Dead end? A tin cup awaits many seniors

More and more people who are retired or getting to the end of their careers are finding that working hard, saving money, buying a home and paying off the mortgage still may not be enough to go gently into that dark night.

If it were not true, it could be called a Grimm Fairy Tale.

There is a man who lives in my neighborhood in Bridgeport who digs in trash bins to collect recyclable bottles. I see him doing this all over the city and I have run into him doing it while I am shopping in other cities.

I am sure the image that instantly comes to mind is of a man down on his luck, pushing a shopping cart with eyes rusting from a hard life.

But readers can throw that image away. The man is a retiree who lives in a single-family home and owns a car. I have no idea of his financial situation — it is not the kind of thing you ask of “good morning, acquaintances” and he may be doing it just to keep busy. But it is hard for me to believe a man in his 70s would spend hours in hot, soaking 90-plus degree weather picking up bottles if he didn’t need the money.

His situation is not unique based on readers reactions to my column “Illegals? Where is the dream for Americans?”

I have a reader who lives in Derby who is in his or her 60s and struggling to make ends meet. The reader is educated, holds a professional job but finds the dream is now to simply keep food on the table and hope to meet that monthly mortgage obligation with a paycheck that is not keeping up with the cost of living.

“I would stand at a Senate hearing with others to relay our story to beg for our American dream as I keep the sharks at bay ready to foreclose my home any minute,” the reader wrote.

I have deliberately left the gender of the Register reader anonymous because the reader’s plight was representative of both men and women who contacted me about the column — most in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. But I even had an 88-year-old and a 90-yearold write to say the column was right on the mark and sharing their concerns.

It has long been documented that many lowincome and poor people find the golden years difficult as they wait for Meals on Wheels and depend on government and nonprofit assistance to plug financial holes.

But even those who are living comfortably are becoming apprehensive about what lies ahead.

More and more people who are retired or getting to the end of their careers

are finding that working hard, saving money, buying a home and paying off the mortgage still may not be enough to go gently into that dark night.

The number of seniors filing for bankruptcy is soaring.

Between 2013 and 2016, the average rate of 65- to 74-year-old Americans filing for bankruptcy soared from 1.2 per 1,000 in 1991 to 3.6 out of 1,000 in 2016, according to a study “Graying of U.S. Bankruptcy: Fallout from Life in a Risk Society.” The study also found that more than 12 percent of the bankruptcies filed annually are from seniors age 65 to 74. The percentage was 2.1 in 1991.

But the news continues to become more frightening for seniors, many who are losing or have lost their homes due to medical costs.

Fidelity Investments estimates the cost of health care and medical expenses throughout retirement for a couple aged 65 retiring in 2018 is $275,000 — an increase of $15,000 from 2017. That is a 75 percent increase since the privately owned investment manager began tracking costs in 2002.

In other words, there goes the house, the savings and the golden years.

None of this is news to many baby boomers who had the retirement safety net pulled from under their feet two decades ago as employers and government shifted the financial responsibility of retirement onto employees even as the middle-class disappeared as wages stagnated and prices soared for the basics.

So finally, we get to the gist of what this column is all about.

What is going on with seniors makes no sense in a country that allegedly has

the best brain power in the world.

With the exception of the last two years, life expectancy has been on the rise for decades due to modern medicine, healthier lifestyles, better food and better living conditions. That expectancy — along with a shift in attitude about aging as many people entering their 60s showed no signs of slowing down — is what presumably led to the government demanding that people stay in the workplace longer by upping the age of retirement.

So, why are seniors losing their homes — and whether by choice or ambition — why are they being paid pittance to remain in the workplace when they face the same financial challenges and obligations as someone half their age?

Maybe the answer is to get rid of the word “senior” or redefine it.

The U.S. Census Bureau projects that seniors will make up 20 percent of the population by 2029 — so maybe a question to our alleged leadership should be: how could a country that has been releasing information on the graying of America for the last 25 years not have foreseen this happening?

Or maybe it did — and the answer is simply heirs and stockholders come first — not the people working to ensure there can be heirs and stockholders.

There is no big mystery as to what needs to be done.

The workplace must be able to accommodate seniors, pay them fairly and revisit bringing back company-paid pensions by large corporations. Why?

It is called a reward.

It is what is given for an accomplishment, milestone or achievement.

Here in America, it is what is supposed to be waiting at the end of a career ensuring the health of U.S. companies remain strong so that the country remains strong and competitive.

But for many seniors, the fairy tale of the golden years has turned — or is turning — into a grim reality that after at least 40 years on a long road of toil, the reward at the end is a dead end and a tin cup awaits many seniors.