Thanks to the Elder Index, I
now know that if I were a single adult
over age 65 in good but not excellent
health, renting a one-bedroom apartment
in Essex County, N.J. — where I actually
do live, and where in a few years I will
most likely be that reasonably healthy
old person — I would have to pay $28,200
a year to meet my basic needs.
Very basic. “That doesn’t
include any frills,” said Shawn McMahon,
research manager at Wider Opportunities
for Women, the nonprofit organization
that constructed this national database.
“No entertainment, no travel, no gifts.
No lattes.”
But the tool, available at
basiceconomicsecurity.org, does include
the costs of housing, transportation,
health care (including supplemental
insurance), food and transportation —
all information taken from government
sources.
Housing is the biggest
variable. The index provides estimates
for renters, homeowners with and without
mortgages, individuals and couples,
using data from the federal Department
of Housing and Urban Development and the
Census Bureau. The rest of the numbers
come from the federal Department of
Agriculture, the Highway Administration,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, along with the private insurer
Genworth. The index includes income from
all sources but assumes no public help,
like food stamps or subsidized housing.
(A separate index on the site
measures living costs for working
families.)
The costs of even a basic, but
secure, life vary greatly by region, of
course. I spent some time sighing over
how much less I would need if I were to
rent that one-bedroom apartment in
Austin ($20,748) or in either of the
Portlands, one in Cumberland County, Me.
($25,368), the other in Multnomah
County, Ore. ($23,400).
But New Jersey, according to a
Wider Opportunities analysis, is one of
the states with the widest gap between
elders’ median income and the cost of
that basic-but-secure life. Here, median
income is only 72 percent of the cost
for a single renter, slightly better for
a homeowner who’s paid off her house,
much worse for one who hasn’t yet.
The states with the greatest
gaps are those with high costs of living
or low incomes: Massachusetts, the
District of Columbia, New York,
Mississippi, Maine, Vermont and
Louisiana. In each, the median income is
less than 70 percent of the cost of
living. And of course, by definition,
median means that half the senior
population makes less than the adequate
amount and is in poverty or in danger of
sliding into it.
That, of course, is the reason
Wider Opportunities, which lobbies for
economic security and for the government
programs that help shore it up, went to
the trouble of gathering all this
county-by-county data. (It worked with
the Gerontology Institute at the
University of Massachusetts Boston.) In
every state, the median income remains
insufficient for an older person to live
securely and independently, though
Arizona, Michigan, Utah, Montana and
Alaska come close.
For years, researchers have
protested that the official federal
poverty level is an outmoded statistic
that fails to account for regional
differences, varying medical costs and a
host of other factors. So in November,
the Census Bureau released its
eye-opening Supplemental Poverty
Measure, an updated and broader
assessment that nonetheless is not used
for official purposes, like determining
program eligibility.
Under the old standard, 9
percent of the over-65 population lives
in poverty. The supplemental measure
hikes that estimate to nearly 16
percent. Yet the Elder Index shows how
many more older adults balance on the
brink, even if they’re not officially
poor.
Mr. McMahon and his team will
continue to use this database to analyze
older Americans’ financial situations.
Next up: reports on the effects of
gender and race. I’ll pass some of these
along.
Meanwhile, I’m looking
hard at Saginaw, Mich.
