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Incentivizing individuals—in this case men—to make slight changes saved millions of dollars in the janitorial budget. This approach, known as “better design” or “choice architecture” came into vogue when social welfare policy took a wide swing into psychology and behavioral finance in the early 2000s. The basic idea—that it’s cheaper to solve large social problems by tweaking public behavior than by changing public policy—is appealing, and it’s seen some success in specific contexts.

Take health care. Many health problems can be solved with lifestyle changes and a second opinion from another doctor. And so, in an attempt to make people healthier with lower costs, employers paid for their employees to access wellness programs and second opinions. But, behavior barely changed. However, when they changed the reward into a penalty for individuals who didn’t participate, many employers saw a surge—up to a 73 percent increase—in wellness programs sign-ups and second opinions.

Now proponents of choice architecture, otherwise known as “nudge economists,” are trying to apply this model to our upcoming retirement crisis. One thousand people are reaching age 65 every day, and at least one-third of Americans have nothing saved. For those who do have retirement accounts, the average amount is about $110,000, which amounts to roughly $250 a month for the rest of their lives. Choice architects are hoping to fill this massive savings gap with auto enrollment pension plans that require individuals to opt-out, rather than have to take the affirmative step to decide and actively opt-in.

However, behavioral nudges alone aren’t enough to solve this issue. Auto enrollment in retirement programs will bring more workers into 401(k) plans, but it likely won’t increase overall retirement savings. What’s more, the nudges to encourage participation are expensive. For example, we currently provide $140 billion worth of tax deductions to incentivize (mostly high paid) employees to voluntarily participate in retirement plans. Given the high cost, it’s troubling that there is little evidence that these deductions actually encourage people to save more—in fact, a tax credit may have a much larger effect on savings.  As a result, this nudge is largely wasted.

What’s worse, focusing on individual behavior in lieu of providing a needed form of social insurance ultimately blames individuals for their lack of retirement savings. Individuals can be blamed for not choosing employers with retirement account plans, for having to take low paying jobs in their late sixties and seventies, and for being poor or near poor in old age.  It is not possible to nudge someone who is encountering these kinds of barriers into saving for retirement.

Instead, we should be looking at large system changes that are designed to meet the needs of all Americans. Just as the Affordable Care Act provides universal health insurance to supplement free clinics and the hospital emergency room, we need universal pensions to supplement Social Security.

The guaranteed retirement plan is a pragmatic solution to ensure that all workers can save enough to retire. The plan creates personal savings accounts for all workers using existing government infrastructure, such as the Social Security Administration account management systems and any large state or federal pension fund system that wants to bid for the job of managing money.

Here’s how it works:  Workers will be required to save 5 percent of their pay in their Guaranteed Retirement Account (GRA). To ease the burden, every worker who contributes to their account will receive a $600 tax credit and households earning up to $40,000 per year—nearly 50 percent of workers—will have their yearly retirement savings fully reimbursed by the government.  Workers would be able to choose how much they will save beyond the minimum, and which manager will invest their money. At retirement the accounts would be paid out as a lifelong retirement security, with annuitized returns that ensure a consistent standard of living for as long as retirees live.

The GRA would be cost-neutral for all Americans earning less than the median salary, because it would draw funding by reducing the regressivity of our current tax system. That starts with closing expensive tax loopholes—such as tax breaks for the highest earners to contribute to retirement plans (which they would contribute to anyway) or mortgages for large houses (which people would live in anyway)—and increasing the tax burden on the wealthiest Americans.

A significant majority of Americans—including those most at risk of retirement insolvency—would benefit from this plan. And, since retirement worries pervade all segments of American society (a stunning 86 percent of Americans believe America faces a retirement crisis), this type of broad change would likely have significant support.

America’s retirement crisis will become a huge political issue if not addressed—and the American people need a real retirement solution, not just a clever new design.

Fortunately, earlier this month at the Center for American Progress, the U.S. Department of Labor announced its final fiduciary rule that would require financial professionals who advise on how to invest retirement savings to act in their clients’ best interest. The fiduciary rule is much more than an obscure legal concept—it’s a commonsense action that closes 40-year-old loopholes in retirement security laws that were left open by Congress. It also returns at least $17 billion a year to American families.

Granted, struggling families are not likely to have access to retirement funds and financial advisers, so some may wonder how this helps low-income Americans. The fact is that faulty advice can leave individuals in poverty when they retire, even if they were able to save for retirement during their working years.

For example, Ruby H. of Philadelphia scrimped for 17 years to put aside $5,000 for retirement, and an adviser helped her grow that amount to $17,000. But when her adviser switched firms, he changed her investments into the ones most advantageous to him, and she lost everything. And Phil Ashburn lost the bulk of his savings after he spent 30 years working for utility companies: first Western Electric in 1972, and finally Pacific Bell. Offered a buyout in 2002, he was recommended to a financial adviser who put the value of his savings—about $355,000—in an expensive variable annuity. However, he ended up with only about 20 percent of those savings following the Great Recession. Meanwhile, the adviser received a commission of roughly 7 percent and ended up making $900,000 that year.

These stories are a painful reminder of why workers face such bleak prospects for retirement. Forty years ago, when the rules on retirement advice were first written, most workers didn’t have to worry about whether they were getting good advice because they weren’t expected to plan for their own retirement. The vast majority of workers with a retirement plan had traditional pensions, which rewarded a lifetime of work with monthly payments for life. There was no need to wade through different investment options and savings strategies. But today, with the erosion of pensions and advent of options that are far less secure, more than half of all working-age households are considered inadequately prepared for retirement, up from 31 percent in 1983.

The rule also reminds us why Social Security is so crucial, particularly in this era of financial uncertainty. Social Security brings the incomes of more than nearly 15 million elderly above the poverty line, cutting senior poverty by three-quarters. And for roughly two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security provides the majority of their retirement income. Future retirees need the assurance that Social Security will be there even if their savings, or their financial adviser, aren’t up to par. Thankfully, as Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) noted during the Department of Labor’s announcement, cutting Social Security is no longer mainstream: “How much should we cut Social Security is such a preposterous proposition except on K Street, except among pundits.”

But while Social Security is safe for now, this fiduciary rule is under attack by some financial firms and their conservative allies. This disagreement isn’t unexpected. As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has pointed out, there are “17 billion reasons” why special interests oppose the rule—that is, the $17 billion returned to the American people. In fact, from the beginning of discussions around the rule, some industry players have called it unworkable, argued that their voices were not heard, or threatened to sue. House Speaker Paul Ryan has also derided the rule, calling it “Obamacare for financial planning” and seeking to undo it. Given that his stated concern for the poor has often been accompanied by policy proposals to make drastic cuts to the safety net, perhaps this is not surprising. But, as the Department of Labor has stepped in to close loopholes of Congress’ own making after decades of improper financial advice, rolling back the fiduciary rule now will only increase retirees’ vulnerability in the coming years.

Some opponents have even gone so far as to claim that the reform will diminish working families’ access to financial advice because some advisers may stop working with less profitable savers if they cannot charge as much. But the fact is that most working families with small amounts of savings are not served by advisers today to begin with, and may have less trust in the advice that’s given in the first place. This same argument about access is a common defense for other predatory products—whether payday loans or for-profit colleges—in which the real question about access is whether companies can keep their access to the vulnerable consumers whom they grift. Meanwhile, new firms are offering independent, nonconflicted advice at a fraction of the cost, proving that it can indeed be done without ripping off current or future retirees.

This rule is a stark reminder for members of Congress to decide which side they are on: that of savers or of special interests. If they stand with Secretary Tom Perez and those who came out in favor of the rule, they have the opportunity to prevent bad financial advice from cheating more families out of their retirement dollars.

Social Security works. No one runs out of benefits, and payments don’t rise and fall with the stock market. Despite scare tactics from Republicans in Congress, the facts are clear. Social Security has a $2.8 trillion surplus. If we do nothing, Social Security will be safe for the next 18 years, and after that will continue to pay three-quarters of benefits through the end of the century.

Of course, we don’t have to sit by and to do nothing. Since its beginning, Social Security has been adjusted from time to time, and that’s what we need to do now. With some modest adjustments, it is possible to keep the system solvent for decades more, even while increasing benefits.

For the millions of Americans who rely on Social Security, the situation got worse this year. For just the third time since 1975, seniors who receive Social Security—along with many who receive veterans’ benefits, Social Security disability benefits, and other monthly payments—aren’t receiving any annual increase from their cost of living adjustment (COLA). CEOs at the top 350 American companies received, on average, a 3.9 percent pay increase last year. But seniors and veterans? Not a dime more.

That’s why a group of us in Congress have introduced the Seniors and Veterans Emergency Benefits Act (SAVE Benefits Act). This bill would give a one-time payment of $581 to those people who aren’t receiving a COLA this year—a raise equal to the 3.9 percent pay increase the top CEOs received.

Social Security payments average only about $1,340 a month—and millions of seniors who rely on those checks are barely scraping by. A $581 increase could cover almost three months of groceries for seniors or a year’s worth of out-of-pocket costs on critical prescription drugs for the average Medicare beneficiary. That $50 a month is worth a heck of a lot to the 70 million Americans who would have just a little more in their pockets as a result of this bill. In fact, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, that little boost could lift more than one million Americans out of poverty.

For too long in Washington, Social Security has been under assault. We’ve heard over and over that we supposedly need to gut the program in order to “save” it. But for the 21 million Americans whose Social Security benefits are the only thing keeping them out of poverty, Social Security isn’t a luxury—it’s a lifeline. The absolute last thing we should do—at the very moment that Social Security has become so essential to millions of our seniors—is to allow the program to be dismantled inch by inch.

This isn’t just an argument about math, though. This is about our values—about how we protect each other, our families, and ourselves. In an uncertain world, protection against long-term disability and a guaranteed income for the families of survivors are core parts of the anti-poverty safety net that our Social Security system provides. And, equally important, after a lifetime of hard work, people deserve to retire with dignity—and that means protecting and expanding Social Security.

The picture is even more sobering for seniors and people of color. People of color account for 41 percent of the 55 million people without retirement accounts. On top of that, they are more likely to live in poverty as both working-age adults and seniors. Without money to draw on from their retirement (African-American and Latino  families have, on average, zero in liquid retirement savings), they are far more susceptible to the ills of senior poverty, which can include everything from multiple chronic conditions to heightened mortality rates and food insecurity.

Fortunately, there is some good news on the retirement security front. The Department of Labor recently released a set of proposed rules that, if adopted, would make it possible to help millions of low-wage workers build up a retirement nest egg. These rules pave the way for states to adopt retirement programs that automatically enroll all workers into individual retirement accounts (IRAs).

How will automatic retirement savings help? Well, one big reason low-wage workers have lower savings is that their employers are less likely to offer any sort of retirement plan. Indeed, workplace access to retirement plans has declined by almost 20 percent since the turn of the century as employers have sought new ways to cut costs. At the same time, evidence routinely shows that when plans are offered, many workers take advantage of them—particularly when employers automatically enroll their workers. Studies indicate that participation rates can reach 90 percent with automatic programs, creating a huge vehicle for protecting and growing workers’ savings.

Inspired by these trends, California, Oregon, and Illinois have developed state-sponsored proposals over the past few years that would establish automatic savings plans for workers in their states. However, these programs will only be effective if they pass federal muster by incorporating certain protection mechanisms—and the proposed rules allow just that.

The recent DOL action allows states to implement these important programs. As David Mitchell and Jeremy Smith of the Aspen Institute recently wrote, the new rule proposed by DOL would “give states new options for expanding coverage while at the same time reducing the burden on employers.”

This important development for retirement security deserves high praise, which is why members of the Tax Alliance for Economic Mobility submitted a letter to the DOL yesterday that strongly supports the proposed rules. The Tax Alliance, co-chaired by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) and PolicyLink, is a national coalition of advocates, researchers, and experts focused on reforming tax programs that do not work for low-income households and communities of color.

These state auto-IRA programs won’t completely fix the retirement crisis, but they will allow more low-income workers to access benefits normally reserved for the rich. Currently, the bottom 60 percent of earners are lucky to receive $200 in federal retirement tax benefits, while the top one percent receive approximately $13,000 from these same programs. But as the signers of the Tax Alliance letter wrote, the proposed rules are a “major step toward expanded retirement security options for low- and moderate-income workers.”

While low-wage workers in California, Oregon, and Illinois have reason to be optimistic, excitement should spread far beyond the handful of states that have already developed these auto-IRA programs. This action by DOL will encourage more and more states to design retirement programs that work for their citizens. And while masses of savings won’t accrue overnight, these state programs can begin to chip away at the racial wealth divide and retirement crisis facing over 100 million people living in or near poverty.

My mother had Martha Stewart on her mind too. Not realizing that Martha had actually gone to trial and lost, she said, “Martha Stewart pled guilty and went to prison for six months. Why don’t you plead guilty, go to prison, and get this nightmare over with. You can’t beat city hall.” My mother also used my love of watching 24/7 TV news in her efforts to persuade me. She said, “At least you will get cable TV in prison. I didn’t get that in Auschwitz.” I had no words.

Ultimately, my mother was right: I couldn’t beat the government’s charges of tax evasion and mail fraud, even though I was innocent. And so, eight years after Martha went to prison, my case went to trial and I was convicted. But from the moment I entered Alderson, I realized it was no country club. After being fingerprinted and having my mug shot taken, I was given “newbie” clothes, that is, the clothes inmates wear for the first day only. The slip-on sneakers were two sizes too large; the bra had as little material as a G-string and didn’t hold my breasts in place. The oversized outfit could have fit two women.

After this initial intake, I waited with three other new arrivals in a freezing cell in the Receiving and Discharge (R & D) building. We got the prison bag lunch of a bologna sandwich, cookies, an apple, and a water. When we missed dinner, we got another bag of bologna sandwiches.

Soon after our arrival, R & D officers gave each of us a large laundry bag which contained a blanket, two sheets, soap, shampoo, a comb, a toothbrush, and, most importantly, “Maximum Security” deodorant.

The R & D building was separated from the sleeping quarters (the “units”) by a long stretch known as “Hallelujah Hill.” For some, this nickname was a reference to its proximity to the prison chapel, but for the older crowd, making it to the top merited a shout of “Hallelujah.” During my first trek to the Admissions and Orientation (A & O) units, I was forced to stop several times to catch my breath while carrying the heavy laundry bag. I lagged far behind the younger women.

During my first two weeks in prison, I went through orientation with thirty other women. Correctional officers showed us a film on the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and emphasized there was to be no lesbian sex. I understood that to mean lesbian sex was the only kind of sex that merited punishment, as opposed to some of the contractors’ well-known proclivity for sexually abusing prisoners. They also lectured us on the rules of the compound, the different facilities, and told us we had to work.

In Alderson, everyone was required to work in the kitchen for their first 90 days. That is, everyone but Martha Stewart, who requested but was denied kitchen duty. I suspect she was refused because this chore might have given her an inkling of pleasure within the miserable prison environment. She was instead assigned instead to the humiliating task of mopping the floors and cleaning the toilets of the warden and other higher-ups.

My first job at the Alderson kitchen was cleaning floors after the lunch and dinner shift. Although I worked seven or eight hours a day, I earned only $5.25 during my first month. There were also few accommodations based on age—elderly women were given the exact same jobs as younger women; even older women who could barely walk had to endure the long work hours. And after our work was done, we were not permitted to go back to the unit between lunch and dinner. We were not allowed to read, do crossword puzzles, knit, play cards, or sleep. Instead, everyone had to spend long hours in plastic seats attached to the table. As an older woman, this took a real toll on me physically.

After my days of kitchen duty were up, I got transferred to the landscaping department, which meant that, at the age of 60, I was charged with the backbreaking work of mowing the lawns in the hot summer and shoveling snow in the winter. Once, I was assigned a heavy 1950s-style lawnmower but could not get it started without assistance. When I went to push it, I couldn’t even move it an inch.

After I went to landscaper and asked for a different assignment, he gave me a broom and instructed me to sweep the streets. I cleaned the road of rocks but quickly realized that the area would be filled again as soon as a truck came by. And so, I asked the officer if I could remove the stones and put them far from the road. He replied, “But then you would have nothing to do.”

At an age where working a physically demanding job for seven- and eight-hour days was grueling, I served as the Sisyphus of Alderson, sweeping rocks off the streets only to see my work undone by passing vehicles. My experience is far from unique. While there are 75,000 prisoners over the age of 60 that are under the jurisdiction of correctional authorities, accommodations that take into account the reality of aging behind bars are all too rare.

What I’ve come to realize is that although older people do commit crimes that warrant punishment, there are few reasons, public safety or otherwise, to incarcerate elders. Certainly, any basis for incarceration is outweighed by the negative consequences we experience behind bars. Instead, we need alternatives to incarceration that acknowledge that older people are too vulnerable a population to be held in our prisons and jails.

As for Martha Stewart, well, Martha was lucky. She went home to a billion dollar company. But as for me, I’m homeless, broke, and living proof that Alderson is no “Camp Cupcake.”

However, when it comes to an increasing population of low-to-no-income seniors, many preventative measures come too late.  Education and retraining initiatives, savings plans, and job creation programs won’t help someone in her 70s or 80s who is struggling just to cover room and board after a lifetime of low-wage labor.

But it’s not too late to protect the rights of seniors to a basic living.

For this growing demographic of aging poor, we cannot hold up our hands and say we should have helped them 50 years ago, or helped their parents a century ago. We must, and we can, take action.  By updating the federal safety-net programs we already have in place, we can move towards an economically stable future for people as they age.

Here is a 5-step plan to fight senior poverty:

Strengthen the existing safety net. Senior poverty would be much worse without Social Security, the Supplemental Security Income program, and Medicare and Medicaid. These programs are almost single-handedly responsible for reducing the official measure of senior poverty from 35 percent in 1960 to 9 percent today. But seniors today are rapidly losing ground. Proposals to cut Social Security benefits, increase Medicare cost-sharing for beneficiaries, or limit Medicaid coverage should all be rejected. Instead lawmakers must advance proposals to ensure that these benefits meet the growing need.

Improve the Supplemental Security Income program. The poorest two million people over age 65 receive SSI payments, but the rate of seniors in extreme poverty is increasing in part because this program — originally intended to lift all seniors out of poverty — has not been significantly updated since it was first passed in 1972. As a result, SSI essentially still leaves millions of the country’s most needy seniors in poverty. The maximum federal benefit for an individual is $721 per month (though some states kick-in a small supplement), but to be eligible a senior must have less than $2,000 in savings. In addition to the limit on savings, the SSI income disregard limits the amount of income someone can have from another source, such as from a pension or Social Security benefit, and still receive SSI. But the current SSI income disregard allows for only $20 of additional general income or $65 of earned income before there is a reduction in benefits. Updating the SSI income disregard would mean just a little more money for people for whom every dollar counts. The Supplemental Security Restoration Income Act, poised for reintroduction in Congress this spring, offers an opportunity to modernize the program.

Increase the availability of programs that provide assistance with healthcare and long-term care costs. One of the drivers of seniors’ economic vulnerability is the rising cost of health care. Proposals that would shift more of those costs to seniors will only drive more seniors into poverty. Instead, the health care programs that are designed to help the poorest seniors afford their health care – Medicaid, Medicare Savings Programs, and the Medicare Part D Low-Income Subsidy – should be expanded, and out-of-pocket costs should be reduced or eliminated.

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Push for federal support for the long-term care safety net. With 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, the number of people needing long-term care coverage is projected to rise from 12 million today to 27 million in 2050. Few seniors are prepared to pay for the costs of long-term care. For poor and economically vulnerable seniors, proposals that rely on them to save more of their already inadequate incomes in order to cover these costs are simply unrealistic. Public programs must be strengthened and modified to meet long-term care needs and to encourage the provision of more home- and community- based services.

Reauthorize the Older Americans Act (OAA). The OAA provides funding for critical services that seniors rely on to remain independent and healthy. Services include meals, benefit counseling, caregiver support, transportation, health promotion, legal services, and more. While these services are not always limited to poor older adults, seniors in poverty rely on them heavily to make ends meet and to ensure that their basic needs are met. It is time for Congress to renew its commitment to providing seniors with essential social services by reauthorizing the Older Americans Act.

We have done a great job reducing senior poverty in our nation. The next steps we must take are clear, and millions of seniors are relying on us to do the right thing and take action now.

Still, one in ten is far too high. Moreover, despite the passage of landmark civil rights and equal pay legislation in the 1960s, substantial gender, racial and ethnic gaps remain among older Americans living below the poverty line. As the accompanying graphic shows, older adult women are generally at a considerably greater risk of living in poverty than elderly men. Elder white, non-Latino women are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty as white men.

Click on the chart to see an expanded version

Click on the chart to see an expanded version

Similarly, older adult blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans all have much higher poverty rates than white, non-Hispanic elders. The gap is greatest for older Latinos, who are nearly three times as likely to live in poverty as older white, non-Latinos.

There are also significant gaps by race and ethnicity in retirement savings and wealth. Gaps in wealthy by race and ethnicity are much larger than the income gaps. Researchers at the Urban Institute have documented that among today’s seniors, the average family wealthy wealth for white, non-Hispanics is roughly ten times that of blacks and Latinos.

Why do these gaps exist? To a large extent, they reflect policy-driven disparities in the labor market experiences and living standards of elders during their working lives. Compared to white workers, Hispanic and black workers are much more likely to earn poverty-level wages and lack health insurance, retirement and other employer benefits. Even today, women working full-time make only 78 cents for every dollar men earn working full-time earn. While this gender wage narrowed considerably in the 1980s and 1990s, it has improved little over the past decade. By and large, gender and racial gaps in wages are not explained by differences in education, for both African Americans and women, the gaps exist among those with similar levels of education

The case of Evelyn Coke, who sued to reverse a loophole in federal labor regulations that exempted home-care agencies from having to pay overtime, provides a stark example of policy-driven disparities can have a disproportionate effect on women and people of color. Coke, a mother of five who died recently at age 74, worked as a home health care aide for decades after immigrating to the United States from Jamaica. Despite regularly working more than 40 hours per week, Coke’s wages remained very low, about $7 an hour, and she received neither overtime pay nor health benefits.

Like Coke, home care workers—and many other workers in care-related jobs that pay low wages and provided limited or no benefits—are disproportionately women and people of color. Last year the Department of Labor extended minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers who had previously been excluded, but the home care industry has mounted a federal court challenge to the fair pay requirement.

Beyond modest steps like this, broader disparities in pay and benefits mostly remain unaddressed. These disparities mean women and people of color have less money, if any, socked away at retirement. And, because retirees’ initial Social Security benefit levels are set based on their average earnings, there are disparities in the benefits they receive. For example, both women and people of color are overrepresented among the 1 in 5 Social Security beneficiaries—who receive sub-poverty benefits when they retire.

In addition to wage gaps, time spent caring for children or other family members contribute to these gaps. Caregivers don’t receive any credit from Social Security for the unpaid caregiving they provide, making them more likely to not be eligible at all or have lower benefits. As Sara Moore, an 80-year Chicagoan provided years of care to a disabled father and other family members put it, “I put my family first, but all my years of caregiving amounted to zero wages and zero contributions toward Social Security. [Now] I receive less than $1,000 a month in Social Security benefits which is barely enough for me to survive.”

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Greater longevity also increases women’s poverty risk because health-related expenses increase over time, and the likelihood of losing one’s partner increases. As a consequence, in 2013, there were more women age 75 and up living in poverty (nearly 1.5 million) than there were elderly men of any age below the poverty line.

So what can we do to close these gaps? First, we need to boost wages and benefits for poorly compensated workers, including by increasing the minimum wage and equal pay for women. Higher, fairer wages would mean a better retirement for today’s poorly compensated workers. Second, Social Security should be strengthened in ways that improve coverage and benefit adequacy for workers who are poorly compensated, including by increasing the minimum benefit and providing at least some credit for unpaid care work

Finally, we need to modernize and improve means-tested programs that supplement Social Security (or provide the only income) for elderly people living in poverty, including Supplemental Security Income, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program and housing assistance.

In particular, federal policymakers need to reform Supplemental Security’s woefully outdated rules that strictly limit the amount of income and assets that seniors receiving benefits can have. For example, in SSI, a very low-income senior living alone is ineligible for help if they have more than $2,000 in assets, an amount that has barely budged since the SSI was created in the early 1970s.

In short, addressing the gender and racial gaps in elderly poverty requires concerted action on multiple fronts. This may seem like a lot, but when you consider the consequences—millions of elderly Americans who have little to show for years of hard work—it’s the least we can do.

Originally published in Aging Today, January –February 2015. Copyright © 2015 American Society on Aging; all rights reserved. This article may not be duplicated, reprinted or distributed in any form without written permission from the publisher: American Society on Aging, 575 Market St., Suite 2100, San Francisco, CA 94105-2869; e-mail: info@asaging.org. For information about ASA’s publications visit www.asaging.org/publications. For information about ASA membership visit www.asaging.org/join.

It should therefore come as no surprise that 1 in 5 women over age 65 who lives alone in America is living in poverty.  Yet it isn’t even on the political or media radar. I’m talking about women who must make daily choices between heat and medicine—who consider suicide on a regular basis, like the women in this video.

Sandy, Myrtle, Lidia, and Dolly agreed to share the struggles they face in their daily lives in the hope that if enough people learned the truth and spoke out about it, politicians would be forced to listen and to act on behalf of low-income seniors by preserving and expanding the programs that help these women survive – Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and the Supplemental Security Income program.

The life events that led these women to their current situations could happen to many women we know. They are not unusual, just everyday misfortunes and disappointments—magnified by age and economic vulnerability.

Like many poor Native American women of her generation, Dollie received only limited formal education. She came to California from Oklahoma with her family as a child and had to quit school and go to work when her father became ill. Her lack of formal education led to a lifetime of low-wage, physically demanding jobs that made saving impossible. Because many of those jobs were “off-the-books” she didn’t build the work history necessary to qualify for Social Security. She now relies on her monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit of $877 to survive.

Sandy had a good job as a registered nurse, and a middle class standard of living. She lost her husband and her ability to work her physically demanding job around the same time, leaving her with no income. Because she had a good job, she receives just enough Social Security to be disqualified from means based assistance like Medicaid and subsidized housing.  As a result she spends a large percentage of her monthly income on rent, leaving little money to cover food or her Medicare copayments and premiums.

Lidia came to the U.S. from Cuba as a child. For 20 years she ran her own barbershop business, while she raised a family, bought a home, worked hard, and thrived. She became too ill to cut hair about the same time as the housing market collapsed. She lost her home and unknowingly signed away her rights to her ex-husband’s police pension, depriving herself of around $1,800 per month in benefits. Today she lives in subsidized senior housing, struggles to afford food, and tries to avoid relying too much on her children for help.

Myrtle had a good job and a big plan for travel when she retired. Then she got injured at the workplace and had to go on disability.  Her husband then divorced her. She managed to keep her home, but she struggles daily with medical and other expenses on her limited Social Security Income benefit.

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These women and growing numbers of others like them have nothing to rely on but the limited and increasingly threatened social safety net programs—like Medicaid and SSI. We all need to fight hard to preserve and expand these programs—especially with a new Congress that appears committed to reducing the assistance these programs provide.

The solutions to senior poverty are well within our grasp. As a country we have the ability to ensure that every senior has access to a safe place to live, healthy food to eat, and affordable, accessible medical care—in essence the right to age in dignity. The first step is to highlight the problem by sharing the stories of those who are suffering, then we can fight hard to preserve and expand the services they rely on to survive. Please start by sharing this blog and video.

A total of 6.4 million people age 65 and over (15 percent of all people 65 and over) are living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Supplemental Poverty Measure. That’s 6.4 million of our mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, and grandfathers who struggle daily to afford food and rent, to access needed health care and long-term services and supports, to remain connected to their families and their communities.

Older women of color are especially impacted by poverty. Twice as many women as men live in poverty and the numbers of women living in extreme poverty has increased by 20 percent since 2011.  Under the official poverty rate (which actually undercounts poverty’s impact on the nation’s seniors), over 20 percent of black and Hispanic older women live in poverty.

As has been widely reported, the demographics of our country are changing.  Every day 10,000 people in America turn 65.  By 2030 there will be 72 million seniors living in America.  If the current poverty rate of 15 percent among this group holds, there will be more than 11 million seniors living in poverty just 16 years from now.

Unfortunately, in the future, poverty rates among seniors may actually be higher for a number of reasons.

A Changed Economy

In the last 30 years, wages have stagnated.  Saving has become more difficult for working Americans.  Company-paid pensions are being phased out for most workers and there is nothing to replace them. The impact of these changes on families and working-age individuals is serious and it will only increase as they reach retirement.  Also, having a lower-income during working years means a decreased ability to save and, ultimately, less support and fewer resources later in life.

An Economic Recovery That Didn’t Reach Many

The recent recession created an additional set of problems for seniors and near seniors. For example, because of the housing crisis, many people aged 50 to 65 lost equity in their homes. People in this age group also are among the most likely to have lost a job and had trouble finding a new one. They may have had to live off of whatever savings or retirement funds they had while they were unemployed. Facing economic struggles, they were more likely to take Social Security benefits early, which decreases the value of their benefits over time.

The rising costs of health care present a serious financial challenge to retirees who have little retirement income or savings. Add to that the fact that at least 70 percent of seniors will require some type of long-term services and supports in their lifetime and few have the ability to afford it, and it’s clear that a senior poverty crisis is imminent.

What Kind of Society Do De Want to Live in?

Before Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were adopted, the poverty rate among seniors in our country neared 40 percent.  Returning to those levels of poverty among the oldest members of our communities would be catastrophic for seniors, families, and the economy.

But that’s exactly where we might be headed if we adopt the narrative of cable news shows, budget-cutting lawmakers, and television commercials that suggest American seniors are doing just fine. Instead we must educate our friends, families, colleagues, and policymakers.  We need them to know that a growing number of seniors are facing an economically insecure future—and that cutting programs like Social Security, SSI, Medicare, and Medicaid will only exacerbate the problem.

So now you know: senior poverty is a real and growing problem in America. If you want to live in a society in which people can age in dignity and no senior has to decide between food and the medicine they need, let’s start talking about senior poverty. Help build the momentum necessary to preserve and expand access to health care, long-term services and support, social services, and economic security programs for the millions of low-income seniors who struggle among us.

Caregivers like Sara should not have to sacrifice dignity in their own retirement to take care of family – be it an aging parent, a child, or a relative with disabilities.

Today, New York Congresswoman Nita Lowey is introducing a bill in Congress that would address this injustice.  Groups across the country like the Center for Community Change Action, the National Council of Women’s Organizations, and others, are rallying around the bill which would provide an earnings credit in the Social Security benefit calculation while an individual is caring for a child under a certain age, a disabled family member, or a senior in need of care.

Tonight you can hear from Rep. Lowey and others about this important issue by joining a teletown hall that starts at 7:30pm ET.

Family comes first – whether it’s your aging Mom who gets more opinionated every day or the newborn you swear already smiles, providing for your family is not negotiable.  When it becomes necessary to stay home and care for someone then our Social Security system should honor family by taking into account some of that lost time from the paid work force.

We are long overdue to recognize the largely female workforce of caregivers for the time, energy and effort required to care for loved ones outside of the paid workforce.  The hidden cost of caregiving is in the impact it has on working families who have to struggle to survive without a wage.  Millions of Americans like Sara Moore are doing the essential work of caregiving, and that number is growing. A caregiver credit is about honoring the time, effort and love that people put towards caregiving as work.  As more and more people in our country step up to do right by family as caregivers, it’s only right that their work be recognized in our Social Security system through a caregiver credit.

Even in a fractured Congress, Rep. Lowey’s bill should be something that garners supporters from both sides of the aisle.  Every one of us knows someone who has sacrificed to care for a loved one.  It’s time to truly honor those caregivers by lifting up women’s issues, expanding Social Security… and sponsoring Rep. Lowey’s bill.

UPDATE: Click to listen to Representative Lowey’s tele-town hall on this topic.