worker’s benefit first. By waiting to claim benefits until full retirement age, a high earning spouse will provide a large Social Security benefit to the surviving spouse.



• If your marriage lasted for 10 years and you are currently divorced, you get the same benefits as a current spouse or widow and do not have to wait until your ex-husband applies to receive his benefit, as long as both of you are 62 and have been divorced for at least two years.

Older women in retirement struggle to make ends meet, and older minority women are more likely to have a tough time in retirement. Social Security is the sole source of income for one in five elders, and women are almost twice as likely to live in poverty as a man in their older years. Check out WOW’s Single Elder Women’s fact sheet for more information on how vital Social Security is for so many elder women. Social Security alone is not enough, but without it some elder women would have nothing to support themselves.

Quality Long-term Care Allows Elders to Age in Place

This week, Kristen, the Elder Economic Security Initiative intern, continues the discussion around family care giving by spotlighting a new book on the issue.

The percentage of Americans over age 65 has tripled during the 21st century, but support and funding for this group has not kept pace. The book When the Time Comes: Families with Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions, by Paula Span, sheds light on this population by telling stories of adult children grappling with the difficult decisions surrounding their parents’ long-term care.

The book gives personal perspectives on long-term care, including home care and facilities. It offers insight for each choice and exposes the emotional and financial burdens that many incur during this transition.

Although the book goes into detail about the struggles that adult children, most often daughters, face when choosing long-term care, Span and others believe that its overall message is hopeful.“If you get depressed about the way things are going in the world, just look at the people caring for their family members… there’s nothing they won’t do!” commented David Ekerdt, director of the Gerontology Center at the University of Kansas.

Caring for a family member, however, should not necessitate financial struggles.

Because the majority of seniors wish to age in their communities, the Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index (Elder Index) illustrates the cost of home and community-based long-term care, and the findings show these expenses can be quite burdensome. For instance, the Minnesota Elder Index shows that home and community-based long-term care can range from $7,262 to $43,798 per year. These costs are in addition to elders’ monthly expenses for basic needs, which can double or triple their total expenses.

On average, Medicaid dollars can support about three older people with home and community-based services (HCBS) for every one person in a nursing home, according to AARP. Adjusting the Medicaid support for HCBS versus institutions can help ensure that more elders can afford to age in their communities. This is an important and growing population that deserves to age with dignity, and spreading information about long-term care could help start a dialogue for improving their support!

The Role of a Caregiver

Caregivers have a hard time juggling their multiple responsibilities. As the video above demonstrates, they must make decisions on when and where to work, and how to support their needs, as well as those of their elder relatives. Most of these caregivers are women, who struggle to make ends meet. For them, less hours worked means less collected earnings, which over time will accumulate to less money saved, directly affecting their ability to be economically secure in retirement.

The Elder Economic Security Initiative™ works to ensure elders are able to age in place in their communities. The Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index, an Initiative tool, maps out on a county –by- county level what it costs for caregivers to take care of the needs of their elder loved ones (such as food, housing, health care, and transportation) and can be used as a basis for caregiver support though state and federal policy and programs.
The Initiative supports the proposed policy solution, the Elder Caregiver Support and Information Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 519), introduced earlier this year. If signed into law, additional funds would be appropriated to the family caregiver support program.

Make sure you read our featured profile story on a caregiver from Wisconsin who struggled to make ends meet.

We are also interested in hearing your thoughts on the topic. Please comment below.

Feature: Advisory Board Member Martha Holstein

Martha Holstein, an Elder Economic Security Initiative Board Member, from Chicago's Health & Medicine Policy Research Group shares her thoughts on why elder economic security is part of a greater need of solidarity and security across generations.

Divided We Fall: Economic Security and Intergenerational Solidarity

Amidst all the current economic turmoil Social Security and Medicare are there—the only guaranteed source of income one can’t outlive and health care that no one can take away. These guarantees are critical for older people and for their families. If these programs were weakened, needs would have to be met by someone and that someone is most likely one’s sons and daughters. The entire family would lose. We need to think of old age entitlements as family benefits, a contribution to the family commons and absolutely essential to mitigating threats to the health and well-being of the entire family. The family commons implies that we need to share our common goods with each of us not taking more than we need—and sometimes perhaps taking less than we need. Intergeneration solidarity rather than intergenerational equity.

There is another reason to commit to intergenerational solidarity. Research makes it very clear that continuity in life circumstances is prevalent. Rather than these circumstances improving in old age, the older we get the more disadvantaged we become. Known as “cumulative disadvantage” it suggests how powerfully our family’s social and economic status, our education and our related opportunities are not easily overcome. Today, this is particularly unsettling since we know that young men are earning less than their fathers did at the same age. This statistic is apt to worsen as we see the results of the current economic downturn. The foretelling about the future condition of the aged, to be documented in the next generation’s Elder Standard, is a potent reason to act now to make sure that American’s younger families have a better shot at economic security. It is really for all of us!

Long-Term Care and Health Care Reform

Congress is moving forward in discussions around health care reform as the President looks to get a bill passed before the end of the year. This is great news for the 40 million uninsured, and will hopefully be great news for many underinsured elders who need, but cannot afford long-term care (LTC) services. Currently, discussions focus on expanding and improving acute care and insuring universal coverage. Many advocates for elder issues have tried to raise awareness around the need to include long-term care in the discussion.

The Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index (Elder Index) measures the cost of home and community-based long-term care services depending upon an elder’s need. These costs can double or even triple what an elder needs to make ends meet. In New Jersey, long-term care costs range from $6,000 to over $46,000, according to the Elder Index. These high costs are minimal, however, compared to the institutional cost in New Jersey, and give ample evidence of why LTC reform is needed; so more elders can age in place.

Most insured elders rely on Medicare and Medigap which do not cover most long-term care expenses. The only options for elders in poor health are to qualify for Medicaid, pay for LTC insurance out-of-pocket (which becomes more expensive as you age) or rely upon the support of family and friends. The last option at times results in caregivers making sacrifices to their own financial, physical and emotional well-being to take care of a loved one.

Incremental change is possible with the Empowered at Home Act and the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS Act). Of course, overall health care reform should consider the LTC struggles as well. Senator Kennedy’s recent remarks in a Boston Globe Op/Ed on health care reform give many elder advocates hope, “…we'll make it possible for the elderly and disabled to live at home and function independently. Our bill will help them afford to put ramps in their homes, pay someone to check in on them regularly, or any of an array of supports that will enable them to stay in their communities instead of in nursing homes”.

The health care reform debates are the opportune time to address the LTC issue and implement policies that will increase the quality of care while decreasing the medical out-of-pocket expense for elders and we, as advocates, will need to be diligent in voicing our concerns to ensure this happens.

Feature: Pension Rights Center

Thank you to all who participated in our May 1st, "Blog About It: Elder Economic Security" event. It was a great success! This week, we are highlighting one of our blog day co-sponsors, the Pension Rights Center (PRC). The PRC is an organization committed to promoting and protecting elder economic security.

Older Americans Month Posted by Joellen Leavelle

Today, May 1, marks the start of Older Americans Month. What better a day to discuss the retirement security of older Americans? Not so long ago retirement security was thought of as a three-legged stool, consisting of employer-sponsored pensions, personal savings and Social Security. Today the only leg of that stool that remains intact is Social Security.

More and more employers are breaking their pension promises by freezing their traditional pension plans or by suspending their 401(k) matching contributions. And most workers have very little in personal savings.

What remains clear, however, is that we need something more. Take one look at the statistics for older Americans today and you’ll see why. For 2009 the average annual Social Security benefit is $13,383, only slightly more than the federal minimum wage. And, in 2007, half of Americans age 65 and older who had income from financial assets received less than $1,585 a year in income from those assets. Significantly, older Americans with pensions fared much better than those without them. The median annual income of retirees with pensions was $31,227 while the median annual income of retirees living only on Social Security was $16,527.

And for women, the numbers are far worse. According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2007, the median annual income for women age 65 and older was $13,877 compared to $24,142 for men. The Elder Economic Sufficiency Index released by Wider Opportunities for Women shows how elders with low- and modest-incomes are challenged to cover their living costs today, as costs for basic needs are rising much faster than their incomes. That’s why the Pension Rights Center’s Women’s Pension Project is working to make retirement plans fairer to women.

At the same time, something must be done to ensure that the three-legged stool of retirement security is redesigned and rebuilt. That’s why the Center, along with three other organizations, launched Retirement USA, an initiative working toward a new retirement system that, along with Social Security, will provide universal, secure, and adequate income for tomorrow’s older Americans.

This blog entry was written as part of a blog day sponsored by Wider Opportunities for Women.

What's Going on with Social Security?

President Franklin Delano Rosevelt signing into the law the Social Security Act of 1935.

This week, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual report to Congress, affirming that Social Security is sound and in no immediate danger. Rather, the program continues to run large surpluses in spite of the economic downturn. The Trustees project that Social Security will be able to pay full benefits until 2037, four years earlier than the last projection. The report further shows that rapidly rising health care costs threaten Medicare’s solvency as early as 2017, confirming that health care is the crisis, not entitlements. The report has sparked renewed calls for action to address these issues.

Dr. Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research, wrote a commentary piece this week, “Social Security Healthier than Your 401(k)”. The piece focuses on the importance of Social Security and its exceptional functionality in comparison to the private retirement system and is a great realistic argument about plausible minor changes to Social Security to increase its longevity.

For so many elders across the country, Social Security is a steady source of income they can count on. In Minnesota, nearly 20% of elders depend on Social Security as their sole source of income, as cited in the state’s Elder Economic Security Initiative™ policy brief: “Elders Living on the Edge: When Meeting Basic Needs Exceeds Available Income in Minnesota”. In New Jersey, more than 25% of elders receive Social Security as their only source of income, as cited in the New Jersey Policy Brief. Social Security alone is not enough for elders to make ends meet, but without it as income, some elders would have nothing. According to the national Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index, Social Security provides on average about 60% of the income need by a woman to achieve economic security when living mortgage free. With the three legged stool of retirement – Social Security, pension and private savings – dissolving, more and more seniors are relying on Social Security alone in retirement. At WOW, we hope the adequacy of Social Security in retirement to meet basic need can receive equal policy attention as solvency receives.

Social Security is still a bedrock government program that continues to pay out benefits to 35 million retirees and their spouses on time each month. Given the latest news of its solvency will no doubt continue to increase discussion about changing the program sooner rather than later to maintain its effectiveness. As Congress begins deliberating more seriously about the issue, we hope they will take into account the vital role Social Security plays in the lives of elders, and also realize that Social Security alone does not make our elders economically secure.