Eighty percent of Americans aged 60 or more years face financial insecurity about paying for long-term care or weathering financial emergencies, according to a report published last week by the National Council on Aging and LeadingAge LTSS Center @ UMass Boston.
“This is a snowballing crisis,” NCOA President and CEO Ramsey Alwin said. “At the same time that 11,000 people are turning 65 every day for the next several years, a growing number of older adults are facing financial stress now and will not be able to afford the care they will need in the future.
According to the analysis, the bottom 20% of Americans aged 60 or more years — with a median income of $18,000 in 2020 — have no assets to carry them through financial hardships. That’s 15 million households.
Approximately half (49.6%) of the 60-and-older cohort have an average income that is less than what they need to cover their basic needs, as calculated by the Elder Index. That’s about 27 million American households.
“These findings certainly show that despite gains in income, many millions of older adults continue to live on the edge,” said Marc Cohen, PhD, co-author of the report and co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @ UMass Boston. “This reality highlights just how important it is to make sure that our social safety net programs are preserved and strengthened.”
And financial insecurity among those older Americans may be getting worse over time, according to the report’s authors.
“Ninety percent of older households experienced decreases in income and net value of wealth between 2014 and 2016. In the 2018 update, there was initial evidence of a trend reversal with income and wealth increasing between 2016 and 2018,” according to the report. “However, our updated findings show that the prior 2016-2018 reversal of assets did not continue from 2018-2020.”
