November 29, 2022

In COVID’s early months, millions of workers’ incomes dried up as the unemployment rate skyrocketed. But older Americans were somewhat shielded from the downturn.

That’s because they either are over 62 and on Social Security or receive federal disability benefits every month at higher rates than young adults. And just like everybody else, they got relief checks from Congress to soften the blow from the pandemic.

Yet, despite the reliability of a government check, older Americans with disabilities suffered from “acute financial insecurity,” according to a new study that seeks to understand why.

During the pandemic, people over the age of 50 with disabilities reported having much more difficulty paying for food than people without a disability. They also showed more signs of financial distress, including missing a payment on a credit card, utility, or medical bill, researcher Zachary Morris found.

But the heart of his analysis of household financial data was confirmation of his suspicion that a loss of income was not the primary reason that financial insecurity increased for people with disabilities during the pandemic.

Much of the strain came from higher spending likely resulting from rising costs for disability-related items such as prescription drugs like insulin, assistive technologies, and personal protective equipment to protect themselves during the stay-at-home orders. A 12 percent increase last year in the cost of home health aides was a prime example that hit people with disabilities particularly hard. …Learn More

Money Culture

November 9, 2021

Social Security’s great achievement for retirees is a guarantee that they’ll get a check every month, without fail. Less appreciated is the stability the program brings to local economies and businesses.

Retirees use their Social Security benefits to patronize establishments that sell goods and services locally such as restaurants, car repair shops, banks, and hospitals. That steady supply of spending in good times and bad helps to stabilize economies, according to research conducted by the Center for Retirement Research and funded by the U.S. Social Security Administration.

Between 2000 and 2018, working-age adults’ employment levels and earnings were less affected by the ups and downs in the state unemployment rate in counties where Social Security provides a higher percentage of residents’ total income.

During the Great Recession, for example, when unemployment rates surged across the country, earnings and employment did not decline as much in counties that were more reliant on the federal retirement benefits.

The researchers’ analysis of U.S. Census data produced similar results when they tested Social Security’s stabilizing effects on specific industries that sell locally. Businesses in several industries – retail and entertainment, healthcare, education, financial services, and other services – had more stable employment and earnings when county residents got a higher percentage of their total income from the program. Manufacturers, which tend to sell their products nationally or internationally, were excluded from the industry analysis.

Social Security’s regularity and reliability set it apart from the countercyclical federal programs that were designed to ease the pain of recessions, such as unemployment benefits or food assistance distributed through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Social Security, the researchers concluded, serves as a valuable “stabilizer for the local economy, above and beyond its direct value to beneficiaries.”

To read this study, authored by Laura Quinby, Robert Siliciano and Gal Wettstein, see “Does Social Security Serve as an Economic Stabilizer?” …Learn More

August 24, 2021

Last year, millions of older Americans went into hiding to protect themselves from the ravages of COVID-19.

Did the isolation take a psychological toll? How did they respond to infrequent contact with friends and family? Researchers in a recent webinar tried to understand the unique phenomenon of loneliness in a modern pandemic.

What we know from the National Poll on Healthy Aging in the early months of the pandemic is that more than half of older workers and retirees between 50 and 80 said they “felt isolated from others” – twice the levels seen in 2018.

In a different survey conducted every two months for most of last year, loneliness was “common and it was incredibly persistent during the first six months of the pandemic,” said Lindsay Kobayashi, a University of Michigan epidemiologist involved in the COVID-19 Coping Study, a survey of adults over age 55.

Two groups in particular suffered rates of loneliness that were twice as high as their peers: older people who live alone and residents of senior communities and nursing homes, where staff often separated the residents or confined them to their rooms in an attempt to protect their health.

A larger share of Black Americans also expressed feelings of loneliness than whites and Hispanics, and women were generally more lonely than men. “I’m very afraid that we are going to get so used to being alone, on our own, by ourselves that we won’t reconnect the way we need to,” a 76-year-old woman told the Coping Study researchers last fall.

But the news isn’t all bad. Feelings of loneliness, especially among the oldest retirees, had subsided a bit as early as November as news reports emerged that the vaccines were effective. Older people also found ways to cope with their isolation, and some even felt the pandemic gave them a renewed sense of purpose, according to a pair of studies in The Gerontologist. …Learn More

Field Work

December 17, 2020

Four out of five retired households will pay little or no income taxes. But the tax rates at the highest income levels are meaningful, averaging 11 percent of household income and as much as 23 percent at the very top.

These estimates come from a new analysis by the Center for Retirement Research that sheds light on a potentially important consideration that is often overlooked by people approaching retirement age.

The highest tax rates are paid by the highest-income households because they often withdraw money from 401(k)s and IRAs to supplement their Social Security benefits. They must also pay capital gains taxes when they sell stocks and bonds for a profit from their regular financial accounts.

Households with income in the top 20 percent have nearly $770,000, on average, in retirement savings and other financial assets – their taxes equal 11 percent of their total retirement income. However, limiting the households to the top 5 percent of the income distribution, the tax rate increases to 16 percent – and the top 1 percent pays 23 percent.

These estimates assume retirees start pulling money out of their taxable 401(k) and IRA accounts when the IRS’ required minimum distributions (RMDs) kick in at age 70 1/2 – this age will increase to 72 next year. The tax rates were very similar under alternate scenarios that assume retirees either start withdrawing savings prior to the RMD or buy an immediate annuity with a survivor’s benefit.

The tax estimates are based on data for older U.S. households with at least one recent retiree. The researchers first calculated their expected future lifetime income from Social Security, 401(k)s and other sources in each year. The future yearly tax payments were then estimated using a program that applies IRS rules and each state’s tax rules to the various types of retirement income.

The tax rates are their total tax bills as a percentage of their total income. …Learn More

June 2, 2020

Medicaid pays for care for six out of 10 nursing home residents.

To reduce the program’s costs, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) encouraged states to expand the care that people over 65 can receive in their homes or through community organizations. The hope was that they would delay or – even better for them – avoid moving into a nursing home if they had easier access to medical and support services.

Many states historically did not use Medicaid funding to pay for home care. The ACA’s Balancing Incentive Payments Program required the 15 states that chose to participate in the reform, including Nevada, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and New York, to increase spending on home and community care to half of their total Medicaid budgets for long-term care. By the end of the program, the states had met their goals of more balanced spending on home care versus nursing home care.

But four years after the reform went into effect in 2011, the states’ nursing home population had not changed, compared with the states that did not expand their services, according to a University of Wisconsin study for the Retirement and Disability Research Consortium. The researchers said one possible reason the reform didn’t reduce nursing home residence was that people who were never candidates for this care were the ones taking advantage of the alternative forms of care.

The analysis did find other unintended consequences of the shift in Medicaid funds to home and community care. First, somewhat more older people moved out of a family member’s house and were able to live on their own.

Second, as more people moved into their own place, costs may have increased for a different federal program: Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for low-income people. The increase had to do with how this program calculates financial assistance. SSI’s monthly benefits are based on an individual’s income. When retirees decide to live on their own, the housing, meals and other supports the family once provided are no longer counted as income. The drop in a retiree’s income means a bigger SSI check.

On the other hand, the Medicaid reform may have financial benefits for caregiving families, the researchers said.

The greater availability of home and community care for seniors – whether they live with family or on their own – frees up time for their family members to earn more money at paying jobs. …
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Behavior

May 2, 2019

More than 10 percent of the nation’s retirees struggle with hunger.

New research offers one explanation: when people retire and give up a regular paycheck, they sometimes adjust to having less income by reducing their food intake.

After retiring, the men in the study ate 17 percent less protein, which becomes more important as people age. Their total calorie intake also dropped 19 percent, and their Vitamin E consumption fell 16 percent, on average, according to researchers at the University of Michigan and University of Delaware. The retirees also cut back on several other nutrients.

This contradicts previous studies, which had failed to uncover a link between diet and retirement income. Skeptical of the findings, the researchers did an exhaustive study that used various types of analyses and several datasets to follow male heads of households from employment through retirement. They controlled for race, education, household size, and health.

They consistently found, across several data sources, that a drop in income reduces food intake. In fact, the effect was so large that it exceeded the impact of another dramatic financial event: unemployment among working-age people.

Although a small minority of seniors are threatened by hunger, it’s a serious problem. …Learn More