The Hill News

If your aging parents or an older neighbor had to choose between groceries or medicine, between gas or heat, what would you tell them to do without? If they faced a household income shortfall of $2000, which basic needs should they cut? What about $4,000? What would you tell them to do without if that gap was $10,000 for the year? Sadlyâ€"these are not hypothetical questions.  Families are making these choices every day across America, and now we are learning more about the depth and breadth of the economic insecurity facing older adults.
 
The organization I lead, Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) set out several years ago to understand the real costs facing households headed by older adults. In partnership with the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts, we created a measure of income adequacy that lets us look at the basic costs facing aging adults. This week we are launching a web-based version of the Elder Economic Security Standard™! Index (Elder Index), a measure of economic security for households in every county of each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia. Seeing these numbers in their entirety for the first time, the existence of gaps between median levels of household income and the Elder Index for adults over 65 did not surprise us.  Where the gap widens and by how much did.

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