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Some retirees living from Social Security check to Social Security check
Annie Monrad depends on her Social Security check.
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TEXT OF STORY
"Happy Birthday" song
Tess Vigeland: 75 candles on the cake! Happy birthday to Social Security. On Aug. 14, 1935, FDR signed into law the Social Security Act -- also known as Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance. The first person to receive a check was a Cleveland retiree named Ernest Ackman. His lump sum payment? Seventeen cents. Well today, more than 58 million people receive some sort of benefit from the program. For many of them -- it is their only income.
Peter O'Dowd of station KJZZ in Phoenix has a glimpse into their lives.
Peter O'Dowd: Last year, the Social Security Administration paid out nearly $700 billion to elderly and disabled Americans.
Richard Kepner is one of them.
Richard Kepner: Good morning, welcome to the Banner Olive Branch Senior Center for lunch. My name is Rick, and I hope you're all doing well.
Kepner is preparing the lunchtime announcements at this senior center in Sun City, Arizona's most famous retirement community.
Kepner: Now you know we need it quiet so you can hear me. Please!
Kepner is 62, and he wants you to hear what it's like to survive on nothing but a pair of bad knees and a Social Security check. Every month, the U.S. government sends Kepner $1,300.
Kepner: It's not enough. I mean, I'm behind the eight ball each and every month. Being disabled, I'm unable to really work. I have certain fixed bills that I have to pay. It's just been a struggle.
Every month, Kepner pays home owner's fees, mortgage payments, utilities. He takes a $300 advance from Social Security before his check is even cut. Sometimes, he has to ask the Olive Branch Senior Center for help paying his mortgage. Kepner used to be an accountant. Yet, he never bothered to save.
Sound of cue stick hitting pool balls
I traveled across town to the Devonshire Senior Center to see if the situation of people like Kepner is unusual. It isn't.
Annie Monrad: I'm Annie Monrad, and this is my favorite pastime, being here at Devonshire, shooting pool.
Sound of cue stick hitting pool balls
Monrad is 73 years old. She has a bachelor's degree and a master's in linguistics, but she tended bar for most of her working life.
Monrad: I live on Social Security. I get $1,040 a month. So I don't turn on my air conditioner. I'm dying of heat.
Monrad told me she thought she'd live forever. She saved a little, but she admits she was completely unprepared for retirement. At the end of each month, she has nothing left.
Monrad: My life is very very different. You inexpensive food, you don't go any place. So all I can do is be as cautious as I can about the money I spend and hope that it's enough.
I met a few others at the Devonshire Senior Center, and the stories were similar. AARP estimates 14 percent of the elderly rely solely on Social Security. The manager of the Olive Branch Senior Center in Sun City says half of her members have no other source of income.
Sound of someone playing piano
I met one of the residents, Suzie Roberts in the dining room at the Olive Branch. The room was bright and the music cheerful, but that masked the fragile existence of so many people here.
Suzie Roberts: I never resented paying into Social Security, because I knew it would be a buffer when I got older. I didn't realize I was going to end up relying on it.
But just like the others, Suzie Roberts now depends on the government. Every month, Uncle Sam sends the former office manager 1,000 bucks. Almost half of that pays for medication to keep her alive. Roberts splurges on a perm twice a year. She shops at thrift stores for used clothes.
Roberts: What you see is what you get. If you're looking for a rich old lady, you ain't gonna get one.
This 74-year-old woman has a sweet smile, but she knows this isn't funny. Without Social Security, she says she'd be homeless.
Roberts: I would be stuck in some corner some place. My children can't afford to take care of me. They have families. The Olive Branch is my main stay... I'm sorry, I get emotional.
Roberts' advice: Save -- and save now. Because she believes the next generation will face similar problems. The government predicts Social Security will begin to falter by 2037. By then, tax revenues will only pay for 75 percent of scheduled benefits.
Seniors singing "God Bless America"
Roberts composes herself before moving to the dining room where Richard Kepner is leading the group in song. When he's done, 100 people will eat a free plate of breaded cod and mashed potatoes.
In Phoenix, I'm Peter O'Dowd for Marketplace Money.
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When we will be conscious enough to stop calling old programs by cliché’d new ‘branding’ names- -intended to change their social effects = i.e. "entitlements" is a derogatory way of saying people are demanding to be “entitled†vs. having CONTRIBUTED for years and years ….and accepted a prior GOVT PROMISE FOR THAT BORROWING OF TAXED [forced not a real choice ] MONIES – then to be re-compensated, if one lives long enough to collect back.
Social Security is a program that has collected from us all our working years, then lent it's trust fund to other govt uses… and then is called poorer than it actually is. Then IRA's are proposed as a solution to repaying the Social Contract with SS adds to the declining ability of elders to support themselves independently - if at all possible. And elders lose thru the machinations of greedy Wall St gamblers on stock bond mkts too. What a way to trust or rather DISTRUST the old motto "save some, spend some, dont be foolish". It doesnt pay to save thru any govt programs if they shift it when the govt represenataives and govt selected administrators want to TAKE those saved MONIES for other spending choices of their own, not in our individual interests at all.
That the richer-earners may receive less Soc Security sounds like the tax code of supposedly asking more from those who have more and giving it to those who have less. But that is not what will happen !!!
Once Again. The money will go elsewhere, once again.... so the new entrants into Social Security
- hoping to collect what they have lent, contributed, been promised - will end up diminished, impoverished, and depressed, plus distrusting of 'their govt' more than ever - for more broken promises to 'The American People" – those of us who are not included in the Congress, Administration, Corporation hierarchies and such ' public servants' who serve themselves most and almost all gains available. And those who give benefits and rewards to their cronies who then do the same for them in the revolving industry-govt doors that spin wildly repeatedly.
Can't we be real and realistic ?
Elders are the first to be dismissed from employment - as too costly and too old.
Elders most often are the non-employable - because 'our youth' needs the jobs and are cheaper and more gullible too, will take less, be led more easily, and only later learn the hard way.
Elders can't save and hold on to their savings when Wall St experts gamble with any of their chances of keeping their money – and while the banks [cheaters too ] have played some serious deleterious games against their elder customers too. All who claim “we don’t know how the economic chaos happened !†lie and deny accountability, while savings plummeted. Still do.
Elders are often exhausted and cynical - having learned that their own trusted-before govt has let them down, once again. Their govt borrowed 'in their name', but has given not much to the people, but did favor industries, given overseas bribes to all those 'poor nations', helped lobbyists' of preferred corporations by giving away subsidies, and allowances and minimal regulations.
Social security for many is not even enough to frugally live on - if other income and savings is not available, in these ever-more expensive urban environments. And dying is not a solution either as the medical establishment insists on spending public money for their own profits and then claims they don’t know how to stop the steep inflation of health premiums. Lies. and more Lies.
And seniors elders cannot go home to live with their parents either ! What are they to do?
Having saved during my entire working life and invested, I thought prudently, only to see the bulk of my retirement funds evaporate in the Wall Street orgy of corruption and thievery, I am truly thankful for the little Social Security I receive. The crooks, liars and outright thieves and their cronies in the Republican Party will render us Seniors all destitute if they have their way. If you really want to stop the fiscal bleeding and close the budgetary gap, start with the endless wars in the Middle East where we fight as Israel's surrogate. Tax the wealthy at the progressive rate they have avoided ever since Bush II slashed their tax rate and to fully fund Social Security completely do away with the cap on income related contributions. The alternative will assuredly be the disgrace of once again seeing the elderly shopping for cat food for casseroles, skipping medications, wearing thrift store clothes, leaving their homes unheated and uncooled, unable to pay utility bills, dumpster diving to get through to the next meager check and...Kids you had better be prepared to clean out the extra room, or garage, for your impoverished parents to live in.
Most of the people I know on Social Security really need it.In America it is government by the rich for the rich. The gap between the rich and middle class and poor is at the same ratio as in 1929. The rich have not paid their share of taxes for years. Thus we are in a recession that slams the poor and middle class. The Republicorp party is not for the poor and middle classed. When we get back to bread lines and soup kitchens -- with people sleeping on the streets and selling apples and pensions maybe folks will realize what the republicorps want.
I'm paying for Richard Kepner's social security? (Don't tell me I'm not -- Congress spent the money that was supposed to pay for him).
I have saved money for retirement EVERY SINGLE freakin' year but one since I graduated from undergrad...even when I was making $12,000 a year and in grad school. And I'm paying for him???
Why isn't he renting out a room in that house he's living in to someone else living on SS only?
This story made me COMPLETELY unsympathetic. In fact, it only made me angry.
I find it very hard to sympathize with Richard Kepner. He was an accountant who saved nothing, he’s only 62, and he’s suffering from “bad knees?†Please. Since when have bad knees stopped an accountant? His guaranteed monthly social security check of $1,300 is more than minimum wage after deductions. Whole families live on less. This story should not have derided the shortfalls of social security, but boasted how great the program is to support people like Kepner.
I think this piece by Peter O' Dowd was spot on. Many people are not even thinking serously about saving for retirement or saving enough. In fact many people spend longer planning their vacations than they do planning for retirement. If you think you cannot afford it - cut out the coffee, pack a lunch, do whatever it takes so that when you reach your golden years you will hve enough money saved to supplement social security.
On the other point - saving social security - The answer is simple - get rid of the cut-off. Social security taxes paid on all wages would pretty much take care of it - but only if politicans are willing to do the right thing - I will not be holding my breath!
It is insulting to hear about the "rich" who have diligently pursued a good education, NOT spent beyond their means; saved regularly; and intentionally planned for retirement as being people who should be financially "punished". We have paid off our mortgage; bought cars with cash on hand; and insured our health - yet the current administration sees us as the problem. Financial "qualifiacation" for benefits through Social Security and Medicare is insulting to anyone who has made daily sacrifices to insure they will never be a dependent upon the system for survival. My wife and I are NOT rich - we are RESPONSIBLE - apparently that is a character trait that is no longer understood.
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