We cannot take much comfort in the latest census figures on
poverty among older Americans. It is true that the 2008 poverty rate, 9.7
percent among people 65 and older, was unchanged from 2007.
But that 9.7 percent, according to the census tables,
represents about 3.6 million people who are living on $10,326 a year, or
$14,051 for a couple. That probably means Social Security is their only income;
indeed, for half the population over 65, Social Security is the primary source
of income.
Yet, those figures don’t take into full account of the
effects of the prolonged and deepening recession on older people.
As a result of this Great Recession, for example, Medicaid
spending grew by an average of nearly 8 percent across the states so far this
year, the nonprofit Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured reported.
Medicaid is the state-federal program for the poor.
Despite the administration’s new funds to finance Medicaid,
Kaiser says most states have been overwhelmed by new applicants. Yet some 25
economically hard-hit states are tightening restrictions and denying aid to
many who need it. And the elderly have found it more difficult to get long-term
care services at home. The Associated Press reported Oct. 4 that some nursing
homes may close, partly because of lower Medicaid reimbursement rates.
Many of you complained when we disclosed that Social
Security would announce there would be no increase in the Cost of Living
Adjustment next year.
Now it’s official.
But the limited data used for figuring the cost of living
and poverty levels among older people did not square with the real world. As a
result, the National Academy of Sciences has created a new formula based on
more realistic estimates of the cost of living as well as the poverty rate for
Americans 65 and older.
The academy’s estimation of poverty rates for the elderly in
2008 is 18.6 percent, or 6.8 million people, far higher than the Census Bureau
rates.
Robin Talbert, president of the AARP Foundation, which
supports legislation to adopt the academy’s formula, told the AP that the
census does not include the millions of older people on the edge who don’t have
what they need to get by.
Also, the academy puts the overall national poverty rate at
15.3 percent, or 45.7 million Americans, compared to the official 13.2 percent.
Its formula uses not only the costs of food and lodging, but also the unique
needs of older people, such as medical costs, the price of special foods,
transportation to doctors and shopping. Also, people living in large cities
have higher costs than those in less populated areas.
The Census Bureau acknowledges shortcomings in its data, but
it’s doubtful the National Academy of Sciences’ formula will be adopted because
millions more people would qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. Nevertheless,
the Census Bureau’s more conservative findings are abysmal in a nation with a
$14 trillion economy.
The official 2008 poverty rate, 13.2 percent (nearly 40
million Americans), was up from 12.5 percent, or 37.3 million people, in 2007.
The rate for children under 18 was 19 percent, or 14.1 million young people.
Equally abysmal is the poverty rate among blacks: 24.7
percent (9.4 million) and Hispanics, 23.2 percent (11 million).
What this recession amounts to for blacks and Hispanics is
more like a depression. Thousands who had a foot in middle class, according to
writers Barbara Ehrenreich and Dedrick Muhammed in a Sept. 13 New York Times
article, have lost their savings and their homes to foreclosures by mortgage
lenders.
On another front in the census, the bureau reported that the
number of people with health insurance increased from 253.4 million to 255
million, but the number of Americans without coverage rose from 45.7 million to
46 million in 2008.
Partly because the Congress last year increased funding for
the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the number of uninsured children
declined from 8.1 million in 2007 to 7.3 million last year.
Not surprisingly, between 2002 and 2007, the Census Bureau
reported, the real median income declined across the population; white
household incomes declined 2.6 percent to $55,530, blacks, 2.8 percent
($34,281), and Hispanics, 5.6 percent ($37,913). But the census found the rich
were getting much richer.
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, earning more than
$138,000 a year, made 11.4 times the income of those living in poverty, the
highest disparity in years.
According to the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities, new IRS data shows that two-thirds of the nation’s total income
gains from 2002 to 2007 went to the top 1 percent of American households.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
