SOCIAL SECURITY AND WOMEN RETIRING POOR IN AMERICA

This is a post I have wanted to write for a long time, but it is difficult for me because it is very personal. Healthy Habits For A Happier Life will return next week.

My Story

If you have read my blog for a while you know that I am a former counselor, but what you may not know is that I was a stay-at-home mom for much of my adult life. 

Like many women, I chose to devote my time to raising my children. 

It was what I had always wanted to do and I don't regret a moment of that, but what I didn't know is what would happen to me when my husband became seriously mentally ill and how it would eventually affect me.

In my mid-forties, I went back to school completed my last two years of college and did three years of graduate school in counseling psychology. 

I worked for several years, but I found out it wasn't enough. When I reached the age of 62 I took social security because I had crippling knee pain. I had both of my knees replaced, but found that ageism is alive and well and I was unemployable. 

Here is what I discovered about Social Security and why I was left living in poverty. 

How Social Security Is Figured

Social Security is based on your lifetime earnings. Your actual earnings are adjusted or “indexed” to account for changes in average wages since the year the earnings were received. Then Social Security calculates your average indexed monthly earnings during the 35 years in which you earned the most.

This is where the problem arises for women who spent much of their adult lives being caretakers for their children and then often of their elderly parents. 

Being Out Of The Workforce

Being a caregiver is not seen as work by our government. Stay at home caregivers are basically free labor. (The government loves that. Free labor means no Social Security.)

For example, if a woman spends 25 years of her life working in her home, where she is unpaid, those years are indexed as zero income. They are then averaged with the ten years she worked outside the home. 

For women, like myself, who are no longer in a stable marriage, those years of taking care of a family leave them living in poverty. 

Women should not have to sit around like the grim reaper, waiting for ex husbands to die in order to have enough money to survive.

Social Security Raises

The big talk this year is about the big increase that is expected for Social Security in 2022. They are estimating 6%. Here is what that means. For someone who is making $2500 a year in Social Security that raise will mean an extra $150. For a woman who makes $800 a year in Social Security that raise will be $48.

Out of that raise, there is usually an increase in Medicare, and if you are fortunate enough to have gotten into senior subsidized housing (of which there is an extreme shortage and long waitlists) 30% of that raise will go to the government as an increase in your rent. 

There are approximately 30 million women over the age of 60 in this country and approximately 17.3% of them are living in poverty. That means that over 5 million older women in this country are living in poverty.

These women have to make decisions on whether to eat or pay for their medications.

As you can see it is not a small problem and it is one that needs to be addressed. We need Social Security reform.

I try to do my part by making phone calls to government officials, but I am just one person.

My Continuing Story 

I am fortunate to have received a small inheritance from my mother which gives me a little cushion for emergencies, but every day is a worry. 

Will my ten-year-old car with 128,000 miles on it break down? How will I pay for the oral surgery I had last week? How can I help my seriously ill daughter who relies on disability? How long will that money last? My family is long-lived and I will need to stretch it out. 

I am also fortunate that I am healthy enough both physically and mentally to be able to learn new things that will hopefully keep me going financially.

This is why I sell on Etsy and have become an influencer for LTK and Amazon. I would love to retire and spend my days reading, gardening, and traveling, but those are luxuries I can't afford.

It is why I have to work to build my income, and why I am going to add a Saturday Shopping post to my blog. I frankly need the income to survive. 

I am not alone. There are millions of us. If you know an older woman who is struggling I hope that you will reach out a helping hand to them. 

Thanks for reading my very long post today. 

Until we meet again join me on Pinterest, Instagram, LTK, and Etsy.

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