My late father always stayed calm in the face of crisis and rarely spoke ill of anyone (unless they worked very hard to earn his ire). Yet, you could get his Irish out in a flash by reminiscing about “the good old days.”
Born in St. Louis in the 1920’s, the old days meant years of no work or people selling themselves for pennies. Friends going to war, some never to return. Crowded, malodorous streets and coal smog air. Outhouses lining city alleys. Yes, people walked everywhere but that was because they couldn’t afford a nickel fare for a streetcar. The old depended on the love of relatives to survive.
Thanks to my grandfather’s hard work and a bit of luck, my dad’s family did better than many. They never missed meals or lost their lights. All three kids went to good Catholic schools. Yet, my dad slept every night on a rollaway bed in the dining room: his lumberjack Irish grandfather had to borrow a dime to get a beer, making him an extra mouth to feed and the occupant of one of the home’s three bedrooms.
Jump ahead to 2017. Those now entering their golden years started work around 1970, just in time for the historical peak in earnings in 1973. Since then they’ve endured several recessions, core changes in the economy (led by wives entering the workforce to cover basic expenses), stagnant wages and a tremendous stratification of wealth.
Now they face retirement. Per The Motley Fool, “43% of singles and 21% of married couples count on Social Security for 90% of their day-to-day living expenses.” [ https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/12/17/baby-boomers-average-savings-for-retirement.aspx ] The same piece notes that 37% of seniors have less than $50,000 in retirement savings.
That shouldn’t be a surprise. The new retirees could easily have worked for companies which eliminated or reduced pensions or didn’t keep promises to 401 (k) plans. Many had to change employers in mid-career because plants closed or companies merged. (In my wife’s case, her six-figure interest in her company’s investment plan evaporated the day K Mart declared bankruptcy back in 2002.) Despite the need to save and the desire to plan, many just never had the money to prepare for when they could no longer work.
The situation is particularly acute in Missouri. As I’ve noted many times, our state’s Median Household Income rests around $5,000 a year below the national median. And, when Missouri’s population is sliced into quintiles, well, it’s not pretty:
Quintile Income
Lowest <$18,000
Second >$18,000
Middle >$33,000
Fourth >$53,000
Highest >$85,000
http://www.itep.org/whopays/states/missouri.php
In other words, 40% of Missouri households survive on less than $33,000 a year. A full 60% live below the federal median income.
Now, this information is for non-elderly households. Getting a clean handle on just seniors can get tricky. Remember, per the census, 15.7% of Missourians are age 65 or older. See…
[ http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/29 ]
Some have income which doesn’t always chart, some live in households with younger family members and a portion are in nursing homes or other collections of people. Still, census data nationwide found about 9% of seniors lived in poverty in 2015… [http://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/income-poverty/p60-256.html ]
…and back in the very-outdated 2010 Census reports Missouri’s senior population in poverty was a hair above the national average. See…
[https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p23-212.pdf ]
I think we’re safe to say that we have at least 95,000 Missouri seniors living on their own in official poverty [6,093,000 Missourians x .157 over 65 x .10 in poverty]. That’s a larger number of people than the population of all but 11 Missouri counties and the City of St. Louis. That number will inevitable grow for the next decade as more Baby Boomers retire (or simply can no longer work) without the resources to provide for their basic needs.
So, how does our state respond?
Well, for years we’ve starved the Department of Health and Senior Services. For Fiscal Year 2018, Governor SEAL wants the department to spend less state General Revenue and accept less federal funds for seniors. And, Medicaid/MO HealthNet plans on making it much, much harder for seniors and the disabled to get help – especially in-home assistance which allows many folks to stay out of nursing homes. The governor’s budget message estimates that 20,000 Missourians will lose critical services.
A quick refresher…In December 2016, Missouri Medicaid spent $96 million on basic nursing home care for 24,925 citizens. Another $68 million was spent on in-home Personal Care aides for 52,551 people.
[ https://dss.mo.gov/re/pdf/fsd_mhdmr/1612-family-support-mohealthnet-report.pdf p. 126] Yes, $164 million a month is a lot of money. But it cared for 77,000 of our neighbors.
Note that the average cost for care for those still in their homes was $1,292 each compared to $3,850 per nursing home resident. Doesn’t common sense suggest that we should keep folks in their home at a third of the cost of nursing homes for as long as we can? Then, doesn’t compassion require that when people need greater care that we make sure they have a place in a quality nursing home for their remaining days?
The Navy SEALS, like all military units, pride themselves on never leaving their wounded comrades behind after a battle. Yet, Governor SEAL proposes doing just that, leaving 20,000 neighbors who need our help outside of Medicaid and cutting other services to seniors.
Oh, I could talk about the near certainty that the majority party in Washington will move to block grant Medicaid, food stamps and other basic safety net programs. A recent Los Angeles Times column includes a chart from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities which estimates that block granting Medicaid will result in a 30% reduction in purchasing power in just a few years [ http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-ryan-20170217-story.html ]. Less purchasing power means less money, fewer people covered. That’s bad for Missouri where one in six citizens depends of Medicaid [see the Monthly Management Report for December].
You get the idea. Here in Missouri – and probably the rest of America – we are entering the Bad New Days where the poor, even the elderly poor, are disposable nuisances. Let’s not build fond memories of this time.
Submitted by Glenn Koenen, WCD Member