Fighting Out Recession: More Economic Relief for Seniors?
Recently a letter from AARP was sent to the Congressional leaders asking for their approval for emergency one-time payments of $250 to the seniors. And the reason is quite simple – to provide some relief to the seniors in this time of economic downturn. It is making the lives of people tough and seniors are not any exception. Owing to the low inflation, seniors aren’t going to get a cost-of-living increase in the Social Security payments in 2010 and most likely in 2011 as well. So, the life is going to be tougher for the seniors in the coming days.
With the rising cost of healthcare, the amounts of insurance premiums are also soaring up. Also the out-of-pocket Medicare costs are going up. Though measure has been taken by the U.S. House of Representatives to keep a lid on the premiums for the part of healthcare covering doctors fees and some other non-hospital expenses, however this constitutes only a small part of the healthcare expenses of the seniors.
According to Cristina Martin, Director of Financial Security of AARP, the economic security of many, especially the retirees who hardly have any time to make up substantial 401(k) and stock market losses, has changed a lot since 2008. As the costs of healthcare, prescription drugs and other daily necessity items are soaring up, seniors are going to face more and more problems in the coming days and would badly require some relief.
However, a recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau states that the seniors have done much better than the other age groups last year. Interestingly, the report says that the incomes of the seniors even increased last year. The poverty rate didn’t get affected and remained almost unchanged, which was amongst the lowest in all major age groups. But AARP strongly contradicts this report. According to AARP, if they included the cost of out-of-pocket medical expenses, which were quite high for the seniors than the other age groups, then the poverty rate for the seniors would have become almost double.
Therefore, whatever may the outcome of some reports be, the reality is, seniors are in great need of some financial relief. |
