“How Many Seniors Are Living in Poverty? National and State Estimates Under the Official and Supplemental Poverty Measures in 2016,” by Juliette Cubanski, Kendal Orgera, Anthony Damico, and Tricia Neuman, Kaiser Family Foundation
Quote: “Payments from Social Security and Supplemental Security Income have played a critical role in enhancing economic security and reducing poverty rates among people ages 65 and older. Yet many older adults live on limited incomes and have modest savings. In 2016, half of all people on Medicare had incomes less than $26,200. This analysis provides current data on poverty rates among the 49.3 million seniors in the U.S. in 2016, as context for understanding the implications of potential changes to federal and state programs that help to bolster financial security among older adults.”
LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): We don’t know that SS and SSI have enhanced economic security and reduced poverty rates compared to what would have happened if those programs had not undercut the public’s sense of personal responsibility to save, invest and insure privately against the risk and costs of aging and retirement. Further, what matters is not that half of all Medicare recipients have incomes below $26,500. We have them covered with a wide range of government programs. What matters is how many people are getting those same programs, including Medicaid long-term care benefits, who have incomes far in excess of the median. KFF’s ideological bias is to over-estimate poverty in order to promote ever more government spending on the very programs that have created the problems it is claiming to fix.
#poverty
#seniors
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