The Slipping Social Security Net:
Senior Citizens Having Trouble Supporting Themselves Financially

Aired November 9, 1999

This is INFOhio After Nine, I am David C. Barnett, welcoming you to a sunny 9th day of November, 1999, but we start things off with a different sort of safety concern, one that may not seem to be as dramatic, but could have dramatic repercussions for many of us. Over the past few years, the U.S. government has refined its system of public assistance for America's working poor. But there is one fast-growing segment of the population that welfare reform has all but ignored: senior citizens. Since 1935, elderly Americans who can't support themselves have relied on Social Security, but in the years to come, that social safety net may not be enough. 90.3's April Baer reports on economics and entitlements for senior citizens.

April Baer–Most discussions of welfare refer almost exclusively to people under the age of 65. Ever since Congress engineered a program of welfare reform in the late 1990s, public entitlements have been extended to a limited segment of the population, specifically families with school-aged children. 96% of Ohioans enrolled in welfare right now are under the age of 40. But increasingly, senior citizens are finding themselves aptly described by the term, "working poor."

Zeth Herell–OK, let me give you the good news first. From the enactment of Social Security, poverty rates among older persons has steadily declined.

AB–Zeth Herell is a professor of social work at Cleveland State University. He says Social Security in some respects succeeded making a difference in seniors' income. Since 1960, the number of older Americans living below the poverty level has been cut more than half. Today, only 10% of older Americans live below what the government calls the poverty level. The problem, Herell says, is that a relatively high percentage of elderly are still unable to support themselves.

ZH–What I hope that we understand from this is that while the absolute poverty figure, the conditions of the elderly, has improved. If you and I look at the absolute income figures, then the picture is not that rosy.

AB–Nearly two-thirds of America's elderly households are getting by on less than $20,000 per year. That means a majority of Americans are leaning heavily on Social Security to stay afloat after retirement. This has sparked worries that the system will be maxed out within the next thirty years. Linda Barrett is with the Greater Cleveland Office of Social Security.

Linda Barrett–Social Security was never intended to be your sole source of income, although that for many people, it's turned out that way, so that's part of the debate right now, because for the average worker, it only replaces 42% of your pre-retirement income, so if you expect to have the same standard of living on only 42% of your income, that's not wise to not invest and to think forward by coming up with other ways that you can support yourself.

AB–The state has been providing a variety of different programs to chip away at the list of expenses that can eat up a monthly Social Security check. There's Medicare and Medicaid for doctor visits, the Heat Energy Assistance Program to ease energy bills, a homestead exemption that cuts down on property taxes, and a pilot service that can help pay for independent care services. But social service agencies know that there's not much they can do for the expanding number of elderly falling in the middle ground, living a few thousand dollars above the poverty level, but too poor to cover all their bills. Strictly speaking, there's no welfare-to-work program that helps seniors when finances grow tight. But during the 1960s, in crafting the Older Americans Act, Congress did begin funding programs that gave older Americans a weapon against poverty, the means to go back to work. Louis Rothstein heads the Senior Community Service Employment Program in Rocky River. He deals daily with seniors who have had to defer their retirement for financial reasons.

Louis Rothstein–Many seniors who have lived through the Depression, the Second World War, and all of the hardships that went through that generation, have been accustomed to living tight, as the saying goes. However, many of them are living on two meals a day. They look at themselves as working poor. The important thing to understand is we have fed into the minds of so many seniors that once you get to be a certain age, you're a has-been. That is the toughest part of our job, is getting people to reassess themselves and understand that getting old doesn't mean that you're over the hill.

AB–Rothstein is intensely optimistic that anyone who wants to can be trained to re-enter the workforce and find income to supplement their Social Security. But not everyone can work a full 40-hour week and a second career, and Rothstein says he's concerned about what will happen to working seniors if America doesn't overhaul its expectations about the economics of retirement. For INFOhio, I'm April Baer in Cleveland.