Retirement

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Do older Americans need a different poverty index?

The proportion of America's seniors living in poverty dropped last year to just under 9 percent, a hopeful statistic in an otherwise dismal report on poverty released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Local senior advocates, however, say the numbers mask some of the financial struggles older residents face living in the Bay Area, where the cost of living is high.  "The seniors have it tougher than the regular people," said Richmond senior advocate and retired United Parcel Service worker Fred Jackson, 73. "I always thought that seniors were cheaper, but as you get older, you become more dependent on the services provided."  Some advocates are pushing for a new way of measuring who has the resources needed to make ends meet. The federal poverty line, which the government uses to determine poverty, is the same for everyone in the contiguous 48 states, no matter the local cost of living.  The poverty line is determined by income and family size -- for a single person, being poor means making about $11,000 or less a year. But that amount of money buys more in some states than it does in California, especially in the pricey Bay Area.  An "Elder Index" created by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research finds that East Bay residents over age 65 would need more than $24,000 annually to make ends meet if they are a single renter, and more than that if they are paying a mortgage on their home. Even a single homeowner with the mortgage paid off would need almost $18,000 -- well over the poverty line -- to cover basic necessities while living in the region. And these figures all assume that a senior is in good health.  The problem with the federal poverty threshold is that it is rooted in the cost of food, and ignores the stark geographical and demographic differences in the costs of housing, medical care and transportation, argue researchers with the Oakland-based Insight Center for Community Economic Development, which is pushing for state officials to take the "Elder Index" into account.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_16095316?nclick_check=1

Editor's note:  According to international measures, over 25% of U.S. seniors live in poverty.  

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Early Retirement Boosts Long Term Well Being

 People who retire at or near age 62 receive a welcome but somewhat surprising benefit — a greater relative increase in physical and emotional well-being than those who retire at earlier or later ages, Esteban Calvo of Boston College reported August 15 at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.  Intriguingly, that’s the age at which U.S. citizens become eligible to receive partial Social Security benefits, Calvo noted. Retirements that occur at culturally and institutionally expected ages yield large dividends in well-being, he suggested.  “This isn’t good news for the Social Security Administration,” Calvo said. Officials there would prefer aging baby boomers to pay into Social Security until at least age 67, when full benefits kick in, he noted.  Calvo and his colleagues analyzed survey data from a national sample of 5,395 individuals tracked from their 50s into their late 60s. A majority retired during a narrow window around age 62.

Source:  U.S News and World Reports (August 17, 2010)
Full story:  http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/08/17/retirement-at-62-boosts-well-being.html
 

Thursday, July 15, 2010

STD rates surge among seniors

Seniors need to become better educated on sex as a new study shows the rates of sexually transmitted infections are rising rapidly in people over 50 who are popping erectile dysfunction drugs, according to the executive director of AIDS Moncton.  A recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that the number of people over 50 who are being diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection is rising in an alarming fashion.  Debby Warren, executive director of SIDA/AIDS Moncton, said a lack of education geared to that age demographic is helping to fuel a silent epidemic.  While no one wants to talk about sex in their 50s, Warren said people are aging healthier and taking on new partners after a death or divorce.  Further fuelling the problem, she said, is the increase in popularity of erectile dysfunction medication, such as Viagra.  "Older people are doing it, having sex, and because they don't receive the education and knowledge, while they may not get pregnant, they're certainly opening themselves up to sexually transmitted infections," Warren said.  "And that's starting to be reflected in the data that's being collected, not just in Canada, but the U.K. and in the United States."

Source:  CBC News (July 9, 2010)
Full story:  http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/07/09/nb-seniors-sex-education-stds-558.html

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Cost of Medicare drugs up 9.7% in one year

The price of brand name drugs widely used by Medicare recipients rose an average 9.7 percent over the past year, according to the latest report from AARP, which notes inflation rose only 0.3 percent.  The price increase is the biggest year-over-year jump since AARP began tracking drug prices in 2002.  The average annual cost for a single brand name medicine was about $2,190 in the 12 months that ended the first quarter of this year, AARP found.  The average price of specialty drugs rose 9.2 percent. This includes biologic and injected drugs used to treat cancer, multiple sclerosis and other serious chronic conditions. The average annual cost for a single specialty medication was more than $34,550, AARP said.  Average generic drug prices prices dropped 9.7 percent, the report showed.


Source:  Chicago Sun-Times (May 18, 2010)
Full story:  http://www.suntimes.com/business/currency/2284098,medicare-drugs-price-
increase-051810.article
Read AARP report:  http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/ppi/health-care/i43-watchdog.pdf

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Recession pulls seniors back into workforce

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Work Longer, Stave Off Dementia?

British scientists studied 1,320 people with dementia and looked at their past education, employment and retirement history.  Although there was no link with education or employment, the people who retired later developed dementia later.  It is thought the mental stimulation may help delay the effects of dementia or it may be that people who retire earlier do so for ill health which itself contributes to the development of dementia symptoms.  The study published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry found on average with every extra year of employment the age of onset of Alzheimer's Disease became 0.13 years later.  The Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London study, funded by the Alzheimer's Research Trust.  Prof Simon Lovestone, Scientific Adviser to the Alzheimer's Research Trust and the paper's co-author, said: "The intellectual stimulation that older people gain from the workplace may prevent a decline in mental abilities, thus keeping people above the threshold for dementia for longer. Much more research is needed if we are to understand how to effectively delay, or even prevent, dementia."  Rebecca Wood, Chief Executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, which funded the study, said: "More people than ever retire later in life to avert financial hardship, but there may be a silver lining: lower dementia risk. Much more research into lifestyle factors is needed if we are to whittle down the £17 billion a year that dementia costs our economy."

Source:  Telegraph (18 May 2009)
Full story:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5338518/Later-retirement-may-stave-off-dementia-say-researchers.html